Member Avatar for Jemstar

does anyone know what is causing or how to fix this problem? every web page text which isn't embedded comes out as fractions, meaning i cant read a thing. any tips? thanks

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by Benzic

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Most of the time this “everything looks like fractions” problem is a font substitution / font‑mapping issue, not a virus. Several people in the thread (, , ) were on the right track — a third‑party or misinstalled “fractions” face can be chosen as the fallback font and display ordinary characters as fraction glyphs. The reliable approach is to isolate whether the problem is user‑level or system‑wide, then remove or disable the offending font and clear font caches safely.

Steps to follow (work from top to bottom):

  1. Test a different user account. If the problem disappears for a new user, it’s a per‑user font or preference issue (@yellow suggested this first).
  2. Boot in Safe Mode (hold Shift while starting OS X) and see whether the text renders normally — Safe Mode clears font caches and disables third‑party fonts.
  3. Open Font Book (or your OS font manager): validate fonts, resolve duplicates, and deactivate any fonts with names containing “fraction” or similar. Deactivate rather than permanently delete until you confirm the fix.
  4. If you prefer Terminal, look for suspect files in the standard folders and move them to a backup folder on the desktop before rebooting:
    ls /Library/Fonts | grep -i fraction
ls ~/Library/Fonts | grep -i fraction
  5. Restart after removing/deactivating fonts so caches rebuild.

Extra checks and cautions: don’t delete anything from /System/Library/Fonts — that can break the system UI. If the issue persists after the steps above, try disabling browser extensions and Mail viewing plug‑ins, reinstall default fonts from your OS media, or reinstall the OS fonts only. For System 9 users, use the OS 9 font manager tools rather than OS X steps. If the problem is fixed by moving a font out of the Fonts folder, keep that copy as a backup in case some legacy documents need it, but leave it deactivated.

If none of these work, report the macOS version, browser and mail client versions, and whether the behavior is system‑wide or user‑specific (that information will narrow the next troubleshooting steps).

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Member Avatar for yellow

Virus? I think not.

Maybe telling us a bit more about your problem would help. I.E., What version of the OS you're running, which mail client and web browser you're having troubles with.

You should also log in as another user and verify that the problem exists there as well. If it doesn't, you know the problem is entirely relegated to your user and should be easy to fix.

Member Avatar for romm

does anyone know what is causing or how to fix this problem? every web page text which isn't embedded comes out as fractions, meaning i cant read a thing. any tips? thanks

I also had this problem, I removed the helvetica fractions font from my system, and all was right again. I think some escape character may tell safari and mail to display fractions.

Member Avatar for dianeclancy

I have been having that problem in IE in system 9. It comes out as symbols. Good luck!

Diane

Member Avatar for Shadow1

Hi I'm also having this problem, I have deleted the Helvetica Fractions fonts from my system, but it doesn't seem to have sorted the problem.

I am running Mac OS 10.4 Tiger, the problem seems to happen in the mail application and Safari Web browser.

I have also done a virus check but it came up with nothing.

Has anyone any ideas please?

Member Avatar for yellow

It's not a virus.

Did you restart after removing the font?

Member Avatar for Benzic

I had this problem too. I just went into Font Book and deactivated all the forms of Fractions I had. This seemed to work, as it hasn't happened since.

I'm not sure what caused it, but I don't really care, since it isn't happening anymore, and I have no use for Helvetica Fractions anyway. :cheesy:

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