I’m having recent trouble opening UFO files in Glyphs

Glyphs
1

I often find Glyphs very helpful for quickly editing UFO font sources, even when I want to keep those sources as UFOs, for a given project. For example, Glyphs is very good at scaling a font’s UPM, and taking care of all the edge cases (coordinates, metrics, kerning, etc).

I mostly edit Glyphs documents in Glyphs, and UFOs in RoboFont or via scripting, but I do open UFOs a couple times a week in Glyphs.

However, within the past few days, I’ve been unable to open UFO files in Glyphs, but only on a specific computer – when I airdrop them to another computer, they will open there, without issue.

I can’t remember what specific update or change may have prompted this. Maybe it happened when I tried to open a UFO version 2? I am now trying to open a UFO v3, and it’s still silently failing.

  • I’ve tried to do this in both Glyphs beta (3.5 (3506)) and in the latest stable version (3.4.1 (3436)), and I’m experiencing the problem in both places. The same UFO will open in 3.4.1 on a different computer, though.
  • I’m running macOS 14.4 (23E214).
  • I’ve tried disabling all plugins (just by editing the Plugins folder name – is this sufficient, or is there a better way, without having to redownload them all again later?)

What else might I do to debug this? I’ll send over a UFO via email, if that is helpful.

Any advice or info is appreciated!

I’ll post more in this thread, if I learn more.

2

Please send the .ufo.
And what actually happens? Is it not opening at all? Do you get an error?

3

I have the same issue since yesterday.
The same ufos were used to create a glyphs source that I am using now.
Yesterday I tried to open the ufos and they would not open.
No error message (no pop up, nothing in the macro panel). Also when I use File > Open … the ufos are greyed out and cannot be selected. Same when I right click on the ufos, Glyphs is not in the list of apps that I can open them with anymore.

Glyphs version I used to create the glyphs source out of the ufos was 3343, I also updated to the most recent cutting edge and have the same problem there.

I’ll put the ufos in a git issue for you to look at.

Thanks in advance.

4

Do you have the latest beta version of Robofont installed? It has an invalid document definition for ufo. I’m in contact with Frederik to solve this.

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I do, just uninstalled, restarted and now it works again.
Thanks for the quick turn around!

Out of curiosity, what does the beta do to have such an effect on another app? I haven’t opened them in RF to be certain the files were not compromised.

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@ddaanniiieeelll thanks for joining the thread! Which app did you reinstall? RF or Glyphs?

@GeorgSeifert Ahhh interesting and makes sense that RF could define the UFO doc in a way that prevented another app from opening it. But… why would those same UFO documents open and operate without issue, on a second computer, in the same version of Glyphs?

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I just axed the RF beta since I have an urgent glyphs based project on my desk right now and unfortunately no time to test which RF beta works.

I just uninstalled and restarted the machine to be safe :slight_smile:

8

If that other computer doesn’t have the RoboFont beta installed …
The problem is not with the .ufos. RF messes up how the ufo document type is registered in the system. So Glyphs doesn’t recognize the file type any more.

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OH, okay, that is unexpected, but makes more sense.

The UFO files on my affected computer do have icons that show a Fontra logo, rather than the usual UFO icon, so that is probably another side effect.

I now see the related thread Cannot read UFO files if macOS UTI is not “Unified Font Object” - #8 by GeorgSeifert .

I’ve tried installing an older RF beta, and even just the stable non-beta RF, and doing a computer restart, but I’m still unable to open UFOs in Glyphs.

Maybe it is also partially due to Fontra? My UFO icons have returned to normal, but possibly the UTI is still mixed up.

10

Sorry, I forgot about that: my ufos also had the fontra logo. To be sure I also removed the fontra package from my machine.

So Fontra gone and RF beta gone made glyphs open ufos again for me.

1 Like
11

Okay, so I was finally able to solve this for me, after it being a frequent small inconvenience for too long. I’ll share some copious details, in case it helps someone else.

I do think that Fontra was probably what caused the issue, or at least part of the cause. Though, a strange thing is that I had downloaded Fontra probably months before I noticed the problem. I’ve also experimented with Fontra on another computer that never did have this issue, so who knows.

Previously, UFOs had a Fontra icon, and once I moved Fontra to my macOS Trash, the UFO icons went back to a generic UFO icons. However, I still couldn’t open them in GlyphsApp.

I downloaded various versions of both RoboFont and Glyphs, beta and stable, and did a bunch of computer restarts. No luck.

So, today, I dug around and found that lsregister -dump will output a log of info on what apps claim to open which filetypes, etc. (I actually had to find the lsregister executable directly in Finder, then put the full path into my Terminal.) In that huge log, I searched “.ufo,” and found that there was still an entry for Fontra Pak, despite the app path being in the macOS Trash.

So, I emptied my Trash, and restarted the computer. I made a super basic UFO in RoboFont (Version 4.5 (build 2410282152)), with one contour in glyph /A, and saved it. It finally had a proper UFO preview icon, which was good news. I opened this in GlyphsApp (3.5 (3512)), and it worked!

I can now also open up several other UFOs I’ve tested.

Phew!