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Adobe Font issue still affecting Filemaker 14, 15 & 16.03

Discussion created by user11910 on Nov 28, 2017
Latest reply on Sep 5, 2018 by sprynmd

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Filemaker 14, 15 & 16.03

Windows 7 & 10

All supporting hardware for these Windows OS systems

Any update on if Filemaker is going to fix this Adobe Font bug that is wreaking havoc on all of my clients? I am getting so many complaints that the fonts on the interface are in wingdings every time someone prints an Adobe document.

This week for some reason, perhaps an Adobe update? there have been several complaints more than in the past about this issue. I have verified issues in all three version releases, 14, 15 & 16 with the most recent updates applied.

In my case the issue is still affecting Ariel Bold 16 font in the latest version of Filemaker when being viewed in 100% zoom.

As I mentioned I am receiving complaints every day. This does not seem like it should be that big of a deal to resolve from an engineering standpoint and its been happening for a couple years now.

With close to 100 client sites using this software on thousands of PCs this has become very problematic to say this least.

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40 Replies

tsplatypus Nov 28, 2017 10:17 AM
user11910:

Thank you for your post!

I believe you are referring to the issue mentioned in: Some fonts are replaced with an unreadable .tmp font

Testing and Development are aware of the issue. There has currently been no update on the issue. They are trying to gather files. I am sending you a private message with instructions to send me a C:\Windows\System32\FNTCACHE.DAT and (if possible) a copy or clone of the file that experiences the issue.

TSPigeon
FileMaker, Inc.
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bigtom @ tsplatypus on Nov 28, 2017 11:59 AM
tsplatypus I believe sditn recently reported having issues with this as well in another thread thinking the text issue was data corruption.
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GerardBeutler Nov 28, 2017 12:30 PM
In the past two week I have had several clients report this issue.
Nearly all are first time reporters of this issue.
This take time to support something that is not due to the developer but we are the first called.

When we say it is an Adobe/Windows issue that is not a good or acceptable response.

The solution of a total machine restart is very cheesy when it is used as solution to an issue.

Sounds very "Windosie" and of course it is.

This is not a new issue but has been raising it "fangs" for several years and FM versions.

The "devil" is in the details.

If there is an issue within my solution a restart does not fix it, but wished it would.

This is bad image for us as developer because it is our issue when viewed from a client.

Gerard Beutler
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Benjamin Fehr @ GerardBeutler on Nov 28, 2017 1:20 PM
I agree.
So far, quit Adobe Reader DC and sometimes deinstall Acrobat DC always solves this issue for me.
Maybe I was just lucky so far.
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msawyer Nov 29, 2017 7:13 PM
I have a client who s just starting to have this issue.
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-den- Nov 29, 2017 11:15 PM
Well, I also have this issue as I posted here: Illegible fonts
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noakess87 Nov 30, 2017 2:21 AM
Further to user11910 findings we've experienced an increase in clients raising tickets about this issue.

We're running FMP v16.03 32Bit on Win 7&10 and Adobe Reader DC v18.009.20044.

In our case the issue is not limited to Ariel Bold we've attempted using the workarounds suggested https://support.filemaker.com/s/answerview?language=en_US&anum=15419

Restarting the PC temporarily fixes the issue. This is not a suitable solution and clients are increasingly becoming more frustrated that there is currently no lasting fix.
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Benjamin Fehr @ noakess87 on Nov 30, 2017 4:35 AM
any chance you can convince your customer to deinstall Acrobat Reader DC and downgrade to any older Acrobat Reader Version?
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JEDtech Nov 30, 2017 6:33 AM
We are seeing it more frequentlly at our clients in recent weeks as well with FileMaker 16 on Windows 7 and 10
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harlowtech Jan 31, 2018 9:52 AM
Just want to add to this, we have this happening regularly at a client with 50 users on almost everyone of their machines. I am sorry but it is so embarrassing this is not fixed even after discussing the issue at Devcon several times and being told it is an Adobe issue and all traces of Adobe should be remove which is not realistic as people need to use Adobe at this client. It is so bad we have a bat file on their desktops that does the fix and reboots their computer for them. I am happy to send whatever is needed to get this resolved as it is ridiculous at this point.
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TSGal Jan 31, 2018 10:38 AM
All:

Our Development and Testing departments are aware of this issue with the Windows Font Cache becoming corrupt, as this is not specific to FileMaker. Any product that install custom fonts (e.g., Adobe products, Microsoft Office, or other design tools that install custom fonts) may encounter this issue. Note that Windows does not clean up its font cache files ever, which is why they need to be cleaned up manually.

