Adobe Fonts Randomly Go Missing

Report · Jun 30, 2022

Hello! Thank you for reading this.

This is a problem that has been persistent since we began using Adobe Creative Cloud Fonts. It seems to have gotten worse recently since the latest round of updates.

I am posting this in the InDesign forum because that is the program it seems to effect most often. I am currently experiencing this issue, and the fonts in question appear in Photoshop and Illustrator, but not in InDesign.

If you view the attached screenshot, you will see that Creative Cloud indicates these fonts are active. But in InDesign, the font is clearly marked as Missing.

The steps to resolve this are usually:

1) Restart InDesign

2) Restart Creative Cloud

3) Deactivate and reactive the defective font

4) Restart computer

Sometimes only doing one or the other works. Sometimes it doesn't work until I've gone through all 4 steps several times.

That is all fine if it only happens once in a blue moon, but whenever it does happen I usually have dozens of projects open that I now have to reopen, which can take a lot of time. And oftentimes it's not just one font family that "goes out", but multiple. We use dozens of Adobe Fonts and it takes at least 10 minutes to go through and deactivate and reactivate all of them whenever there's a "mass extinction event," as I've started calling it whenever all or most of the fonts decide to go out.

This isn't a once in a blue moon problem, it's happening at least several times a week, often when I'm right in the middle of typing it will suddenly decide a font I'm using doesn't exist anymore! And it's not isolated to one machine or user. It's a real workflow issue.

Some of our machines are on Windows 11, and others on Windows 10.

The current version of ID is: 17.3. Creative Cloud is updated to: 5.7.1.1

Like I said, our machines are a mix. But for the sake of being complete, the one I'm on is a W11 Pro 22H2, 22621.160.

Creative Cloud is signed in and part of Startup.

I've tried a fresh install on a new machine and it still happens, though not as often. Resetting preferences seems to make it less likely to happen for a time. But I've not found a solution to this issue.

Any help or advice would be appreciated. Otherwise I'm labeling this as a bug, since I don't see why an active Adobe Font showing up as Missing in InDesign could possibly be an intentional behavior.

Thank you!

Report · Jun 30, 2022

I emphasize with you.

We designers need to work on production tasks to make our client deadlines, rather than troubleshoot over and over the missing phantom fonts issue with InDesign. Search this forum and you'll find you are not alone!

I got fed up with this &^%$#@! a couple of years ago and we have migrated our Macs and Windows away from Adobe's auto-activated fonts to regular ol' fashioned fonts — the kind that you download and install on the workstation. We haven't had problems with this method.

The only times we had phantom fonts is when an Adobe font was "Activated" via creative cloud rather than installed manually.

We've noticed that Adobe no longer gives the option of downloading its fonts; you can only use their Activation button. So we now rarely use Adobe activated fonts, and when we do, we're aware that they'll disappear before our eyes while working on a project. Guaranteed.

We're switching our clients over to open source fonts, especially from Google Fonts https://fonts.google.com/. Excellent quality, designed by professional type designers, so the kerning pairs and programming are there for both print and digital documents. SIL licensing so you can use them in any kind of project without additional license fees.

And you download, install, and manage them on each workstation. I've never had any disappear from an InDesign layout.

However, some are also licensed by Adobe Fonts, and we've found that Adobe can hijack your original font and activates its own version, which now creates font conflicts and errors in the INDD layout. Just go to your Creative Cloud account and deactivate Adobe's version, and that usually clears up the problem.

What a royal pain this is. And Adobe's software to control and activate its fonts doesn't seem to be getting better.

Report · Jul 02, 2022

I have found that signing out from Creative Cloud and then resigning in again can sometimes settle the font issue (it's the modern day equivalent of kicking your TV on side to get a clearer picture). Click on the piechart icon at the top right of the Creative Cloud desktop app to get the option to sign out (and subsequently sign back in again).