macOS 14.3 Sonoma Text Display Bug to Be Fixed Soon
Many people are reporting weird text display problems with various apps in macOS 14.3, most notably Apple’s Mail, Notes, and Safari, but also third-party apps that rely on WebKit, including Mimestream and MarsEdit. Words or entire lines will seem to disappear and reappear, jump around, or overwrite other text.
Although the problem is disconcerting, it’s only cosmetic—the actual text isn’t changing. Any action that causes the window to be redrawn—resizing, switching to another window and back, closing and reopening—will likely return the affected text to its correct state.
I’ve learned that the bug has been fixed in WebKit, so it’s just a matter of Apple integrating the fix into an update to Sonoma. I don’t know whether that will be macOS 14.3.1 or macOS 14.4, or when it will appear, but it shouldn’t be long. The release schedule may also depend on Apple’s need to address newly discovered vulnerabilities in an upcoming security update. Regardless, sit tight, and we’ll have a fix soon.
Am I seeing the bug or a typo?
" Many people are reporting weird text display problems with various apps in macOS 1.3,…"
Doh! Fixed…
I actually saw this same problem while typing and editing an email on my iPhone last night! So it’s not just on macOS.
(iPhone 15 Pro on iOS 17.3)
I’ve been experiencing this in Mail. Hope the fix arrives soon!
Just this morning, I had several messages that were completely blank in the iPhone Gmail app, but after I switched apps and fiddled around a bit, rendered properly. I wonder if that’s another instance of this bug.
iOS 17.3.1 appeared today February 8 to provide the bug fix.
Also iPadOS 17.3.1, macOS Sonoma 14.3.1 and watchOS 10,3.1.
Couple interesting things here.
This bug has been here since 17.0 and 14.0. Noticed it right away.
The text is changing. I’ve noticed it on forum posts. If I don’t notice the changed text and hit space a few times to get it to change back, if I hit post, it posts the messed up text.
Also I have the Apple Releases RSS feed subscribed and it never updates in a timely way. I found out from the forum post above that this has been randomly noticed and fixed today. Wish they’d update that, I don’t know how else people find out so fast.
What a weird one to stick around for so long only to be fixed in a point release on a random Thursday.