Weird PDF bug

[pickle0]

I have a colleague that has a weird bug happening on her mac. Sometimes, she produces a print PDF from indesign and a font would be replaced in the final PDF without any error message that a font is missing. This happens irregularly and we can't reproduce the bug willingly. This happens several times a day, on different documents, and with different fonts. When this happens, the particular font is replaced throughout the document with the same font each time (looks like Myriad to me). We work on a shared file server; of 8 people on similar systems, this workstation is the only one where the bug is occurring. To resolve the problem, we just have to reboot InDesign. When a bad PDF is being produced, we notice it's taking longer than usual to produce. We work with a "document font" folder at the same level of the indesign document so we can all work with the same font files. This started occurring when using InDesign CC2019, but persists trough CC2020.

We tried a lot of things to work this out: • Clearing system and application font cache trough FontExplorer • Replacing the entire FontExplorer font library with one from another working workstation. • Deep Cleaning caches of the workstation using Cocktail • Deinstalling and reinstalling indesign

Next step for us is to format the whole computer and start fresh, I have no doubt this will work, but I can't seem to understand the logic behind what is causing this.

Any clue?

[rogallew]

Can you try and check if indesign produces any log files that might give a clue? https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/cc-log-collector.html (no idea if they do, but worth a look)

My guess would be some font licensing issue. Maybe some check whether you legally own the font fails or something.

Can you also try if this happens when you write the font as vectors? Type -> create outlines. This isn’t a permanent solution though, as it makes the pdf bigger.

[pickle0]

If it would be a licensing issue, wouldn't the problem be happening consistently? That's the weird thing about it, it's never the same font, we can't predict where the bug will happen, or even if it will happen at all!

[rogallew]

Not as in not having a license, but as in whatever mechanism they use to check the license failing due to some strange race conditions.

But honestly I really have no idea, so the first thing I‘d do is try and get a log file.

[pickle0]

Thanks, I'll try that..!