Say 'No' to Snappy Service and Zebra.

So last year i went all out and bought the original Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Standard because i figured since i was registering my own design company and working on a big project, i would do "the right" thing and get the legit program. I swear, that was the most expensive purchase i've ever made, it hurt me to see that money disappear from my bank account.

Everything was going well until yesterday.

I don't know what happened but Illustrator decided to have a hissy fit when i tried to open a new document. The whole program would crash. And then as if i didn't know a window pops up to tell me that an unexpected error has occurred. So then i try opening my working document - the multiple artboards file that i'm working on for a logo i'm doing and the same bloody thing happens!

At this point i'm slightly panicking because i've agreed to do a huge project.

So then i spend a good 10 hours fiddling around with the settings, removing preferences, clearing the caches and removing random fonts i've recently added. I even tried creating a new user account and nothing seemed to work.

For some reason i'm convinced it's a font problem - i blame my free font rampage i had the other day.

And end up reading practically every post relating to why CS4 quits unexpectantly and possible solutions. I then download a free program for MAC OS X called FontNuke which removes font caches - which i think didn't really do anything. And a utility program called Cocktail 4.4 which is a generally for maintenance and optimization - and again, i have no idea if it actually improved the situation.

I refused to cry at this point.

Keeping my composure and restraining myself from throwing something at my MacBook, J then tells me to pack my computer and we head to the Mac store in the city centre.

The guy at the store wasn't really able to help me out but offers to check the hard drive and all that jazz for 60 Euros.

60 Euros is a bit steep for someone who's going to just end up doing the same things that i did. I'm not keen on the idea of leaving my baby with him for 4 days and on top of that, there's no guarantee that he'll even fix it.

So instead i buy 1GB of RAM for 25 Euros and hope that will help with the lag i've been having and crossed my fingers, hoping to find the source of the problem.

I go to bed with an even bigger headache. Why does CS4 hate me!?

...

Then this morning i decide to uninstall CS4 Illustrator [only after having deactivated it and clicking the box to erase the serial number]. And then after reinstalling it, the bloody thing crashes at start up!

I'm thinking, Oh shit. I broke it. Sticky fingers, now look what you've done!


I read there was a font called Zebra that was responsible for programs to crash and what do you know, i found that sneaky little bastard tucked away nicely in my Font Book. I immediately deactivated and removed it.

I then decide to deactivate all 500+ fonts and like magic...

ILLUSTRATOR WORKS!

I swear i heard the gates of heaven flung open and sweet angels playing their harps. So i decide to painstakingly go through my font book and manually add each font back and validate each one. A real pain in the arse but i know it has to be done. And any font that crashes the program, i then can blame.


Turns out there was a corrupted font. The bastard font that is responsible for my misery for the last 24 hours is a free font called Snappy Service. I can't even remember when i downloaded it.

Hours of my life that i'll never get back and are gone forever!

So word of advice for anyone using CS4, should you have issues with the program crashing on you, i suggest checking your fonts and seeing if any are corrupted.