User font weirdness on Ventura 13.3.1 (22E261)

Question

User font weirdness on Ventura 13.3.1 (22E261)

I added 4 user fonts on my system with the default location of "all users". I made sure the files were all owned by "admin" with read/write pause "everyone" as read/write. There were 2 OpenType and 2 TrueType.

My system has an "admin" user and two "non-admin" users User1 and User2.

On Admin all 4 fonts display fine.

On User1 only the two TrueType fonts display but only show as ?? in the preview and are unusable

On User2 all 4 display as available but again all show as ?? and are unusable.

I've tried the "Reset fonts" advanced option plus validating the font manually and reading them. All to no avail. I can see them fine in the ~/Library/Font/ folder and aren't getting any error message on any process I try.

If I reinstall under the User accounts they display but end up as duplicates.

Any suggestions on what is going on here?

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 13.3

Posted on Apr 21, 2023 5:49 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

James Brickley

Level 5

5,074 points

Apr 21, 2023 6:36 AM in response to Shawn-Grinter

There's multiple Font locations.

/System/Library/Fonts          <-- You can't change these, owned by root and are immutable
/Library/Fonts                 <-- These are for all users and can be owned by any admin user
/Users/<username/Library/Fonts <-- These are for each individual user

While logged on as User1 and then User2 in Font Book under My Fonts, remove the fonts they can see that you recently installed including the working and broken ones.

While logged on as the admin user in Font Book remove the fonts in question as well. Both My Fonts and All Fonts.

While logged in as the admin user open Font Book and set this configuration setting:

Settings -> Installation -> Default install location change it to All Users

Re-install the fonts and don't adjust the permissions as you should not have to.

The fonts should all be found in /Library/Fonts which is the All User fonts.

Login to User1 & User2 and verify the fonts appear and are working as they should.

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Answer 2

Apr 21, 2023 8:00 AM in response to James Brickley

James,

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.

OK, I did all you suggested and including running CleanMyMac full cleanups and reboots.

This time after the install, Admin saw all 4 fonts but User1 and User2 saw nothing.

So what I did next was reset again as per you instructions.

Then:

Change permission on all 4 files so that each individual user has read/write
Reinstalled via Admin to "all users"
Logged on to User1 - fonts not visible so I opened the /Library/Fonts location and the 4 fonts were there so I select all and opened them
On the reinstall dialogue I selected "skip" on all
All 4 now appeared on. User1
Logged on to User2 and the 4 fonts were there
Logged back on Admin and they were still all there.

So it's resolved but flip knows why. I'm flagging you as "best answer" as it was really useful to bounce some ideas of and you approach was wonderfully precise.

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Answer 3

Apr 21, 2023 8:27 AM in response to Shawn-Grinter

Glad to have helped.

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User font weirdness on Ventura 13.3.1 (22E261)

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