Adobe Fonts not available after every computer restart

[justaddorangejuice]

Hello. I am on a Windows 10 PC that has the latest update, and I have the most updated version of InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator and Creative Cloud. This is an issue that has been happening to me for around two years, and I'm finally just getting sick of it.

Every time I restart my computer, Adobe products are no longer able to recognize Adobe fonts. I know I'm logged into Adobe, because 1) I'm able to open the program in the first place and 2) I have Creative Cloud set to open upon restart, and it shows me as logged in. But when I open an InDesign document (or Illustrator/Photoshop file, but I work mainly in InDesign), it will tell me that any Adobe fonts are missing. If I look in my Adobe Fonts, the font in question will ALWAYS be marked as activated. The only solution is to deactivate every Adobe font in the document and then reactivate it and wait, a process which can take anywhere from 5-15 minutes.

I should not have to spend 15 minutes every day making fonts work. It's extremely common for me to open a document so that I can fix a typo a client told me about, then spend 15-20 minutes on a task that should take less than two due to the fonts issue. I actively avoid using Adobe Fonts in projects for this reason, but sometimes the client asks for one.

I know I've seen other forum posts where people have this problem, but they considered deactivating/reactivating the solution. I'm hoping to get Adobe's attention to fix the actual problem instead of letting us use a time-consuming workaround. So, does anyone else have this problem? And can Adobe please fix this??

[Dov Isaacs]

Posting in these communites will not “get Adobe's attention” (or at least the attention of the appropriate persons within Adobe) at all. Contact Adobe Customer Support by phone (not chat) at https://helpx.adobe.com/contact/phone.html and report the problem there. Ask to escalate to a next level technician if the first one doesn't know what you are talking about.

[alisona68897270]

Yes, and wait for literally hours for someone to answer, and then waste more hours when they tell you to trash your preferences which does absolutely nothing. Or try to chat and chat person sends you a bunch of boilerplate articles to read that I've already tried or that have nothing to do with my problem. And then they "escalate" it and tell me somebody will call me back in 24 hours. Not cool when I use InDesign all day every day for my livelihood. I've been using Adobe products for 20 years and they used to be very stable. Not any more. Paying $60 a month for the privilege, we should have our own personal hotline to support, especially since all the apps are so buggy now. 

[alisona68897270]

I have been having this same problem for the last couple of years at least. And the "correct answer/solution" the Adobe reps give themselves--"call support" does nothing to fix the problem. There are hundreds of others here who have been struggling with Adobe fonts not activating for YEARS now and Adobe has still not fixed it. I feel your pain.

[justaddorangejuice]

So an update since people are responding to this: After a couple calls each time this happened, I finally did get someone who said to start the Creative Cloud app every time I start the computer, and that does actually seem to fix the problem. I thought about it a bit more and checked my startup apps, because I usually forbid all apps from starting up as soon as I start the computer (because most of them really don't need to run on startup), and I now let Creative Cloud and related apps run at startup. Now when I start my computer the first thing I do is open Creative Cloud.

Not the best fix in the world, but it does seem to be working and I haven't had any long waits for fonts to work since doing this.

Also seconding the people who said "call support" is useless advice. To the Adobe employee who responded, thank you for responding, but do you think I would be posting on this forum if I had not already attempted to call support multiple times? If I ever post on here, it's because I have called support MULTIPLE TIMES and not gotten anything.

[justaddorangejuice]

To clarify, I had to disable Creative Cloud from opening on startup, restart the computer, then enable Creative Cloud to open on startup, then restart the computer again. And now I manually open the program as soon as the computer shows my desktop, before clicking on anything else. And now it's working.

[Chubby Dogue]

I am having the same probem also on Windows 10. You are right that manually activating CC will fix the problem temporarily, but I believe that this doesn't actually solve the real problem. 

If you activate fonts, supposedly you are able to use them offline for 30 days. However the problem with Windows 10 is that it is requiring us to go online with CC every single time the computer is turned on, not once every 30 days.

If you ever start up your computer offline (maybe because you're out in the field or on the go) to work, you will not be able to access the activated fonts at all without going online. Therefore manually starting up CC isn't really a solution here... 

I'm still looking for a solution to this... 

[Carolina27354250x2ym]

I'm having the same issue. It is so frustrating.... 

[alanar86815613]

I was having this problem, but simply opening Creative Cloud desktop app while using InDesign was the answer. Here's how I'm reasoning it out.