I have attached this forum thread to the original report. When more information becomes available, I will post again.

There is more information about this issue on the Microsoft forum with a reply from the developer in charge of the Microsoft FontCache service at:
Local Service system profile grown to extremely large size

TSGal
FileMaker, Inc.
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harlowtech @ TSGal on Jan 31, 2018 10:53 AM
I am sorry, there is no other app but FileMaker that is experiencing behavior on these machines. My clients have Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Creative Cloud and many other apps installed on their machines none of them have this issue even when opened side by side with FileMaker 16 that displays the issue.
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hschlossberg @ TSGal on Jan 31, 2018 11:03 AM
TSGal wrote:
Our Development and Testing departments are aware of this issue with the Windows Font Cache becoming corrupt, as this is not specific to FileMaker. Any product that install custom fonts (e.g., Adobe products, Microsoft Office, or other design tools that install custom fonts) may encounter this issue. Note that Windows does not clean up its font cache files ever, which is why they need to be cleaned up manually.
Thanks as always for the response. While I understand that it is a Microsoft issue that font caches don't get cleaned up automatically, I'm not seeing anything in that referenced thread about corruption. I'm having trouble understanding just how Adobe's font caching is messing with FileMaker's font caching, how these are intermingled, and why the most common, standard Windows font (Arial!!!) is the subject of either caching or corruption. I (and my Windows-based customers) use a LOT of different programs and we all claim to have never seen the issue arise in ANY other programs other than FileMaker.

Howard
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TSGal @ hschlossberg on Jan 31, 2018 1:00 PM
harlowtech and hschlossberg:

I have sent a message back to the developer with your observations, and asked for additional clarification/explanation.

TSGal
FileMaker, Inc.
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bigtom @ TSGal on Jan 31, 2018 1:16 PM
Just to make it clear. This is hurting sales. This is large enough that I inform anyone wanting to move into FM about the problem. Often they see this as a big enough issue that they pass on FM and move to another platform.

This is especially the case when there is no information about when it will be fixed and considering how long it has been an issue.

A majority of these clients who primarily use Windows have made the decision to invest elsewhere in another platform.
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user11910 Jan 31, 2018 1:23 PM
Big Tom and Howard are both correct. This has been a major pain to all of the clients, which unfortunately creates an issue for us business owners, who now have to explain that the platform we are using is flawed. That makes us both look bad. This DOES NOT affect any ohter application. I have NEVER seen anything but Filemaker affected. FM 13 did not have this issue so I am sure the developers can figure out a better way to resolve this temporary font issue. I know it is caused by printing an adobe document then openting Filemaker, but there seems to be no urgency at all to correct this. FM has gone through 2 entire versions without resolution (15 and 16). Please move this up the chain on the list of needed fixes. Its been way too long.
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TSGal @ user11910 on Jan 31, 2018 1:50 PM
bigtom and user11910:

Both of your comments have been sent to Development and Testing, as well as the FileMaker Pro Product Manager.

TSGal
FileMaker, Inc.
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harlowtech Jan 31, 2018 4:15 PM
TSGal thank you! I actually just got a call about this again this afternoon from a Windows client, that is how regularly this occurs, not quite daily but weekly for sure.
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harlowtech @ tsplatypus on Feb 9, 2018 1:18 PM
TSPigeon wrote:

user11910:

Thank you for your post!

I believe you are referring to the issue mentioned in: Some fonts are replaced with an unreadable .tmp font

Testing and Development are aware of the issue. There has currently been no update on the issue. They are trying to gather files. I am sending you a private message with instructions to send me a C:\Windows\System32\FNTCACHE.DAT and (if possible) a copy or clone of the file that experiences the issue.

TSPigeon
FileMaker, Inc.
TSPigeon -

Do you want some more corrupted FNTCACHE.DAT files I have one from yesterday.

Daniel
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TSGal Feb 9, 2018 1:49 PM
All:

Development and Testing are still unable to reproduce this issue and they are actively looking at this issue. In order to find the cause, they would like some additional information.

