Game's font/text is kinda broken, help!

[Acetaminophen]

I decided to redownload L4D2 because of the new update to play with some friends, and I'm greeted with this.

https://imgur.com/RssgkLg

https://imgur.com/SiyrQtE

Notice how in the console, the button to close it and the button to make the window bigger are replaced with letters. And in the add-ons menu, instead of checkmarks/boxes, it's the letter "b" and other stuff. Same thing seems to happen with some add-on descriptions where icons/symbols are replaced with letters. I've had this happened to me recently in Gmod, which I re-installed as well, having the crosshair appear as the letter "Q". I found out that in Gmod it's because there are some missing default fonts, which I can't get ahold of. No idea what could be causing it on L4D2.

I've already tried verifying cache and nothing worked. I'm on a Mac because i'm currently away from home but this has never happened to me before as I've played both Gmod and L4D2 on this machine.

[Sharpie The Dragon]

Most likely it's what you said with missing/corrupt default fonts. I had this issue before when messing around with Stubble.vfont, nothing fixed it until I had a friend restore the default.

I do have the default font for you if you want to download it.[drive.google.com] Put this in Steam\steamapps\common\Left 4 Dead 2\left4dead2\resource - Delete the old one you have.

If that doesn't work, it's some other font package that has been modified.

[Acetaminophen]

Originally posted by Sharpie The Dergun:

Most likely it's what you said with missing/corrupt default fonts. I had this issue before when messing around with Stubble.vfont, nothing fixed it until I had a friend restore the default.

I do have the default font for you if you want to download it.[drive.google.com] Put this in Steam\steamapps\common\Left 4 Dead 2\left4dead2\resource - Delete the old one you have.

If that doesn't work, it's some other font package that has been modified.

Nope, still broken, thanks for the file though. Is there any place where I could find these default game files? No idea how these got corrupted, as it's happened to me in 2 source games now, and I've tried playing with vanilla stuff and no add-ons and still.

[I am SCREAMING]

Bump. I found out you can copy marlett.tff from Steam, it can be found in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\resource\fonts (usually ~/.local/share/Steam on linux) just copy it to the l4d2/resource & it should work.

[Gab]

Originally posted by I am SCREAMING:

Bump. I found out you can copy marlett.tff from Steam, it can be found in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\resource\fonts (usually ~/.local/share/Steam on linux) just copy it to the l4d2/resource & it should work.

This is a great fix. Unfortunately, this thread will likely to be closed by Valve Employee for being an old thread.

[I am SCREAMING]

Originally posted by gabusan:

Originally posted by I am SCREAMING:

Bump. I found out you can copy marlett.tff from Steam, it can be found in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\resource\fonts (usually ~/.local/share/Steam on linux) just copy it to the l4d2/resource & it should work.

This is a great fix. Unfortunately, this thread will likely to be closed by Valve Employee for being an old thread.

Yeah that is true, but fortunately there's a Github issue [github.com] on this if you want Valve to pay attention to this missing font problem. (read the issue for more details)