Google Chrome bug: default browser font displaying Hanzi as boxes

[Demonic_Duck]

I've been experiencing a problem with the Google Chrome default font recently (the one used for tabs and bookmarks), in that it's displaying Hanzi as boxes. Most other special characters (Cyrillic and Greek among others) remain unaffected. I'm not sure what's caused this bug - the only thing I can think of is that I recently installed the "Zhongwen Chinese Popup Dictionary" Chrome app. I also use Google pinyin IME, but I've been using that for a while now without any issues.

Example:

Can anyone help me?

[Daan]

Have you tried uninstalling that Chrome app?

[Jose]

This has been bugging me for a few months now too. As far as I've investigated, it doesn't seem to be related to Google Chrome, but to how Windows manages the default font for the more basic text rendering capabilities. If I open up Notepad and type (or paste) some Chinese text, it also appears as square blocks. And the same happens on the file explorer windows. And if I rename a file on the desktop using a Chinese name, the text appears as boxes too.

I first had this problem last Summer (July or August, I don't remember), probably after some software update. After searching for a solution on the Internet I've only been able to find temporary solutions that seem to work for some time until at some point the East Asian characters disappear again. I posted this question on a Microsoft forum, and have finally found a solution that has worked for the last 24 hours. It consists in performing a clean boot by disabling all non-essential services and programs that run on start-up. This Microsoft page (step 1) explains the details. After doing that and rebooting, the Chinese characters came back to my desktop, Notepad and the Chrome bookmarks. After that, I restored the normal start-up settings, rebooted several times, and the problem seems to have gone away.

However, I've seen this issue disappear and then reappear before, so I wouldn't be surprised if it comes back. I'm inclined to think that there must be some scheduled task that kicks in at some time and wreaks havoc in the Windows font settings, but I have no idea what it may be.

[Demonic_Duck]

Yes, it appears you're right Jose, as I have the same problem in Notepad (but not Word). My guess is that what's broken is the "rendering support" (is that the right word?) for Hanzi. I guess Word uses its own rendering support and that's why it doesn't suffer from the same problem. I tried doing a clean boot and it seemed to have fixed the problem for a while, but now it seems that it's only fixed the problem half the time (i.e. every time I reboot, I don't know whether or not the Hanzi will be displayed properly).

I'm also suspecting, correctly or incorrectly, that it may be something to do with a process called "dldwamon.exe". Every time I log in, I get an error message from it saying "required system software not installed: Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0 is required to continue", even though I have Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0.

[jbradfor]

"required system software not installed: Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0 is required to continue", even though I have Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0.

Have you tried installing .NET 2.0 as well?

[Demonic_Duck]

If I try doing that, it just tells me it's already installed.

[Jose]

I don't have that "dldwamon.exe" process or any .NET Framework problems I'm aware of, so I don't think it's related to that.

Something I didn't mention in my previous post is that the computer I'm using is a Mac Mini, where I have both Windows 7 and Mac OS X. I wonder if it could have to do with the dual boot system. Anyway, I'm not too worried about this now since characters have remained visible since I did the clean boot thing. But based on previous experiences I wouldn't be surprised if the problem reappears at any time.

[Demonic_Duck]

Okay, so I tried the clean boot thing, and it didn't seem to solve it at all.

Now I've just purchased a new laptop, and am having exactly the same problem all over again! Sometimes it's not a problem, and sometimes it is, I have no way of telling whether or not it will be when I boot up. So it must either be something wrong with Windows 7, or some piece of software that I've downloaded onto both laptops.