Fonts don't work when installed, stop working after reboot

[tjdickinson]

I used FontCreator 14 Home to modify two existing fonts (Alegreya Regular and Alegreya Sans Regular), adding some needed IPA glyphs. I first edited Alegreya Regular, exported the font, and installed it with the installer file (not with the wizard in FC).

I opened a document in a test generating software which uses the font, but the glyphs were not replaced (look in the column 'Pronunciation'):

IMG 1 Missing glyphs in test generator software.png (15.76 KiB) Viewed 1386 times

And when I printed the file to PDF, everything was messed up (including the normal glyphs--everything had diacritics on them; unfortunately I've since overwritten the file so I can't provide an image).

I looked at the fonts in MainType and saw that there were two instances of Alegreya Regular. I used MT to uninstall the version that didn't have the added glyphs. I went back to the aforementioned document; same problem. I opened Word and typed using the font and glyphs, and it displayed correctly. But when I opened the Character Map, the glyph set for Alegreya Regular did not include the new glyphs.

Then I went to the Fonts folder in the Windows 11 Control Panel and deleted Alegreya Regular. I confirmed it was removed in MT and then reinstalled the font and restarted my computer. After that, the glyphs showed up in the Character Map and everything displayed correctly in the test generating software, also when printing to PDF.

Then I repeated essentially the same process for Alegreya Sans Regular: added the glyphs, exported the font, removed the old Alegreya Sans Regular from the Fonts folder in the Windows 11 Control Panel, confirmed it was removed in MT, installed the new font, and restarted my computer. Everything went just as expected, and Alegreya Sans Regular works.

But now Alegreya Regular doesn't work correctly. I noticed in the file from the test generating software that the glyphs were not displayed correctly; same thing as in IMG 1 (except when printing to PDF, the other characters print correctly). I opened the Character Map, and again the glyphs were not shown.
Alegreya Regular (shows only the schwa, which is default in the font):

IMG 2 Character Map Alegreya Regular.png (26.09 KiB) Viewed 1386 times

Alegreya Sans Regular (shows all the added IPA characters):

IMG 3 Character Map Alegreya Sans Regular.png (25.49 KiB) Viewed 1386 times

I looked in MT, and again there were two instances of Alegreya Regular installed. (In fact, I see now that there are also two instances of Alegreya Sans Regular installed, but so far the font seems to be working, as in this screenshot from PowerPoint:)

IMG 4 Alegreya Sans Regular in PowerPoint.png (19.6 KiB) Viewed 1386 times

I'm concerned that next time I restart my computer, Alegreya Sans Regular will stop working, too, or I'll have to keep going through this routine of uninstalling and reinstalling the fonts every time I want to use them.

In short, the issues are:

1. After installing a font, it doesn't appear correctly in the Character Map.
2. A font displays correctly in the Character Map after the old version has been deleted, the new version installed, and the computer restarted.
3. Restarting the computer a second time causes the Character Map to revert to the previously installed version (not the latest version).
4. A test generating software has particular trouble parsing custom fonts, and their support team have no idea how to fix it.

Any ideas?

[Erwin Denissen]

Better uninstall both original and modified version of these fonts, then reboot, and reinstall the modified versions. We strongly recommend to use a font manager like MainType to manage your fonts.

Maybe other caching issues are related to the tools you use. To make sure that is not the cause, do this little experiment:

Give the fonts a different name through FontCreator, e.g. add a version number to the Family Name, then install that version and see if that allows you to generate correct documents. Alternatively use a different computer preferably a fresh one, or at least one that has no history of these fonts.

Let us know your results.

[tjdickinson]

Better uninstall both original and modified version of these fonts, then reboot, and reinstall the modified versions. We strongly recommend to use a font manager like MainType to manage your fonts.

Maybe other caching issues are related to the tools you use. To make sure that is not the cause, do this little experiment:

Give the fonts a different name through FontCreator, e.g. add a version number to the Family Name, then install that version and see if that allows you to generate correct documents.

Thanks, Erwin. ATM I'm trying to figure out how to kern the new glyphs, and then I'll give this a go later today. I'll post again with the results.

Don't worry, I already use MainType

[tjdickinson]

Better uninstall both original and modified version of these fonts, then reboot, and reinstall the modified versions. We strongly recommend to use a font manager like MainType to manage your fonts.

Maybe other caching issues are related to the tools you use. To make sure that is not the cause, do this little experiment:

Give the fonts a different name through FontCreator, e.g. add a version number to the Family Name, then install that version and see if that allows you to generate correct documents. Alternatively use a different computer preferably a fresh one, or at least one that has no history of these fonts.

Let us know your results.

Good morning, Erwin, and thanks again for your reply yesterday. I (mostly) followed your steps, and I think I figured out what was causing the problem, as well.

After making a few modifications, I re-exported the fonts, but I didn't change the name. (I exported a second version with the name changed, but I wanted to avoid using it if possible so I wouldn't need to reidentify the fonts in various applications, templates, etc.).

Long story short, I think the problem was that there were two directories in the library in MainType, each containing different versions of fonts with the same family name. When I uninstalled the font and restarted the computer, MainType scanned the library, found that the font wasn't installed, and automatically (re)installed it. Because the two instances of the font had different glyph sets, it created a conflict in Windows (and some other apps), which gave preference to the more recently installed font (the one autoinstalled by MainType, rather than the one I installed manually). Thus the solution was to remove the redundant library and to make sure that the library only contained the versions I want installed on my computer.

Thanks for your help!

[Erwin Denissen]

Thank you for getting back to us with your conclusions. Good to know you have solved the mystery!