Why is my Windows 10 system replacing system font (typically a sans-serif like Arial) with another typeface?

Question

This problem occurred after an update from Windows 8 to Windows 10.

Several different apps (shown are Carbonite Backup, and Atlassian SourceTree) have replaced a standard sans-serif font (I think Tahoma?) with this stylized font.

I have seen this before, on a different machine a long time ago, even back to Windows 7 and previous versions, and so I thought perhaps a standard font file was overwritten, or corrupted?

Any ideas? I do have many commercial and freeware fonts installed on my system (1,577 total).

UPDATE: I have checked the default system fonts (Arial, Tahoma, Verdana) in Windows Fonts control panel, and they are not corrupt, displaying correctly.

UPDATE: The font being displayed appears to be Jungle LIFE.

Solution 1

I was able to resolve the issue by:

1. Matching the font being displayed to a font in Windows Fonts

2. Deleting the font by right-clicking in Windows Fonts and choosing "Delete".

I still don't have any explanation for why this font would have been substituted for or mapped to the default font.

Solution 2

Some incorrectly written fonts will map over other fonts, like Arial.ttf.

FIX: If you are in Windows 10, there are no fonts older than 1/26/2012 installed by default. Find all fonts older than this date, and delete them while Chrome or any other application with font problems is open. The font causing the problem (taking over Arial.ttf) will not be able to be deleted until Chrome, etc. is closed. Restore the fonts you just deleted except for the font that wouldn't let you delete it. If the problem is still not solved, try again. I was able to fix my pc, and many others using this method, and this method only, other than a clean install with no additional fonts installed afterwards.