Question

Missing Fonts Issue

Forum|Forum|9 hours ago
May 28, 2026
3 replies
20 views

Rich Dean
New Member

Everything was working absolutely fine yesterday, but when I started work today, I now have an issue where I can’t edit any of the text layers in my project.

If I double click within the text to edit it, I get a ‘missing fonts’ popup where it asks me to relink the fonts. I do this, but it doesn’t take effect - it just keeps looping the same thing whenever I try to edit any text.

I’m on a MacBook Air running Tahoe 26.5, and I’m getting the same issue on both the desktop app and the browser version.

The fonts in question are Avenir, which is a Mac system default font, and Font Awesome Pro Plus 7.2.0, which I’ve purchased, but when I try and choose other fonts, some (but not all) are also affected, for example, Gill Sans, which is also a system default installed font.

I’ve tried deleting and reinstalling Figma, and I’ve also tried the same fonts in other apps like Textedit and Microsoft Word, and the fonts work fine in those apps, so this is definitely a Figma-specific issue.

At the moment, I can’t use these fonts and I’m having to update all my font styles to use other system fonts that look very similar, but that’s not a long-term solution. The client project I’m working on requires Avenir as their brand font, so this needs fixing ASAP.

I’m a freelancer and I’ve just wasted nearly two hours of my working day trying to figure out why the fonts that worked perfectly fine only yesterday, now don’t. This is clearly a Figma issue, perhaps related to an overnight update that wasn’t properly tested, but please can you fix this!

Gayani_S
Community Support
Forum|Forum|5 hours ago
May 28, 2026

Hey Rich, thanks for reaching out and for the detail you've already shared!

A few things worth trying:

Check Font Book for duplicates or conflicts. Open Font Book (Applications > Font Book), search for Avenir and Gill Sans, and look for any entries flagged with a yellow warning dot. If there are duplicates, resolve them (right click > Resolve Duplicates). A conflict here can stop Figma from reading the font correctly even though it works fine elsewhere.
Validate the fonts in Font Book. Select the font, then go to File > Validate Font. If anything comes back with a warning or fail, try removing and reinstalling the font from a clean source.
For Font Awesome Pro specifically, check that the exact version installed matches what was originally used in your file. Figma is sensitive to version differences, and even a minor update to a purchased font can trigger the missing font loop.
Check your macOS Tahoe privacy permissions for Figma. Go to System Settings > Privacy and Security > Full Disk Access and make sure Figma and FigmaFontHelper are both listed and enabled. On Tahoe, tightened permissions can silently block font access.
Reinstall the Figma Font Helper. Even on the desktop app, the font helper can get out of sync after an OS update. You can find the latest version and reinstallation steps in Troubleshoot the Figma Font installer.

A couple of other Help Center articles that are worth checking:

Missing font alert in Figma Design covers the full picture of why missing font alerts appear and how to resolve them
Add a font to Figma Design walks through making sure fonts are correctly installed and visible to Figma

Let me know how you get on, happy to help further!

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Rich Dean
Author
New Member
Forum|Forum|4 hours ago
May 28, 2026

Hi @Gayani_S thanks for your response, but unfortunately this hasn’t resolved it.

In answer to your points:

I’ve checked in Font Book and there are no duplicate versions of any of the affected fonts. No warnings etc.
I’ve also validated the fond and get the green tick, so no issues there.
For Font Awesome Pro, and indeed all the fonts, nothing has changed since yesterday. They were all working fine then, but something has changed overnight.
I’ve checked the MacOS privacy settings. Initially, neither Figma or FigmaFontHelper were on the list of allowed apps. I was able to add and enable the main Figma app, but I couldn’t locate FigmaFontHelper to add that as its not in the applications folder that the Full Disk Access setting allows you to access.
I’ve reinstalled the Figma Font Helper multiple times today, but it still doesn’t resolve it.

From checking further, this is actually affecting many fonts from other design files for other client projects, i.e., when I open other Figma projects from the last few days/weeks, they all seem to be affected, for other fonts too.

From just trying again, I went through this process:

First, I tried again to relink what Figma thinks are the missing fonts in the desktop app, but it still doesn’t work:

I then tried the web browser version in Chrome, but here, it wouldn’t even allow me to select Avenir from the list of fonts - it wasn’t in the list:

I then followed the blue link below to install the font installer again. I already have the desktop app and that’s working fine, so I just installed the font installer. Once that was installed, I went to try and connect:

But then I got an error saying that it thinks the font installer and desktop app aren’t running, so it couldn’t connect. But both definitely are:

I even opened Figma’s settings and got the following:

So the fact that Figma won’t load these fonts, and browser version can’t connect to either the font installer or the desktop app, feels like it’s related.

Something has definitely changed overnight, and this is definitely a Figma-specific issue, but please can you look into this further, as I’m having to use a hacky workaround whereby I’m having to use another font that looks similar to Avenir for the parts that I need to edit, but that’s not a long-term solution, and to be honest, I moved over to Figma from Sketch over a year ago, have been very impressed so far, but this is majorly putting me off, and if I can’t make basic text edits, I may need to consider whether I keep using Figma.