First, since fonts are no longer "installed" but instead are "activated" it seems like the font information is stored in the cloud, not your computer. I would have LOVED if someone explained that to me, and I am now feeling my age (39, bleeding edge of Millenial generation) for not having realized it. Anyhow, it's nice because I like to have LOTS and LOTS of fonts available to try as I work, and now I don't have to store them all on my computer.

Second, the individual CC program (InDesign) is not communicating with the cloud in such a way as to access your fonts. It is not meant to. So, just because you have InDesign open, are connected to the internet, have all your preferences set up properly, and are fully updated, DOES NOT MEAN YOU HAVE ACESS TO YOUR ACTIVATED FONTS! And most likely it never will.

Third, there is ONE APP that does give your InDesign app access to your activated fonts. And that is the Creative Cloud desktop app. So open it up, let it run, and **POOF** your InDesign app now has access to your activated fonts. Why does it work this way? No idea, but it's probably got somehing to do with software architecture and avoiding redundancy. In other words, why should all your CC apps do something that can be done with one app?

Don't want to deal with this? Purchase your important, favorite, or frequently used fonts separately and actually INSTALL them on your comuter the old-fashioned way. And because this is not a font installation tutorial, I'll let you figure out how to do that yourself. However, just know you can't do it through Adobe CC because that is not how the system is designed. It's meant to be an efficient cloud-based thingy.

What they should really change is the error message. It is SO unhelpful. It should say, "These fonts are not available because you need to access them through the cloud so OPEN YOUR CREATIVE CLOUD APP!" Certainly the instruction to "enable" the fonts meant nothing to me. And the buttons offered do not appear actually to have any effect when clicked, other than channeling all one's documents into an extremely small pool of boring fonts that always seem to be available (are installed on one's computer?)

Good luck!

[alisona68897270]

I understand exactly how it works; it would be easy if it actually worked seamlessly this way every time. The problem I've been having for years now is that even with the Creative Cloud app open, the fonts still frequently will not activate. I click the "enable fonts" WITH CC OPEN and still no joy.  I usually have to close InDesign and log out of Creative Cloud, log in again, and wait for all the fonts to enable again. This wastes several frustrating minutes each time I sit down to work. Not to mention that having Creative Cloud open slows down all my Adobe apps (on my brand-new high-capacity computer and fiber internet). Adobe denies this but it is a real thing. 

[RuthK]

March 2024 and still having the same problem.

I think the "Start Creative Cloud" first solution works, but when I go into the fonts section I get the loading icon for at least 15 minutes.

It's extremely frustrating to have to spend all this time sorting out fonts when I just have small changes to make to documents.
When I log into the fonts online, it doesn't connect to my Creative Cloud app when it's supposed to.

Had all the same issues speaking to Adobe.

Adobe - please can you pay attention to this issue.

[Bobby Henderson]

If you haven't already done so, try signing out of your CC account, rebooting your computer and then signing back into the account. This can be done by opening the Creative Cloud desktop app. You can also sign in/out of your account from within Adobe InDesign as well (under the help menu).

Signing out, rebooting and signing back in can make the CC apps properly refresh the fonts list.

Additionally, third party apps such as VPNs can interfere with Adobe Fonts sync processes. Some font management apps can cause additional headaches.

[alisona68897270]

It is extremely frustrating to have to reboot my computer every time I open a file to work because InDesign can't find the installed fonts. Sometimes it takes several tries. This wastes my time and costs me money. (I don't have a VPN or font management app.) It's been years, just please fix it. 

[Bobby Henderson]

Have you tried my suggestion of signing out of CC, rebooting and then signing back in?

[alisona68897270]

Yes. It works, but my point is that it's a giant time-waster to have to do that on a regular basis!

[Bobby Henderson]

Does the fonts problem only affect InDesign or it happening across all of your CC apps? Did the recent v19.3 update of InDesign make any difference?

Networking setups are another possible variable in this problem. Adobe Fonts are supposed to be able to work for at least a certain amount of time without an Internet connection. However, I've seen them glitch out at my office setup on a few occasions when our network and Internet access became flaky. I mentioned VPNs earlier since I've seen them affect the situation on my computer setup at home.

[alisona68897270]

I am generally only using text in InDesign, so I can't comment about the other apps. I have had the same problems with the ID fonts updating since the update. It is intermittent; sometimes it works fine but at least several times a week InDesign "loses" the fonts even if CC is connected. I have a hard-wired Google fiber connection which has never been flaky.