Freezes entire computer

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jmruddick
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Joined: Thu Jan 26, 2023 10:47 pm

Freezes entire computer

Post by jmruddick »

Whenever I use MainType, it freezes my entire computer. Eventually I will be able to get to the task manager to force the program to close. I have 64 GB RAM, so that shouldn't be an issue. Please advise.
Erwin Denissen
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Re: Freezes entire computer

Post by Erwin Denissen »

A corrupt font is likely the cause, but we can't know for sure with such little information.
  1. Are you running the most recent update of MainType?
  2. Is this an issue that recently occurred?
  3. Did you download new fonts?
  4. Did you install other software or updated existing software?
  5. Does it instantly happen or only after scrolling through a list of fonts?
  6. Can you provide exact steps, that allow us to reproduce the problem?
Erwin Denissen
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jmruddick
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Re: Freezes entire computer

Post by jmruddick »

1- yes
2- somewhat recently. It worked at one point
3- yes
4- yes
5- after scrolling
6- It happens after I scroll through my fonts. That's basically all I do.

Is there any way to find the corrupt font?
Erwin Denissen
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Re: Freezes entire computer

Post by Erwin Denissen »

jmruddick wrote: Sat Jan 28, 2023 3:49 pm Is there any way to find the corrupt font?
Let us first confirm the issue is caused by a corrupt font.

Can you please follow this procedure:

1. Start FmsConfig
2. Set the MainType Toggle from Normal to Safe Mode
3. Start MainType

Font previews will now be disabled, so let me know if you can now scroll through your lists of fonts without freezing.
Erwin Denissen
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jmruddick
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Re: Freezes entire computer

Post by jmruddick »

Yes, I was able to scroll through my fonts in safe mode.
Erwin Denissen
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Re: Freezes entire computer

Post by Erwin Denissen »

Then one or more fonts are causing the problem.

If you are familiar with the Windows Registry, you can also look for entries in this key:
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\High-Logic\MainType\Load
LoadIssues.png
LoadIssues.png (80.38 KiB) Viewed 6047 times
If available, the items reveal the specific fonts that Windows was not able to load.

Alternatively, you can try a divide and conquer method to locate the problematic font(s). You then need to create some temporary groups and divide all the fonts in your library into the groups. Do this in Safe Mode. After you have made the groups, use FmsConfig to set Safe Mode back to Normal Mode, and then try to see if you can select all these temporary groups. If you notice a freeze within a specific group, go back to Safe Mode to further divide the fonts in that specific group into more groups and go back to Normal Mode to see which group is still causing problems. At some point, you'll find the culprit if you end up with a single font in a group crashing.
Erwin Denissen
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jmruddick
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Re: Freezes entire computer

Post by jmruddick »

The Registry Editor game me a short list of fonts. If I remove those fonts, that should fix the problem, correct?
Erwin Denissen
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Re: Freezes entire computer

Post by Erwin Denissen »

jmruddick wrote: Wed Feb 01, 2023 6:17 pm The Registry Editor game me a short list of fonts. If I remove those fonts, that should fix the problem, correct?
It is very likely those cause the problem.

If possible could you send them over, so we can inspect them? Maybe there is a rare bug on our end, which we obviously would like to fix.
Erwin Denissen
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jmruddick
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Re: Freezes entire computer

Post by jmruddick »

Where would you like me to send the fonts?
Erwin Denissen
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Re: Freezes entire computer

Post by Erwin Denissen »

Thank you for sending the fonts. Indeed Windows choked on two fonts, both contain outlines with an ridiculous amount of contours and nodes.

For example FreedayScript-RoughTextured.ttf has an R that contains 1524 contours with a total of 20331 points. It is more common to have that many contours and points for a whole font with around 1000 characters.
R.png
R.png (506.23 KiB) Viewed 5988 times
Erwin Denissen
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jmruddick
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Re: Freezes entire computer

Post by jmruddick »

Thanks for helping me with this! I really like the software, and I'm happy I'll be able to use it again.
caseylarae
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Re: Freezes entire computer

Post by caseylarae »

Hi there,

Just wanted to add that I have been having this same problem since last year. It's quite bad, makes the program almost unusable; the program freezes every time you scroll down 10-20 fonts in the list.

Had no idea this could be caused by specific font files, glad to hear there might be a solution! I'll try it and see if it works. Thanks so much!

Best,
Casey
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