Font Activation Issue on M1 Pro – Works Only via Rosetta

Questions
1

Hello FontBase team,

First of all, thank you for developing FontBase — it’s been my go-to solution ever since FontExplorer X was discontinued.

I’ve tested the app on multiple machines, including my M3 Pro and a test client MacBook Air, and everything worked as expected. However, when deploying FontBase on an M1 Pro Mac, I encountered an issue where fonts could not be activated properly.

Sometimes the UI showed the fonts as active, but they weren’t available in applications like Microsoft Word or Adobe InDesign.

Here’s what I tried:

  • Verified file permissions
  • Reinstalled the app and cleared all caches
  • Checked font validity
  • Switched between local folders and OneDrive-synced folders
  • Removed spaces and symbols from font filenames

Unfortunately, none of these steps resolved the issue.

Solution: I enabled “Open using Rosetta” on the FontBase app, and font activation started working immediately on the M1 Pro.

What surprised me is that the .dmg file appears to include both the arm64 and x86_64 binaries. Shouldn’t there usually be separate installers for different architectures?

Also, why would the ARM-native version fail to activate fonts while the Intel version under Rosetta works?

I’d be happy to provide logs if that helps — and I’m curious:

  • Is this a known issue?
  • Are separate installers planned?
  • Could this be related to the version difference between the M1 (running 2.21.0) and the Air (running 2.22.4)?

Looking forward to your insights.

Best regards,

~ Gr0undEveres1T

2

Hello @Gr0undEveres1T, thank you for your post and welcome to the forum :pray:
And a separate thank you for the details you’ve provided.
Before going any further, may I ask if the situation on M1 Pro is the same with FontBase v.2.22.4 and whether there is a specific reason to keep v.2.21.0 in this case?

Thank you again,