Invisible Text In Big Sur

App & System Services Core OS
Skywatcher17 OP
Created Jul ’20
Replies 20
Boosts 0
Views 5.2k
Participants 17
I am having a problem where text in certain apps is invisible in Big Sur Betas 1 and 2. In Outlook, all email text is invisible. In Excel, all cell contents are invisible. In Firefox, all context menu text is invisible. Tried verifying fonts, etc. What is going on here?
Replies  20
Boosts  0
Views  5.2k
Participants  17
mIIwaukee OP
Jul ’20
Same problem with Outlook. Tried resetting all fonts, clearing caches. In Font Book, Arial Regular and some other Regular font variants don't show up.
1
TyngJJ OP
Jul ’20
Depending on the situation, it might be that the text is accidentally the same color as its background, hasn't been rendered in the right place (clipping), or is suffering from some kind of compositing problem. Is the text selectable?
1
Skywatcher17 OP
Jul ’20
Yes, the text is selectable and copy/pastable...I have been pasting into TextEdit in order to read emails. Since I originally posted, I've also noticed it happens in the Mail app, but only when composing a new message - reading received messages is fine.
0
behemot OP
Aug ’20
Has anyone resolved this problem? I'm having exactly the same issue after upgrading to Big Sur beta. Tried reinstalling Office, resetting fonts, nothing works. For example in email I don't see the text unless I click "reply" (the text of the original mail is the visible in the new reply window). In excel I don't see the cell contents unless I select everything and change a font of all cells - Calibri, Arial, many other don't work. Lucida Grande does work.
0
Marvick OP
Aug ’20
I've the same issues with MS Outlook and Office after upgrading to Big Sur beta. The text becomes invisible on random lines in random order. It's a big bug of Big Sur.
Also when I open a PDF-file using native Preview App some fragments are displayed as black rectangles.
Plus my MacBook Air (late 2018) today was completely frozen several times when surfing through Safari. It seems like Big Sur requires very big part of RAM, and it is incompatible with a computer that only has 8 GB of memory.
I guess I'll have to go back to the Catalina OS...
0
jhwalker OP
Aug ’20
Same here. It appears all the Microsoft Office fonts are disabled (despite attempting to reinstall them, verify them, etc.)

In addition (as others have pointed out), a lot of text in edit boxes is not visible, which makes it very difficult to (for example) update formulas in Excel, enter search terms in various applications, etc.

Surprised this is not getting more publicity - the same things were working perfectly in Catalina, and it's a pretty big bug to still be present in Beta 5.
0
mmontano73 OP
Sep ’20
Same symptoms per thread in MS Outlook.

But then new email in mail.app, change the text to Arial and it vanishes -- still selectable, but not visible. Regardless of dark-mode, size of side bars, screen resolution etc. Completely reproducable.
0
pavloskl OP
Sep ’20
Same issue here. I can only see the URLs as a blue line and it seems to be clickable. I also tried to reset the fonts, changed size and everything that has to do with fonts but still nothing. This is very annoying.
0
okdeveloper OP
Sep ’20
Has anyone resolved this issue? I was hoping it would be resolved in B7 but no luck.
0
mmontano73 OP
Sep ’20
Numbers document with text in Arial - blank cells. Pages document with Arial - visible. Mail.app new message with Arial - blank text. All reliably consistent.

... and I haven't found a work-around, or many other people with the problem.
0
iamtmo OP
Sep ’20
I am working directly with MS Office MAC support and have sent multiple sysdiagnose files and samples to both Apple and MS for this issue. They are aware it exist but no fix or workaround yet. It has to do with rendering of MS specific fonts that are embedded into the Office apps. The support tech I am working with has been able to reproduce the same issue on his own machine and test machine. If I get an update I will post here first.
0
daftu OP
Sep ’20
It is probably Apple system font problem. How to reproduce/check?

Open "Font Book", select all fonts, then Arial, then Normal.
Result:
There is no font preview on the right pane of Font Book.

When you select other font style (i.e. Italic) preview is visible.

I've tried restoring original fonts (from File menu) but Arial/Normal is still missing. Same with Calibri, but in this case there is no Calibri on the list!
0
daftu OP
Sep ’20
OK, I've found the reason (and temporary solution!).

It's because of LCD Font Smoothing enabled (CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled option in terminal)

  1. If you have Arial problems check current settings (it will be 0):

defaults read -g CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled

2. To repair disable setting (set to 1)
defaults write -g CGFontRenderingFontSmoothingDisabled -bool YES

Then restart applications with font problems and voila, Arial is visible now.



1
ssh OP
Oct ’20
I'm still seeing this (it's actually worse) and the font smoothing fix doesn't work. Any other ideas?
0
itsVivek OP
Oct ’20
Any luck solving this? I am seeing the same on Unity and Zoom. I am on Beta 9.

Thanks a lot in advance!
0
Invisible Text In Big Sur
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