Illustrator 28.2.0 Freezing when scrolling Fonts

[joehahi]

When text is highlighted, and I go to change the font and use the scroll bar on the right to scroll down, the program freezes indefinitetly.

2021 Macbook Pro M1 running Sonoma macOS 14.1.1.

Insanely frustrating. 

[Monika Gause]

Always on the same font? If so, try and uninstall it.

Are you using font management?

[joehahi]

As far as I can tell this is not related to whatever font is currently being used before I attempt to change it. I am unable to change it as the program freezes before I can scroll and select and new font.

[Monika Gause]

Uninstall all your custom fonts and then add them back to find out which one is causing it. This is not a general Illustrator issue.

[joehahi]

I only have 6 custom fonts installed so that will be a quick test.

However, I haven't installed any new fonts in the last 4 months and the 6 installed have never caused issues before. Please see my below comment about Screenrecording affecting the bug. Thank you.

[joehahi]

Removing all my custom fonts did not resolve the issue.

[Ton Frederiks]

Does turning Off: Preferences > Type > Enable Missing Glyph Protection make a difference?

[joehahi]

No, It didn't. 

Something very interesting is occuring though. I used the MacOs Screenshot App to record the bug in action. However - when recording my screen, the bug does NOT happen. I tested this multiple times. Talk about the observer effect...

In order to capture the bug, I used my phone to record. I tested this multiple times. I'm attaching both videos below.

[Ton Frederiks]

That is indeed strange, no idea why recording your screen prevents the problem from happening.

It is not a good idea to keep recording your screen when working in Illustrator 😉

Maybe you can contact Adobe support, they can look into your system:

 https://helpx.adobe.com/contact.html?rghtup=autoOpen

[joehahi]

I literally can't get the Virtual Chat Assistant to connect me with a real person. Sick.

[Monika Gause]

When you type "Agent" you do not get connected to one?

[joehahi]

It took awhile, but I was connected. The agent did their best to help me but was not successfull. Previous versions of Illustrator also have the same bug. Funny enough, because the Adobe Support Agent uses screen share to view/control my screen, the bug was NOT happening while they were activley viewing my screen. I would need to stop sharing, get the bug to occur, and then begin sharing with the agent.

[Ton Frederiks]

Just saw a post with a similar mention of problems going away during recording:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/illustrator-discussions/multiple-illustrator-issues-on-m2-macbook-pro...

[Bobby Henderson]

Do you have any "picture fonts" installed? What I mean by that is font files that act as collections of clip art images. Those things can pose a big problem for scrolling through a fonts list if the font styles are being visually rendered.

Then there is the issue of free or free-ish fonts available online at various web sites. Some can be really good (such as certain type families at the Google Fonts site or Font Squirrel). Plenty of others can be poorly authored, leading to problems like application hang-ups when scrolling through the font menu or even making the graphics application crash outright. Generally speaking, commercially sold fonts tend to perform better. If the fonts you bought have technical issues you can often get free updates when the fixes are released. 

[joehahi]

As far as I know - no - this is a fairly fresh machine for me and I almost exclusively use Adobe Fonts or Google Fonts. 

There are the Emoji fonts that seem to be pre-loaded on my machine though.

Please take a look at the comment I made above yours. Recording my screen stops the bug from occuring.

[Bobby Henderson]

That's pretty strange. I watched the video you uploaded. The system is hanging before you can scroll the font menu at all. That would make me suspect some kind of software conflict.

I'm used to working on Windows machines; one of the first things I would check there is the graphics card driver and if any updates are available. Mac-based systems usually have any updates for graphics chips rolled into OS updates. Another possibility is conflicts with other applications that are open and running in the background. Again, I've seen Illustrator fight with other Windows-based graphics apps. Periphreals that are attached to the computer, such as a Wacom tablet, are another potential source of problems. Drivers for those need to be updated or even rolled back if the current driver is buggy.

[joehahi]

I restarted my machine and only has Illustrator open to test - bug still occurs. Nothing attached to laptop besides a mouse + bluetooth usb dongle.

There appears to be a minor MacOS update available which I'm installing now.  If this doesn't do the trick I supose I'll rollback to a previous version of Illustrator. Ugh. Thank you for your responses. 

[joehahi]

Updated to latest MacOs 14.3.1 (23D60) did not resolve the bug.

[Monika Gause]

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@joehahi  schrieb:

There appears to be a minor MacOS update available which I'm installing now.  If this doesn't do the trick I supose I'll rollback to a previous version of Illustrator. Ugh. Thank you for your responses. 

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It would be a better idea to roll back the system. Sonoma is not ready for production.

Earlier systems work.

[joehahi]

I will be trying to rollback my MacOs. Im curious what you mean when you say Sonoma is not ready for production?

[Monika Gause]

A lot of people are still having issues. Some downgraded their systems and then it worked again.