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General Discussion

Derk van der Heide
Derk van der Heide
11,472 Points

Workspace has a weird font

All of a sudden my font looks like this: http://i.imgur.com/10ebSuV.jpg (comparing with the video). Yesterday it was fine.

I tried reinstalling chrome, but didn't work. Then I tried Firefox and IE, and they all have that weird font now. How do I change it back?

11 Answers

Having the exact same problem here. I did try the solution at the bottom of this post with mozilla firefox (https://teamtreehouse.com/forum/does-anyone-else-have-this-weird-workspaces-font) But still doesn't look like it should plus I prefer chrome.

Fernando Ramos
Fernando Ramos
4,369 Points

Same issue here... I don't think it is our browsers... seems something in Treehouse is goofing it up!

I'm also having this issue. I'm finding the new font very difficult to read, to the point I think I'm going to have to abandon Workspaces. Hopefully there is a plan to fix this font problem?

Fernando Ramos
Fernando Ramos
4,369 Points

I put out my issue on the forum too. I also sent emails to tech support and they too are perplexed and are escalating it to the developers and will get back to me. I will update if they give me a fix. Also, I cannot use my own .jpg or .png images for my "About" section. Only Nick Pettit's image works. I tripled checked everything and still no go, but my editor Komodo and Notepad ++ work like champs, so once again I say Treehouse has got a glitch. Maybe Nick doesn't want anyone using pics but his own?? LOL.

Thanks, Fernando. If Treehouse are aware of the issue and are working on it then I'm happy.

Fernando Ramos
Fernando Ramos
4,369 Points

Yup, I say they give us a free year of Treehouse for the trauma we went through... I know I will be having nightmares for years over this! LOL. You have any issue with your uploaded personal pics (.jpg, .png, etc.)?

Haven't tried anything with images, so can't give you any information on that.

Fernando Ramos
Fernando Ramos
4,369 Points

No probs. I know they work from outside the Treehouse workspace environment, but just curious if anyone else had issues. :-P

Derk van der Heide
Derk van der Heide
11,472 Points

I contacted support, looks like this change is intentional:

"Thanks for your patience! So, I've just spoken with the developers, and it's actually looking like the Workspace template has been updated and now will look different than the video. Sorry for any confusion! Please let us know if you have any additional questions about anything."

For now I'm probably going to use Firefox, where I can force the font I want to use. How to do this:

Go to options > Content > Advanced. Change the monospace font to the one you want to use. I chose "Consolas", this was the previous font I think. Then uncheck "Allow pages to choose their own fonts".

Fernando Ramos
Fernando Ramos
4,369 Points

Thanks for the update Derk. Well you would think they would give students a heads up on this change and maybe build a way to default back to the original font template for those students like you, I and others who are having issues with this font. Or at least tell us a recommended way to adjust things on our end to aid in getting some decent font display. But if Firefox is the only way that you know of for a "quick fix," then I will go download it now. Thanks on "how to" do the font thing in Firefox!

Christopher Hughes
Christopher Hughes
13,053 Points

It's got to be some kind of problem on their side. If you pull up the console in chrome, you see this error:

Font from origin 'https://wac.a8b5.edgecastcdn.net' has been blocked from loading by Cross-Origin Resource Sharing policy: No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header is present on the requested resource. Origin 'http://teamtreehouse.com' is therefore not allowed access.

Also, it appears updating from Chrome 36 to Chrome 37 is part of the issue. My machines with Chrome 36 were displaying the font fine. I actually got on a machine with Chrome 36 and logged in to Treehouse and Workspaces and the font was fine. I then updated to Chrome 37 and the odd font showed up.

Derk van der Heide
Derk van der Heide
11,472 Points

Yea, I just discovered something like that.

They're trying to load these fonts: 'SourceCodePro',"MS ゴシック","MS Gothic",monospace;

SourceCodePro fails from loading, so MS ゴシック gets used, which seems to be some weird japanese font.

I tried to override the font in Chrome's Custom.css (at %LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\User StyleSheets )

@font-face {
    font-family: SourceCodePro; 
    src: local('Source Code Pro'); 
}

But that isn't working. Treehouse needs to fix it then...

Christopher Hughes
Christopher Hughes
13,053 Points

And you'd think you could just go in and delete that font so it would just fall down the font stack to monospce but they are "protected system fonts" so we're stuck with them. :/

Christopher Hughes
Christopher Hughes
13,053 Points

OK found a workaround so I can continue to code without my eyes bleeding. :D

The problem is that there is some issue with Treehouse where the Source Code font is not loading, so it falls back to the next font in the font stack. For whatever reason, the next font in the stack is a Japanese font with really horrid looking Latin characters. This Japanese font is by default installed on the Windows operating system.

I tried just deleting that font since I don't need it but it's a "protected system font" so I could not. I went in to the registry to kill the font there, but it still stuck around. I then went in to the C:\windows\winsxs folder, located the backup versions of the font and tried to delete it. Only "TrustedInstaller" had access so I then took ownership of those folders. It still wouldn't allow me to delete the font.

Finally, I got a boot version of Ubuntu and booted off a USB stick. That FINALLY allowed me to delete the offending fonts.

When deleting, go in to the C:\windows\winsxs folder an search for "fonts-truetype". I deleted MS Gothic, MS PGothic, and Mieryo as they were all the Japanese fonts. I would also recommend you copy your fonts folder to another folder just as a backup so that you can reinstall those fonts when Treehouse does fix the problem.

Now when the Source Code font doesn't load it will fall back to the bottom of the font stack which is "monospaced." You can then go in to Chrome and set the monospaced font to what you want - I did it to Source Code.

A real PITA, but at least I can get back to work for now until Treehouse developers can come up with a better fix.

Derk van der Heide
Derk van der Heide
11,472 Points

Thanks! I will try that out tomorrow :D

Fernando Ramos
Fernando Ramos
4,369 Points

Just a quick update for those experiencing font weirdness, and who may want to use Internet Explorer (I am using IE11, so I can't speak for other versions). In order to override the weird font thing in the work spaces, open up IE, and click on the "Tools" icon in the upper right corner of the browser. Then select "Internet Options" and click on the "General" tab. Click on the "fonts" button at the bottom, under the "Appearance" section, and pick your fonts as follows: "Language Script: Latin Based" and then pick your "Web Page Font" and "Plain Text Font."

Pick whatever you want, but I recommend you keep them simple, like Arial, Corbel, Consolas, or Century Gothic fonts. Click "OK" and then click on "Accessibility" button under appearance section of "General" tab where you first started off above. Be sure "Ignore font styles specified on webpages" is checked, and do not check any of the other selections. Click OK and you are done! Go back to work spaces in Treehouse and all should be well!!

Jim Hoskins
STAFF
Jim Hoskins
Treehouse Guest Teacher

Hi everybody!

I'm really sorry about this. I think we have it all sorted now. Long story short it was an issue with loading our fonts that only became a problem with some recent browser updates on Windows.

Fonts should render correctly now on all platforms, and no other workarounds should be needed.

Sorry about that, and thanks for helping us find the issue!