The VideoLAN Forums

I just installed VLC 1.0.0 and when I went to play my first video a dialogue box came up saying it was rebuilding my font cache but it's permanently stuck at 20%. It comes up every time I try to play anything and the video doesn't start. Any suggestions?

Delete %appdata%/vlc folder.

Is your video file a mkv with .ssa subtitle?

I have the same problem. I attempted to play an .mkv file but it gets stuck at Building Font Cache 20%. I assume the file does have .ssa subtitles but not particularly sure. Will vlc 1.0.0 not be able to play it? The older versions were able to.

Yes, just wait for the dialog to close. It can take some time.

Is your video file a mkv with .ssa subtitle?

I have just encountered a somewhat similar behaviour (except that in my case the "rebuilding" ended finally after a looong waiting) when I wanted to play a mmsh stream. Essetntially I sent a stream from my home computer (DirectShow, USB camera) that I played to my laptop at my office.

What has any font to do with my stream ?

(VLC 0.8.6i / WinXP at sending, VLC 1.1.0 rc2 nightly build / WinVista at receiving)

Cristi

VLC shouldn't rebuild font cache if the file/stream doesn't contain subtitles.

The only thing I can say is that it does.

I checked right now, on my home network: I enabled again the USB camera on my desktop computer as described above (mmsh protocol); on my laptop I deleted first the user VLC directory entirely (being on Vista, that was on C:\Users\secarica\AppData\Roaming), then I launched VLC which now started with the privacy policy dialog; when tried to play the mmsh stream, the font cache directory appeared; it took 25 seconds to disappear, after which finally my stream was displayed.

Cristi

I'm having a similar problem. Every time I try to open a video (subtitled or not) it tells me that it is rebuilding my font cache. It takes several minutes and it has no indication of progress. It eventually builds the required cache and plays the video, but I don't want to wait 3 or 4 minutes before playing a video every time I want to watch something.

I am also having the same problem that it is asking to rebuild font cache every time I run vlc, and that takes 4-5 minutes. I am fed up with it.

These are normal dvd or disc video files and there is no subtitle in them.

How do I stop it from building font cache?

Thanks.

I am still having the problem too, VLC 1.1.5 now.

I am still having the problem too, VLC 1.1.5 now.

Yes, it is still broken for some people.

is there any workaround, or does anyone even know the source of the problem?

Issue is related to fontconfig (wrong folder search + too many subtitle files/broken subtitle files). Easy fix is to disable subtitles completely (set default text renderer to dummy).

Hi, The "Font Cache" popup appears quite frequently on my Windows system (running VLC 1.1.5). I have .txt with the same names as the video files - could that be a cause of this? VLC mistaking them for subtitle files and therefore activating the font cache component (whatever that does)?

I use subtitle files sometimes but very rarely. Is there some easy way to toggle all things subtitle on/off in VLC and thereby preventing all such "font cache" popups?

More specifically, is it possible to filter what file extensions VLC looks for as potential subtitle files? I want to filter out .txt files.

I also wonder why the "font cache" delay is needed at all? Why is it that everything else in VLC must wait for the font cache? Why can't the video start rolling and the subtitle track (if found) can "catch up" once the font cache is rebuilt in the background?

I have .txt with the same names as the video files - could that be a cause of this?

Yes, any subtitle activity (including OSD text) can trigger this.

Is there some easy way to toggle all things subtitle on/off in VLC and thereby preventing all such "font cache" popups?

Dummy font renderer is ATM only option.

More specifically, is it possible to filter what file extensions VLC looks for as potential subtitle files? I want to filter out .txt files.

This requires VLC code changes. .txt is removed in VLC 1.1.6

Thanks. If anyone else is looking, here is the path to the setting in question:
tools > preferences (toggle advanced preferences on) > video > Subtitles: Text rendering module: Dummy font

Why doesn't anybody mention about the downside of this setting? The downside, as far as i've noticed is that the subtitle files wont be rendered (text visibility) once loaded with movie file or dragged into movie window after movie started. It happens with .srt files...I dont know about the other formats, but since i dont see the connection, i presume it happens the same thing. My VLC version is 1.1.7 (Win7)

Yes please fix this --please stay polite-- error

One shouldn't have to wait five minutes just to get subtitles on a video

Try 1.2.0 from Nightly Build of VLC

Sorry to gravedig, but I'm experiencing a similar problem.

I'll try to open a .mkv file with subtitles, and the 'rebuilding font cache' dialog will open, getting stuck at 20%. But it won't go away; I left it for half an hour just now. And not only that, but the longer I leave it alone, the more it sinks its teeth into my system. Streaming media like music will start to skip, Firefox will cycle through periods of usability and lengthening periods of unresponsiveness, and in general, the system slows down to the point of insanity. I'm using a gaming laptop: 1.6Ghz oct-core, 8 gigs of DDR3 RAM, 1 gig video memory. Nothing should slow it down like that.

Anyway, at that point, I can tell VLC to cancel rebuilding and close it down, but my computer will continue to lock up. I then have to go into the task manager and tell it to terminate vlc.exe, and it says it's done so... but the process remains for several minutes before actually closing down and returning my computer to normal.

I was using the latest official release of VLC, and I updated to today's nightly just to make sure... and the problem persisted.

I tried putting a dummy font into the text rendering module like suggested earlier in the thread, but it'd just switch to a default Microsoft font anyway. Besides, disabling subtitles here isn't an option... the audio stream's in Japanese XD

Any suggestions?

It means a font is blocking fontconfig. Except removing that font, or removing the libass plugin, There is not much you can do.