Getting a Warning: imagettftext() [function.imagettftext]: Could not read font error message? Let’s fix it!

If you have a form on a your WordPress website and are trying to prevent spammers  from flooding your site with deals on  – well, you know the kinds of deals they promote, get yourself a “Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart” or a CAPTCHA.  You are undoubtedly familiar with CAPTCHA codes. They look like this:

Personally I’m a big fan of MM Forms so I’ll use that plug-in as my example but the theory is the same no matter what you use.

Easy enough to set-up: download it and FTP into your WordPress PLUGINS directory just like you have done for other plugins. I’ll use Filezilla in my examples. Its a great, FREE FTP program.

But do you do if you load your webpage and you get the dreaded “Warning: imagettftext() [function.imagettftext]: Could not read font…” error message? Well you could Google it – but the results are uglyyyyyy. Hopefully I can save you some gray hairs. Here we go:

The directions for MM Forms read:

1. Upload whole mm-forms-community folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
3. Make following directories writable (chmod 777) /exports/ and /captcha/tmp /upload

Ok Wait . . CHMOD???

Its simple: “The chmod command (abbreviated from change mode) is a Unix command that lets a programmer tell the system how much (or little) access it should permit to a file. It changes the file system modes of files and directories.” Basically, you don’t want people visiting your website to just drill into any folder on your server and be able to run commands, upload files etc.

1. FTP into your website
2. Go to the folder you need to change (or check) permissions on.
3. Right Click on it.
4. In Filezilla the command to select is “FILE PERMISSIONS” – If you are using a different FTP program look for similar message.

And Ta-Da! Changing from the default of 755 to 777 is as easy as checking two boxes!

OK Done! Everything works, right? Oh wait a minute . ..  you load the webpage and get Warning: imagettftext() [function.imagettftext]: Could not read font in . . . error?

Usually this is caused by the permissions being wrong, the font files not being uploaded all the way or the font files being corrupted. Not OK. Let’s fix it!

Try this . .

1. Find the folder inside the the plugin you are setting up what has the actual font files in it. In our case, its in wp-content/plugins/mm-forms/captcha/gentium
2. Delete the .TTF and .VFB files. You’ll notice they are quite large compared to the other files in that directory:
   

And now for Trick #1.

99.9% of the time your FTP program is set to automatically decide how to transfer the files from your computer to the the server. 99.9% of the time you never have to change this setting. Welcome to the .1% of the time when you do.

In Filezilla, Select TRANSFER –> TRANSFER TYPE –> BINARY

Don’t worry about why for, or who what – Just select BINARY.

Trick #2 – upload the TTF and VFB files one at a time. Trust me.

Upload one, wait for it to finish (it will take longer than normal) and then check the filesize to make sure the whole file got to the server.

I repeat: check the filesize to make sure the whole file got to the server.

Repeat for your remaining files.

Cross your fingers.

Reload your webpage.

Sigh in relief. The dreaded Warning: imagettftext() [function.imagettftext]: Could not read font in . . . beast is no more!

And don’t forget to change your transfer mode back to AUTOMATIC!

Problem solved? All I ask for is Beer and Books. Beer and Books. (Kindle versions preferred)

Cheers!

Here is a little surprise I received upon returning from vacation. I was editing a blog and when I went to save the post an error popped up reading:

• The server (our server domain, e.g. DOMAIN.COM) at Magic requires a username and password.

Well isn’t that special?

The problem is caused by the vars.php file located in the WP-INCLUDES folder. Someone did a SQL Injection (Read More Here) and added code to the file.

The fix is an easy one – 2 steps:

1. Download a new version of the vars.php file from WordPress and replace the corrupted one. Look here – Simply choose your WordPress version
2. Update WordPress to the latest version!

Normally, the files starts:

<?php
/**
 * Creates common globals for the rest of WordPress
 *
 * Sets $pagenow global which is the current page. Checks
 * for the browser to set which one is currently being used.
 *
 * Detects which user environment WordPress is being used on.
 * Only attempts to check for Apache and IIS. Two web servers
 * with known permalink capability.
 *
 * @package WordPress
 */

But after it has been “hacked” there is encrypted text reading something like:

eval(base64_decode("JGxsbD0wO2V2YWwoYmFzZT....

So once again, Look here – Simply choose your WordPress version, go to WP-INLUDES, download Vars.php and replace the one on your server. Then update WordPress for better security.

If you are running a WordPress website and have noticed that Firefox crashes whenever you try to add an image – here is the solution.

Just Disable Google Gears.

Go to Tools > Add-Ons, select Gears and ‘Disable’ it.

Fixed.

When upgrading WordPress you may receive the dreaded Error 500 – Internal Server Error:

Don’t Panic. This usually means that the files you uploaded did not completely replace their predecessors.

Check your FTP settings and tell your FTP program to OVERWRITE existing files on the server. Some thing like this:

I usually have my Uploads option set to “Overwrite if Source Newer” but I have seen this cause problems when uploading WordPress revisions like WordPress 2.7.1 so I change it to “Overwrite” when upgrading the files.

Re-upload the files, refresh your admin panel and breathe a sigh of relief.

I just updated the site to version 2.7 and received the error Cannot redeclare is_sticky()

This is caused by the Lester Chan plug-in Wp-Sticky

If you get the error, simply FTP into your WordPress installation and go to wp-content/plugins/ and delete wp-sticky

In order to use Sticky posts in WordPress 2.7, look under the PUBLISH section:

You need to select the EDIT option next to VISIBILITY and the Sticky Post option will appear like so:

This will place the post at the top of the front page for posts and keep it there after new posts are made.