indesign refuses to change fonts in documents

[msteinhofer_sequel]

I manage a number of creative cloud users. And I have one user who cannot change fonts within any of his documents. ALL users are running the latest version of indesign, 17.2.1, and th latest version of macOS, 12.4 and using the latest version of FontExplorer, 7.3 with a font server. And the indesign files are worked on locally, not from a network or cloud-based server. 

This one user cannot change fonts withing any of his indesign documents. The fonts are not missing and are activated correctly from the font server. All he is attempting to do is change the font from one font to another, or change it from one weight to another. What he can do is use the eye dropper tool on text using the font he wants to change to and that changes the font correctly. But if he chooses the font in the menu it will not change fonts! It remains whatever font it was. Like, he's able to select the font in the menu, but it changes back to whatever the existing font is. He's resorted to keeping a document on his laptop where he applies the font he wants because it's all working fine on his laptop, then emailing the file to himself and opening it on his imac and using the eyedropper to style his fonts.

I have reset his indesing preferences and it worked fine for a short time while I tested it. but then the next time he used it, it was happening again for him. so then I deleted all the caches, and again it worked fine while I tested it then when he began working again it stopped working for him. I'm about to try unistalling and reinstalling indesign which might help a little. But I'm doubtfull that it will stick. I cannot find anything about this being a known issue or other users having this issue! All I can find is artcles about font conflicts or missing fonts, etc. which are not the same as my problem. Is there anything else I can do to troubleshoot and hopefully fix this?

[BobLevine]

Is there an auto-activation plugin installed for FontExplorer? If so, deactivate it. If there are any other 3rd-party plugins try the same thing.

[msteinhofer_sequel]

thanks for that suggestion! I'll check. I know there is a plugin, but I belive it's not active. Will get back to you. 

[msteinhofer_sequel]

UPDATE: I confirmed that althought the fontexplorer plugin was installed, autoactivation was not enabled. I deactivated the plugin and played around and never saw the issue. then I reactivated it and played and still never saw the problem. But when I was first on his mac the problem was there. I cannot say anything is solved though. Just need to continue to mess around in indesign periodically and see if it begins acting up again. 

[msteinhofer_sequel]

Yet another update on this. It's started to happen again. But now that the designer is back from vacation i've gotten some more intel on what happens. 

It seems that within the same document (sometimes) in one text frame he cannot change the font or font weight, while in other text frames he can change it with no issue. 🤷‍:male_sign: So it's apparantly not document specific? He's confirmed that when it happens, the text it's happening to is not using any paragraph of character styles. so likely it has the [Basic Paragraph] style applied to it, and also likely has some overrides on it.

I also had him try working without Font Explorer server running and it was still happening. Maybe there is some kind of Adobe Fonts / Creative Cloud / system installed font conflict? But I have no way to determine where the root of the conflict is? And, if it truely was a confict, then it would be persistant. But he is able to open the file on his laptop, change the font on his laptop, save it, then reopen it on his imac and it's correct. If there were a conflict of any kind, then it wouldn't be correct when he reopens the file.

He also confirmed that he is able to affect all other aspects of the text, just not change the font or weight. 

[jmlevy · Accepted solution]

Even if you had a font conflict between FontExplorer and Adobe fonts, it would not prevet the user to change a font on a text.

When you did a reset of the preferences, did you get this message?

[msteinhofer_sequel]

Hmm. I think so? but honestly it's been a few weeks now since I did it I can't remember for sure. I will have to give it a try again to make certain.