Chrome showing weird texts...

Dawelio

Awesomeness
Original poster
SFFn Staff
Dec 17, 2017
524
439
Hello everone,

So I'm having a bit of an brain meltdown at the moment... I have ignored this issue for so long and just now for some odd reason started try to fix it. One of the main reasons I use Firefox is because the text isn't completely messed up on it like it is on Chrome.

The first picture below is from Chrome on my PC, which the issue lies.



And the next picture is from the same website, but on Firefox, on my iPhone, where the font and text is correct. You can see the difference in characters.




As you can see, the main texts on the website itself AND the cookies terms on the top, both have weird font issues.

I have tried Googling this issue so much several times and never really fixed it and just got so fed up with it that I just left it each time.

I have no idea if it's an Chrome in itself issue or an Windows issue. Since Firefox displays it correctly, however on Edge it's the same as in Chrome I just noticed.

Does anyone of you have any idea on what's causing this and how to fix it?...

Thank you,
Dawelio
 

tinyitx

Shrink Ray Wielder
Jan 25, 2018
2,279
2,338
As Firefox displays properly, it is unlikely a Windows problem. Actually, Edge is using the same core (Chromium) as Chrome and so they are exhibiting the same problem.

I think this has more to do with 'language' rather than with 'font'. It looks like Chrome is not choosing its language properly.
Have you tried manually setting the default language that Chrome uses?
(https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/173424?co=GENIE.Platform=Desktop&hl=en-GB)

One potential cause is that, say, Norwegian has 2 'languages' (in my Firefox) Bokmål and Nynorsk and this might confuse Chrome.
 

timginter

Cable-Tie Ninja
Apr 21, 2019
197
80
Does it hapen on other pages?

From a web-dev view, looks like Netflix is using their own font ("Netflix Sans"). Not sure why smaller text has the right characters, but Chromium browsers (Chrome and Edge) may not be loading the font correctly or encoding may not be correct (should be UTF-8).

You can open Chrome's Dev Console (press F12) and in "Console" tab check if there are any errors when you refresh the page.

To troubleshoot, you can check the font and style of headings and smaller text. One of the buttons in Chrome's Dev Console is "Inspect" - when you click yhat and hover over the heading, you'll see some info about the font.

Frontend is not exactly my thing so a bit of a guess, but if Chrome is not loading a font or the font doesn't have special characters defined for a style, it may try to use browser's default font (which again may not have special characters, etc.) - you can check Chrome's font settings in Settings -> Appearance

EDIT: I'll set Chrome to Swedish and see if I have the same problem when I'm back home
 
Last edited:

Dawelio

Awesomeness
Original poster
SFFn Staff
Dec 17, 2017
524
439
Does it hapen on other pages?

From a web-dev view, looks like Netflix is using their own font ("Netflix Sans"). Not sure why smaller text has the right characters, but Chromium browsers (Chrome and Edge) may not be loading the font correctly or encoding may not be correct (should be UTF-8).

You can open Chrome's Dev Console (press F12) and in "Console" tab check if there are any errors when you refresh the page.

To troubleshoot, you can check the font and style of headings and smaller text. One of the buttons in Chrome's Dev Console is "Inspect" - when you click yhat and hover over the heading, you'll see some info about the font.

Frontend is not exactly my thing so a bit of a guess, but if Chrome is not loading a font or the font doesn't have special characters defined for a style, it may try to use browser's default font (which again may not have special characters, etc.) - you can check Chrome's font settings in Settings -> Appearance

EDIT: I'll set Chrome to Swedish and see if I have the same problem when I'm back home

Yes, I noticed before Netflix that Facebook also has weird characters. Due to in Swedish we have the letter å, ä and ö, which doesn't exist in the english language, it shows " µ " instead...

Due to the annoyance of this issue and I couldn't find a way to fix it, I just stuck with Firefox, as I have been using for years.
 

timginter

Cable-Tie Ninja
Apr 21, 2019
197
80
Sounds like odd encoding, but can't find any other similar issues. Netflix and Facebook default to UTF-8, so should be OK. I can't seem to force Netflix to display in Swedish (redirects me to netflix.com/gb/) so can't really troubleshoot from here, sorry
 
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Dawelio

Awesomeness
Original poster
SFFn Staff
Dec 17, 2017
524
439
Sounds like odd encoding, but can't find any other similar issues. Netflix and Facebook default to UTF-8, so should be OK. I can't seem to force Netflix to display in Swedish (redirects me to netflix.com/gb/) so can't really troubleshoot from here, sorry

No worries dude, appreciate you taking time out of your day to test atleast! :)
 
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timginter

Cable-Tie Ninja
Apr 21, 2019
197
80
No worries dude, appreciate you taking time out of your day to test atleast! :)
No problem. You reminded me of when I lived in Norway, on "Løvdahls Gata" and I got a package with "LĂvdahls Gata" on the label - encoding is a funny thing 😀

I'll see if I can find a Swedish VPN when I have some time. Sounds like a font/encoding issue, odd google doesn't show anything similar.

You can always reinstall Chrome as a last "fix 'em all" resort
 
Last edited:

timginter

Cable-Tie Ninja
Apr 21, 2019
197
80
No luck, "WORKS ON MY MACHINE" 😃

If you check your font settings they may shed some light. Edge probably imported all settings/bookmarks/etc. from Chrome so you'd end with the same problems on both.
 

Dawelio

Awesomeness
Original poster
SFFn Staff
Dec 17, 2017
524
439
Funny you mentioning reinstalling Chrome as a last resort. The funny part I did that, I even went as far as I even reinstalled Windows and even wiped out my Google account that maybe had gotten corrupted, as that had happened before. Nothing worked and I was still getting the same weird issue on Facebook.

So I literally have no idea why it happens on Chrome, as it doesn't happen on Firefox.