1. Navigate to:    <Temp directory>\acrord32_sbx\
2. Execute the steps to make the font issue reproduce.
3. Gather any *.tmp files in the directory from step #1 above.
4. Open FileMaker and check the list of fonts in the formatting bar or Inspector Appearance pane for anything that ends in ".tmp". Other users have reported these starting with a "Z", so it might be at the end of the list.

5. Gather the PDF that printed.
6. Testing would also like the solution file. If that is not possible, and if you have FileMaker Pro Advanced, run a DDR which may include relevant font information.

Send all information and files to:    forumsupport@filemaker.com
Subject:    TSGal - font corruption
Body:    Include a link to this forum thread:    TLSv1enabled on FileMaker Server after latest macOS Security Update

TSGal
FileMaker, Inc.
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user11910 Feb 9, 2018 2:03 PM
TS Gal and TS Pigeon,

Open up any Adobe Document. Print it to any printer. Then open up a Filemaker solution that uses an Ariel Font in Bold on its layout. That is how I have seen this occur many times. This happens on Windows installs (Win 7 and Win 10)

Hope that helps.

Ron
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TSGal @ user11910 on Feb 9, 2018 2:52 PM
user11910:

Using your exact steps, I am unable to reproduce the issue. I tried with both FileMaker Pro 16.0.4 and FileMaker Pro 15.0.3 under both Windows 7 and Windows 10. The layout contains several text objects and fields with Arial Bold 9 point, 10 point, 12 point and 14 point.

TSGal
FileMaker, Inc.
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Specialix Feb 12, 2018 3:52 AM
Dear all,

My client has experienced the same problem as from last friday (9 feb).

Most users on Windows were displayed data in GREEK font, which made the FM file completely unworkable.
It affected all types of Windows versions.
While at first it seemed that on OSX it appeared OK, after a while you could see that also in FMPA on OSX the font had changed (but readable).. In layout mode one could see that the font had changed to 'symbol' (but displaying in Greek ??)

I have a screenshot which shows layout mode on Windows presenting the font of a field as 'Symbol' while at the same time from OSX it is shown as Arial, not too long after the issue was reported.
A couple of hours later that exact same field on OSX was also changed to 'Symbol'.
This result was visible on different client systems, so it's obvious it was the actual file being affected.

rebooting client systems did NOT solve the problem.
Tried recovery, tried on other server, cleared font cache on both server and clients, no result.
The file seems to have been font corrupted even thought recovery did not indicate any corruption.

The actual data seemed fine otherwise, so I migrated the data to our development version, which was nearly ready and we put it in production ahead of schedule, and the file appears to be fine now.

Can anyone confirm this statement that an external program in this case Adobe Acrobat DC can indeed corrupt the actual Filemaker file on the server ?
it most certainly seems to me this is the case.

I have tried reproducing the problem myself, but could not get the corrupted results yet.

I am very worried this will happen again, as other developers have mentioned in this thread.
De-installing Acrobat Reader on all clients systems in not an option.
Changing the Arial font in Filemaker is also not an option.

Reverting to a backup is in our system possible of course but very difficult and time consuming and because external systems are connected, it means data loss while reverting.
I do not look forward to having to do that on a regular basis.

TSGal if you could use it I could prepare some data for you when things settle down here. PM me if that's the case

Thanks,
Steve del Rio
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TSGal @ Specialix on Feb 12, 2018 8:50 AM
Specialix:

Development and Testing would definitely like to see the files. Follow the instructions from my initial post on 9 Feb 2018.

TSGal
FileMaker, Inc.
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Specialix @ TSGal on Feb 13, 2018 8:05 AM
Hello TSGal,

I’m very willing to send the actual files or host them together with explanation and extra files/info, which I’m still gathering,

However I had to at least get approval from my client - He’s OK with it provided that we receive some lines from you stating that you will not publish, use or share this with any other than people at Filemaker who are using it to solve this problem.
We kindly request you to delete the files after use.

though there is no data in the clones, some scripting and layouts may present business logic and info which is not to be disclosed at all.

If you could please send me some sort of statement I can convince my client to agree.

many thanks,

Steve
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hschlossberg @ Specialix on Feb 13, 2018 8:03 AM
I'll usually delete all scripts, layouts and user accounts from the files I send (unless they are pertinent to the issue, as layouts would be to this one).
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TSGal @ Specialix on Feb 13, 2018 10:44 AM
Specialix:

If there is sensitive information, remove it. As "hschlossberg" mentioned (Thank you!), delete all information expect for what is necessary to reproduce the issue.

