Illustrator 10 - Stuck on "Reading Fonts" on startup and VERY slow performance

[Bethany McDaniel]

This is a weird situation and I would greatly appreciate any help:

I use Illustrator 10 on Windows 2000 Professional. When I startup Illustrator It gets stuck for a few minutes on "Reading Fonts...". While it is stuck it is not showing it going through the fonts like normal. After a few minutes it finally continues and shows it gong through fonts and then filters etc etc. Here's the kicker: After it finally starts up, it performs very slow, for example: If a document contains type (not outlined) It runs EXTREMELY slow, the refresh rate when zooming etc is outrageous, and when I try and edit the text it is even worse. When I outline the text to vector lines or work with a file with no text it runs a LOT better but still slower than normal. (I have more than enough memory etc in my computer so this is not the problem).

To fix this problem I have already tried uninstalling/reinstalling Illustrator, that did not work. Then I uninstalled my font manager and anything I thought may be confusing the program dealing with fonts and that did not work. So, I reinstalled my font manager and my fonts and still nothing different. I couldn't find anything regarding this in troubleshooting.

This is making my work 10 times longer at least so I need not explain how frustrating this is considering I am a professional Designer. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated as this is my last resource. Thanks!

[Philip Peterson]

How many fonts do you have loaded?

What type manager do you use?

Have you tried loading just a bare minimum amount of fonts and seeing how performance is, then slowly adding more fonts, in case you have a corrupt font gumming up the system?

[BobHill]

Just be sure not to delete any Windows required fonts or you're likely to have some appearance programs to Windows and programs: List available. Below are fonts required for Windows ME: <http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/2664e.htm>

Bob

[Ian A. Wright]

Bethany:

I recommend that you have only 100 or so fonts installed and active at one time as a test -- that's a Windows 9x issue. But I've seen problems when using many fonts under newer Windows as well. Remember that roman, bold, italic and bold-italic are four "fonts". You can install thousands of fonts and have them available but "inactive" by using Adobe Type Manager Deluxe 4.1 to create "font packs" which you switch in and out as necessary. That way you have all the fonts you need without also slowing down every Windows operation involving typography.

QualiType Software has another font utility called Font Handler at www.qualitype.com. Bitstream also had a font manager called Font Navigator and I believe a version of Bitsream's utility shipped with CorelDRAW! However Bitstream have withdrawn this in favour of another program, Font Reserve There is also Suitcase for Windows, from Extensis

Check ALL your fonts. For TrueType fonts use Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Fonts and see if they were installed and display correctly. For Type One fonts use Adobe Type Manager Deluxe to check that the Type Ones were installed and display correctly. If any are corrupted, remove and replace from the original disks.

Secondly I recommend you do a complete, clean re-install of the application and any upgrades. Simply re-installing or even un-installing and re-installing may not be sufficient. First off, use Windows add-remove programs, then check for any left-over files or folders and remove those. Then remove any .TMP files on your drive(s) and do a disk de-frag. Then shut your computer down. When you re-start do so in safe or VGA mode -- or at least make sure no TSRs start. (like virus scans or screen savers) Use Control 泡lt-Delete to bring up TASK LIST, then one by one, END TASK everything on the list except Explorer and Systray. Then do a complete install as administrator from the original CD-ROM from Adobe and then any upgrades.

Lastly, turn OFF any Norton stuff while Illustrator is running. If that helps the speed, make sure Norton Undelete is not installed and running.

[Ian A. Wright]

Ian:

Which of the many suggestions have you already put into practice from the messages above?

[Ian Gilmer]

I am having the same problem, only I am using windows XP, not 2000. The strange thing is that it only started happening to me after I activated some new fonts, but fails to stop happening when I deactivate those same fonts.

