Corrupt fontTable.xml with U+FDFD [ ﷽ ] repeated over and over

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the clarification, since uninstalling all the custom fonts can solve the problem, there may be some problems with one or more custom fonts.

To identify the problematic fonts, if don’t mind, you can reinstall them one-by-one, and after each installation, check whether the problem will reappear.

Best regards,

Arck

Hi Jim,

Thanks for helping me out.

Firstly, I have used Font Book to validate as well as FontDoctor and others and the fonts appear to be clean/okay.

However, following your suggestion I just uninstalled all custom fonts on my Mac and tried opening the test document described in my reply to Arck... and lo and behold! The document DOES NOT CRASH if EITHER the custom fonts are uninstalled OR the soft/optional hyphens are removed. This seems curios to me. How might the font be interpreting the soft hyphens incorrectly and causing Word to crash, I wonder. Any thoughts?

I have also found two "suspicious" elements in the problematic files that might be malware.

1. A customXml folder that I'm not sure what it does or why it's there. "item1.xml" has the following code, for example:
   1. <?xml version="1.0" standalone="no"?><b:Sources xmlns:b="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/bibliography" xmlns="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/bibliography" SelectedStyle="/APASixthEditionOfficeOnline.xsl" StyleName="APA" Version="6"></b:Sources>
2. A TemporaryItems folder with a sub-folder named "msohtmlclip" (which some googling has suggested might be associated with MS malware).

Hi Arck,

Thanks for getting back to me.

I've continued to troubleshoot, and it now looks as though there are two separate issues. I thought the possible malware was causing the crashing, but after years of crashing issues with my ongoing novel documents I FINALLY FOUND THE POSSIBLE CULPRIT—some soft/optional hyphens. If I do a Find and Replace/Delete the doc no longer crashes. This has caused countless hours of frustration and lost work whenever Word would crash. Here is the code from the document.xml that always crashes Word (below after text).

Regarding the corrupting fontTable.xml, even a new blank document opened with no custom fonts with a clean install can exhibit the corruption like this:

<w:font w:name="Monaco"><w:altName w:val="﷽﷽﷽﷽﷽﷽﷽.docx"/>

Example document.xml that always crashes:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?> <w:document xmlns:wpc="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordprocessingCanvas" xmlns:mo="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/mac/office/2008/main" xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006" xmlns:mv="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:mac:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:r="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships" xmlns:m="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/math" xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:wp14="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordprocessingDrawing" xmlns:wp="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/wordprocessingDrawing" xmlns:w10="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:w="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main" xmlns:w14="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordml" xmlns:w15="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2012/wordml" xmlns:wpg="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordprocessingGroup" xmlns:wpi="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordprocessingInk" xmlns:wne="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2006/wordml" xmlns:wps="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2010/wordprocessingShape" mc:Ignorable="w14 w15 wp14"><w:body><w:p w14:paraId="6F0D276A" w14:textId="4AEA2341" w:rsidR="00523241" w:rsidRDefault="00523241" w:rsidP="00AC4CD5"><w:r><w:t xml:space="preserve">“And then, the High </w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellStart"/><w:r><w:t>Ĕlvăn</w:t></w:r><w:bookmarkStart w:id="0" w:name="_GoBack"/><w:bookmarkEnd w:id="0"/><w:proofErr w:type="spellEnd"/><w:r><w:t xml:space="preserve"> king, </w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellStart"/><w:r><w:t>Fĕrimŭs</w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellEnd"/><w:r><w:t xml:space="preserve"> the Fair, named the sword,</w:t></w:r><w:r w:rsidRPr="00A86AC1"><w:t xml:space="preserve"> </w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellStart"/><w:r w:rsidRPr="00A86AC1"><w:rPr><w:rStyle w:val="HELightItalics"/></w:rPr><w:t>Ĕrĭg-Srēng</w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellEnd"/><w:r w:rsidRPr="00A86AC1"><w:rPr><w:rStyle w:val="HELightItalics"/></w:rPr><w:t xml:space="preserve">, </w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellStart"/><w:r w:rsidRPr="00A86AC1"><w:rPr><w:rStyle w:val="HELightItalics"/></w:rPr><w:t>Lē</w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellEnd"/><w:r w:rsidRPr="00A86AC1"><w:rPr><w:rStyle w:val="HELightItalics"/></w:rPr><w:t xml:space="preserve"> </w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellStart"/><w:r w:rsidRPr="00A86AC1"><w:rPr><w:rStyle w:val="HELightItalics"/></w:rPr><w:t>Mĭst-Srēng</w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellEnd"/><w:r w:rsidRPr="00A86AC1"><w:rPr><w:rStyle w:val="FootnoteReference"/><w:i/><w:iCs/></w:rPr><w:t xml:space="preserve"> </w:t></w:r><w:r w:rsidRPr="002A2DF2"><w:rPr><w:rStyle w:val="FootnoteReference"/><w:i/><w:iCs/></w:rPr><w:footnoteReference w:customMarkFollows="1" w:id="2"/><w:sym w:font="Symbol" w:char="F054"/></w:r><w:r><w:t xml:space="preserve"> the Magic Sword!” (</w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellStart"/><w:r><w:t>Rüneglaive</w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellEnd"/><w:r><w:t xml:space="preserve">, </w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellStart"/><w:r><w:t>Xärgōn</w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellEnd"/><w:r><w:t xml:space="preserve"> knew its name to be, in the Common Tongue; but he did not tell this to </w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellStart"/><w:r><w:t>Mītăk</w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellEnd"/><w:r><w:t xml:space="preserve">, at that time.) “And he presented the sword to </w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellStart"/><w:r><w:t>Hērōmĕr</w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellEnd"/><w:r><w:t xml:space="preserve">, who held it aloft and, in doing so, united the armies of </w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellStart"/><w:r w:rsidRPr="007710E1"><w:rPr><w:rStyle w:val="HELightItalics"/></w:rPr><w:t>Ĕstĕr</w:t></w:r><w:r w:rsidRPr="007710E1"><w:rPr><w:rStyle w:val="HELightItalics"/></w:rPr><w:softHyphen/><w:t>ēa</w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellEnd"/><w:r w:rsidRPr="007710E1"><w:rPr><w:rStyle w:val="HELightItalics"/></w:rPr><w:t>,</w:t></w:r><w:r><w:t xml:space="preserve"> </w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellStart"/><w:r w:rsidRPr="007710E1"><w:rPr><w:rStyle w:val="LDsmallcaps"/></w:rPr><w:t>Fhĕlhds</w:t></w:r><w:r w:rsidRPr="007710E1"><w:rPr><w:rStyle w:val="LDsmallcaps"/></w:rPr><w:softHyphen/><w:t>fhär</w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellEnd"/><w:r w:rsidRPr="007710E1"><w:rPr><w:rStyle w:val="LDsmallcaps"/></w:rPr><w:t>,</w:t></w:r><w:r><w:t xml:space="preserve"> West </w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellStart"/><w:r><w:t>Quartershīre</w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellEnd"/><w:r><w:t xml:space="preserve">, the Forgotten Realm, </w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellStart"/><w:r><w:t>Asärē</w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellEnd"/><w:r><w:t xml:space="preserve">, and </w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellStart"/><w:r><w:t>Asävō</w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellEnd"/><w:r><w:t xml:space="preserve"> under one sword; and they followed him into battle against </w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellStart"/><w:r><w:t>Sĕthtōn</w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellEnd"/><w:r><w:t xml:space="preserve"> and his heathen followers.”</w:t></w:r></w:p><w:p w14:paraId="66AE0F82" w14:textId="2F14EB2C" w:rsidR="00A43492" w:rsidRPr="00590BB1" w:rsidRDefault="00523241" w:rsidP="00A43492"><w:r><w:t xml:space="preserve">“I wish I could have seen that great </w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellStart"/><w:r><w:t>whinyard</w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellEnd"/><w:r><w:t xml:space="preserve"> in the painting,” said </w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellStart"/><w:r><w:t>Mītăk</w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellEnd"/><w:r><w:t xml:space="preserve">, at that point. “I deem ’twas on the plank that broke loose in the sand storm. Did you notice? </w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellStart"/><w:r><w:t>Hērōmĕr</w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellEnd"/><w:r><w:t xml:space="preserve"> had his right arm aloft as though brandishing a sword; but the hand—and, I suppose, the sword—were missing. I would have liked to compare the Magic Sword with </w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellStart"/><w:r><w:t>Rüneglaive</w:t></w:r><w:proofErr w:type="spellEnd"/><w:r><w:t xml:space="preserve">; for they sound </w:t></w:r></w:p><w:p w14:paraId="2AD0857B" w14:textId="1AE84BA8" w:rsidR="0014087D" w:rsidRPr="00590BB1" w:rsidRDefault="0014087D" w:rsidP="00FE5286"/><w:sectPr w:rsidR="0014087D" w:rsidRPr="00590BB1" w:rsidSect="006F4EBB"><w:headerReference w:type="default" r:id="rId7"/><w:footnotePr><w:numFmt w:val="lowerLetter"/></w:footnotePr><w:endnotePr><w:numFmt w:val="decimal"/></w:endnotePr><w:type w:val="oddPage"/><w:pgSz w:w="8641" w:h="12962"/><w:pgMar w:top="578" w:right="578" w:bottom="578" w:left="862" w:header="142" w:footer="0" w:gutter="0"/><w:pgNumType w:fmt="upperRoman" w:start="1"/><w:cols w:space="720"/><w:titlePg/><w:docGrid w:type="lines" w:linePitch="302"/></w:sectPr></w:body></w:document>

Hi Michael,

Your troubleshooting skills are award winning!

We can pretty much rule out your install of Word as a cause of the crashes. After all, you've uninstalled and reinstalled and tried many versions of Word with the same result.

Now all we have to do is figure out what these crashes have in common. It would seem the likely place to start is with your fonts. Have you noticed a pattern regarding certain fonts in your troubleshooting? Is the crash related to particular fonts? Have you used Font Book application to validate all your fonts? Do you use a third party font utility?

Hi Michael,

Thanks for using Microsoft products and posting in the community, I'm glad to offer help.

According to your description, it seems that only certain documents will cause Word to crash, if that is the case, please try to save the documents to your OneDrive, and open it via Word Web App, then download it as a new copy to check the outcome.

If the problem affects all documents including the newly created ones, considering that you have tried reinstalling Office, please try to create a new user profile to if the problem persists: Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac

Besides, could you please help check if there are any problems with other Office apps? Your understanding and cooperation will be highly appreciated, and if I have any misunderstanding of your situation, please feel free to let me know.

Looking forward to your feedback.

Best Regards,

Arck