TSGal
FileMaker, Inc.
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pragmatica Mar 26, 2018 11:35 PM
16.04 and 16.05 - does this remain an outstanding issue? (albeit quite rare?)
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harlowtech @ pragmatica on Mar 27, 2018 10:34 AM
Still occurring on Windows with those version, about every other day for one of my clients.
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TSGal @ pragmatica on Mar 27, 2018 12:26 PM
pragmatica:

The Adobe temporary font cache conflict still exists in FileMaker Pro 16.0.5.16.0.4. (Updated version since this only occurs under Windows operating system).

TSGal
FileMaker, Inc.
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eric May 4, 2018 10:22 AM
We too get a report of this issue about once a week (I got another one today), but it probably happens more often, because we told our users how to work around. It's embarrassing. I tell them what TSGal told us about not being specific to FileMaker, but they only observe this effect in FileMaker.
I'm not sure if it's true, but I suggested that when Adobe tests, they probably made sure they didn't conflict with Microsoft Office or major browsers, since everyone has those. FileMaker is still a relatively minor product, so probably doesn't show up on their radar (and I've heard that, while Adobe used to use FileMaker in-house, in more recent years some people in charge there have been antagonistic and have purged it).
...this is not specific to FileMaker. Any product that install custom fonts (e.g., Adobe products, Microsoft Office, or other design tools that install custom fonts) may encounter this issue.
What would lend credibility to this statement is if there were specific examples of other software exhibiting the same symptoms, but no one has provided any here yet.
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pragmatica @ harlowtech on May 7, 2018 4:39 PM
harlowtech:
Is there any chance that you might share this bat file? I'm really hoping not to have a need for it, but that is probably unrealistic on my part. Regards, Mardi
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harlowtech @ pragmatica on May 7, 2018 9:34 PM
I don't have it handy. However it was super simple like

del "C:\Windows\System32\FNTCACHE.DAT"
del C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Temp\acrord32_sbx\
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pragmatica @ harlowtech on May 7, 2018 11:53 PM
Might be "super simple" to you, but it ain't to this Mac user :-) (who sometimes has to cope with a Windows environment) Thank you!
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harlowtech Jun 8, 2018 9:19 AM
Just FYI still not fixed in 17, at this point it is totally ridiculous that this is still not fixed and it seems to only impact FileMaker.
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eric @ harlowtech on Jun 8, 2018 1:48 PM
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sprynmd Jun 22, 2018 11:47 AM
We have been having this problem for a couple of years. I hadn't heard any recent reports from my users until yesterday. Within two days, I had three users that had the problem.

They are all running Windows 10 using either Adobe Acrobat X Standard or XI. The PDF's they're working in are proprietary, so it's difficult to share that info. I will watch for it to happen again to see what info I can gather.
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bigtom @ sprynmd on Jun 22, 2018 12:10 PM
I recall using a font other than Arial helped, but not 100% sure.
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harlowtech Aug 17, 2018 11:59 AM
Just to cross reference this is not solved in FileMaker 17 FileMaker 17 Font Issue
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sprynmd Sep 5, 2018 7:53 AM
One of my users just told me something that might be related to this issue. He has seen the broken font symptoms which appear to be Adobe related. But, he appears to be getting the same symptoms in a different way. He's pretty sure (but not positive) that he wasn't using any Adobe software at the time. He does have Adobe Acrobat 11 installed and uses it occasionally.

This user has a Windows 10 laptop which he occasionally needs to disconnect from the ethernet cable and switch to wireless to leave his desk. Here is his description of the sequence of events to the best of his recollection which has happened multiple times:

• Network cable attached
• FileMaker database(s) open
• Closes laptop (forgets to close FM first)
• Disconnects cable
• Opens laptop in new location in wireless mode
• FileMaker tries to reconnect to database but fails
• Manually closes FM window(s)
• Reconnects to database
• Discovers font problem in buttons
• "Soft-restarts" to fix font problem

He will pay closer attention to the lead-up events now that we've talked.

...Mike

Edit 2018-09-05 10:53am:
He is running FMP17
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Adobe Font issue still affecting Filemaker 14, 15 & 16.03

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