Rebecca, We honestly don't know what is causing the problem other than that deleting the Windows font cache clears the symptoms at least for a while (where for some "a while" is longer than for others). The problem seems to be shared by Windows 2000 and XP (which share a tremendous amount of code). We did not see it with Windows'9x or Windows NT 4, both of which have significantly different text/font handling mechanisms than Windows 2000 and XP. I haven't heard of anyone encountering the problem with Vista, but that doesn't mean that it is exempt either since the GDI-based text and font handling is based on that of Windows XP.
My observation is that if you indeed encounter the problem even once on a particular system, you should assume that you are likely to encounter it again on that system and as such, you should proactively delete the font cache and reboot on a regular basis. What is a regular basis? Your guess is as good as mine. Of those who have "fixed" the problem by doing the font cache deletion and reboot, I haven't heard of anyone getting the problem back that quickly (i.e., within hours or days or even a week). If I was to start seeing the symptom occur on my system, I would configure my system to have a system shutdown script that would delete the font cache every time the system shutdown (which is part of every reboot). Since reboots occur most times you do a Microsoft Windows Update (for example, yesterday was "Patch Tuesday"), you would probably get a clean font cache at least once a month if not more frequently. If you shutdown the computer once a day, then you get a clean font cache daily. What is the cost of having a new font cache? As far as I can determine, not much. I have yet to see any performance hit when deleting a font cache and rebooting other than the time to delete the font cache and reboot. With regards to any "fixes" -- the problem is not readily reproducible and as such we can't instrument FrameMaker to look for where we can change any code to prevent the problem. My comments about old GDI calls is guesswork on my part based on a few hunches, the technical details of which I will not bore this list with. - Dov ________________________________ From: rebecca officer [mailto:rebecca.offi...@alliedtelesis.co.nz] Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2007 6:38 PM To: Dov Isaacs Cc: Framers (E-mail); FrameMaker Discussion Forum Subject: RE: Vista and font cache Hi Dov Are you saying that deleting the font cache and rebooting should get rid of the symptoms for a while, regardless of the size of the font cache after reboot? My memory of last year's posts was that you had to also reduce the size of the font cache by deleting big unused fonts. I did that a few months ago and my font cache is now around 770 KB. But a document showed the symptoms again a couple of days ago. Is that what you'd expect? Next time I have a document with symptoms, I'll try just deleting the cache and rebooting. Also, does your email mean that Adobe are hunting for those "old Windows GDI calls made by FrameMaker" to fix the bug? Thanks, Rebecca >>> "Dov Isaacs" <isaacs at adobe.com> 14/02/07 10:42 >>> The symptom was reported against FrameMaker internally. The problem has been seen in printing to PostScript printers and as such, cannot be traced in any way to Distiller (or the AdobePDF PostScript printer driver instance). The symptom is not directly reproducible; all we know is that by deleting the FNTCACHE.DAT file and rebooting, the problem goes away, at least for a while. Since FrameMaker does not and cannot directly access or manipulate the FNTCACHE.DAT file, the likely cause of the bug are old Windows GDI calls made by FrameMaker that are still supported by Windows, but in which some bug associated with font caching crept in over the years. - Dov