[Ian Gilmer]

I've done a number of things.
When first I installed illustrator, it worked perfectly, and only started hanging on "reading fonts" when I loaded type manager and added a few fonts. I then went through the whole uninstall, reinstall several times, varying what extras I installed with Illustrator. Nothing worked there.
I then did a system restore to a point at which I knew Illustrator was working properly. This also failed to work. After reading your first post on this topic, I went and checked all the fonts I had installed on my computer. None had problems opening or were corrupted. I turned off all the fonts that I had installed earlier, which had seemed to cause the problem, but to no avial. I have yet to go through and uninstall, delete extra files, delete temp files, and reinstall from safe mode, but I guess that's my next move.

[B. Philippus]

Ian A:

ian obviously doesn't read messages well.

Bert

[Ian Gilmer]

Bert, was that post really necessary?
Besides, I can read quite well, and I am still going through some of the things that Ian suggested, like I mentioned in my last post. But as it stands, going through the process Ian describes which ends in installing illustrator in safe mode has not worked either. Any other suggestions as to what I can do would be much appreciated.

Ian

[LenHewitt]

Ian,

2 other things you can try.....

1) Delete all copies of adobefnt*.LST files on the machine
2) Delete the aiprefs file (no extension)

[Bethany McDaniel]

When I stated I uninstalled and reinstalled programs to alieve my problems, I DID do it the safe way through the system, but thank you for the suggestion anyhow. I was running Extensis Suitcase, but now I am running Adobe Type Manager Deluxe. After safely uninstalling everything, I backed up my fonts and took out all unnecessary ones from the system (I know which ones they are and I know If you delete certian ones needed that can mess me up, so that is not the problem), so I only had about 25 fonts at the time of fixing my problem.

I quickly figured out the # of fonts and the applications are not my problem. Having many fonts installed coupled with slow performance is related to how fast my computer is anyhow, and that CAN'T be the problem, because it is very fast.

I deleted the ai prefs file and unfortunately that didn't work. I'm going to try deleting the adobefnt*.lst copies now, but if cleanly removing the program in the first place and reinstalling it did not work, I dont know if it will make a difference.

Also keep in mind that this problem is only happening with Illustrator, no other program, including photoshop.

IAN G.: If you figure out what our problem is, pleeeeease let me know. Everyone thanks for your time in response, and any more suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!!

[Bethany McDaniel]

Ian:

No I did not, but that is because I recently upgraded my PC: this problem started before I even had the chance to install my Anti-Virus software, which is McAfee.

[Ian A. Wright]

Bethany:

Did you follow up on this suggestion: "... turn OFF any Norton stuff while Illustrator is running. If that helps the speed, make sure Norton Undelete is not installed and running ...?"

[LenHewitt]

Bethany,

>>if cleanly removing the program in the first place and reinstalling it did
not work, I dont know if it will make a difference. <<

An Uninstall will only remove files created by the install that haven't been
modified since being installed. the installer creates a list of files
created, size and date modified, and of registry entries created which is
used by the uninstaller .

The aiprefs and adobefnt*.LST files are NOT created during the install
process, but when Illustrator is run.

Consequently they cannot be removed by the uninstaller as it doesn't know
they even exist.

[Bethany McDaniel]

Oh I see, I wasn't aware of that! So I can safely delete ALL 21 adobefnt*.LST files that the Search found in my system? Or only the one found in the Adobe Illustrator 10 folder?

[Adam Lane]

You can safely delete all of the AdobeFnt*.LST files. These files will be re-created as needed when various Adobe applications are launched. They are "cache" files relating to fonts and are designed to speed up launch time. Sometimes these caches malfunction, "thrash" and greatly decrease the performance of launching Adobe apps.

[Bethany McDaniel]

THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH!!!!

Deleting all of the AdobeFnt*.LST files worked! I deleted the one in the Illustrator 10 folder first just to see if that one was the problem, but it wasn't...it must have been one in the Shared folder. Oh What a difference in performance!!

[LenHewitt]

Good to hear you have it sorted, Bethany