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when I type the number 9, the underscore (dash) symbol appears

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when I type the number 9, the underscore symbol appears. The underscore symbol also replaces the number 9 in websites: ex: 2019 Season will read 201_ Season

I noticed this a few days ago when I checked the balance on one of my accouts. The number 9 was replaced by an underscore symbol.

I have no idea how or why this suddenly happened.

Help!

when I type the number 9, the underscore symbol appears. The underscore symbol also replaces the number 9 in websites: ex: 2019 Season will read 201_ Season I noticed this a few days ago when I checked the balance on one of my accouts. The number 9 was replaced by an underscore symbol. I have no idea how or why this suddenly happened. Help!

Modified by cor-el

All Replies (10)

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Hi instepdrive,

Does your keyboard still give you the same output for other web browsers or is it just Firefox?

Can you use the 9 key in any other text file?

It's possible that the keyboard layout is configured in a different language.

To check the settings :

  1. Click on the Apple menu and then System Preferences….
  2. Click on Keyboard.
  3. Click on Input Sources tab at the top of the dialog box.
  4. Click on + .
  5. Click on a language.
  6. Click on the keyboard language that matches your own
  7. Click on Add.

You could try booting up in Safe Mode with Firefox to see if the issues go away :

  1. Click the menu '3-bar'.
  2. Click Help (towards the bottom).
  3. Click Restart with Add-ons Disabled....
  4. Click Restart.
  5. When given the choice, click Start in Safe Mode.

You could try to clear your cache in your web browser.

To do this :

1 Click the hamburger 3-bar menu in the top right of your web browser 2 On the left-side panel click Privacy & Security 3 Under Cookies and Site Data

Warning! Clearing all cookies and site data stored by Nightly may sign you out of websites and remove offline web content. Clearing cache data will not affect your logins.

4 Click Clear Data... 5 Check mark Cookies and Site Data 6 Check mark Cached Web Content 7 Click Clear

You also try restarting your Mac in safe mode by holding SHIFT R on reboot to see if it is an issue with the Operating System. To leave Safe Mode just restart again without holding any keys.

Hope this helps narrow it down!

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Correction: the underscore symbol is actually a long dash symbol.

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Sounds like a problem with the font that is used.

You can check in the Rules tab in the right panel in the Inspector what font-family is used for selected text. You can check in the Font tab in the right panel in the Inspector what font is actually used because Firefox might be using a different font than specified by the website.

You can check in Font Book for font issues like corrupted and duplicate fonts.

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instepdrive said

Correction: the underscore symbol is actually a long dash symbol.

Hello instepdrive,

In addition to cor-el's post :

Others have reported that duplicate copies of Helvetica (like Helvetica Regular and Helvetica Bold) caused the problem .....

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If there are issues with Helvetica fonts then this is usually about the Windows platform where you need to install Helvetica if you want to use it and a lot of these fonts are damaged. On Mac Helvetica is a builtin installed system font and issues shouldn't happen. More likely is a problem with a user installed font that is used by default.

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^ The "others" I mentioned, were on Windows as well as on Mac ....

Just might be the same font that's causing the problem here - worth checking.

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Switching from Helvetica to Arial solved the problem with my Xfinity email compositions.

However, the long dash still appears with some websites like this: 201- Women's Soccer Roster

However 2, when I copied 201- Women's Soccer Roster to this reply, it appeared correctly: 2019 Women's Soccer Roster

???

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It seems the problem exits only in Firefox. Text Edit and Safari worked correctly.

BTW - my iPhone Xfinity email works correctly using Safari.

Thanks to all of you for your help!

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'Been searching some more and came across a lot of the same reports, on other browsers as well, except for ...... Safari. (same problem is reported on on Linux, not just Mac and Windows)

Helvetica keeps coming up as the culprit, but someone suggested it might be an extension - seems unlikely, but have you tried Safe Mode yet, as suggested by WMagicModel ? Worth a try ....

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instepdrive said

Switching from Helvetica to Arial solved the problem with my Xfinity email compositions. However, the long dash still appears with some websites like this: 201- Women's Soccer Roster

Hi instepdrive, in case you didn't already try this in the past two weeks, how about replacing your other default fonts with TrueType fonts for testing? Here's how:

Open the Preferences page:

  • Mac: "3-bar" menu button (or Firefox menu) > Preferences
  • Windows: "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Options
  • Linux: "3-bar" menu button (or Edit menu) > Preferences
  • Any system: type or paste about:preferences into the address bar and press Enter/Return to load it

Scroll down to the Language and Appearance section, and click the Advanced... button. This should open the Fonts dialog.

(1) Select the Latin character set

Near the top there is a character set selector. Latin is used for pages in English.

(2) Change the fonts to basic TrueType fonts

Your computer may have a diverse range of fonts, from the ones supplied with the system to ones you've added individually or through other software packages. Firefox may work most reliably with the built-in system fonts.

  • Serif - Change from Times or Times Roman (or other serif font) to Times New Roman
  • Sans-serif - Change from Helvetica (or other sans-serif font) to Arial
  • Monospace - Change from Courier (or other fixed-pitch font) to Courier New

(3) Repeat #1 and #2 with the "Other Writing Systems" character set

(4) Click OK to save changes

Any difference on the problem sites?

Screenshot for reference: