PingFang.ttc font file is missing in iOS 18.0

Question

Created Jun ’24

Replies 6

Boosts 2

Views 2.2k

Participants 10

I'm an iOS developer, and I've been testing our app in iOS 18.0 Beta. I noticed that there's a problem with the font rendering, and after troubleshooting, I've found out that it's caused by the removal of the PingFang.ttc font in 18.0. I would like to ask the reason for removing this font file and which font should be used to display Chinese in the future?

My test device is an iPhone 11 Pro and the system version is iOS 18.0 (22A5297). I have also tested Beta 1 and it has the same issue. In previous versions of the system, the PingFang font is located in this directory /System/Library/Fonts/LanguageSupport/PingFang.ttc. But in iOS 18.0, the font file in this directory has become Kohinoor.ttc, and I've tested that this font can't display Chinese either.

I traversed the following system font directories and could not find the PingFang.ttc font file.

/System/Library/Fonts/AppFonts
/System/Library/Fonts/Core
/System/Library/Fonts/CoreAddition
/System/Library/Fonts/CoreUI
/System/Library/Fonts/LanguageSupport
/System/Library/Fonts/UnicodeSupport
/System/Library/Fonts/Watch

Looking for answers, thanks for the help!

Answered by rcombs in 811700022

The more significant issue here is that on macOS 15/iOS 18, the shipped version of PingFang is no longer a standards-compliant TTC file, but instead uses a nonstandard "hvgl" table to store glyph data (FB15161959). This means that despite CoreText being used to look up a font for Chinese text, the resulting font file cannot be parsed by cross-platform libraries. This has also been reported to Freetype, but they're unable to make progress without documentation on the new format: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/freetype/freetype/-/issues/1281

Boost

Answer 1

Frameworks Engineer OP

Apple

Jun ’24

PingFang.ttc is no longer in /System/Library/Fonts/Core. iOS 18 has a new Chinese UI font.

It is highly discouraged to look for fonts in locations in the file system. Font files can change locations, change names, or get deleted in new versions of the OS. Instead it is encouraged that developers requiring low-level information about Fonts to use CoreText APIs. These APIs can enumerate the fonts that are available in the OS and also provide you with the file URL where the file resides.

Please file a Feedback Assistant report referencing this thread and how it processes fonts.

0

Answer 2

perenat OP

Aug ’24

Hi, can you please tell if you resolved the issue?

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Answer 3

kakaiikaka OP

Sep ’24

Me too, programmes are not supposed to access font resources in privateFrameworks. I'm using libass to parse *** subtitles and the fallback font is PingFangUI.ttc. But libass told me: "error opening font error"

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Answer 4

amake OP

Sep ’24

PingFang has moved, but it hasn't been removed entirely.

Regardless of whether you should use it, I discovered in the simulator runtime that it is now located at

/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Volumes/iOS_22A3351/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Profiles/Runtimes/iOS 18.0.simruntime/Contents/Resources/RuntimeRoot/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/FontServices.framework/CorePrivate/PingFangUI.ttc

So I assume (I haven't checked) that it should be /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/FontServices.framework/CorePrivate/PingFangUI.ttc on device.

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Answer 5

Jarhys OP

Sep ’24

We noticed that in several devices used in China, PingFang is not installed as default. Right now the solution is to install PingFang fonts manually. I wonder whether this issue would be fixed.

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Answer 6

rcombs OP

3w

Accepted Answer

The more significant issue here is that on macOS 15/iOS 18, the shipped version of PingFang is no longer a standards-compliant TTC file, but instead uses a nonstandard "hvgl" table to store glyph data (FB15161959). This means that despite CoreText being used to look up a font for Chinese text, the resulting font file cannot be parsed by cross-platform libraries. This has also been reported to Freetype, but they're unable to make progress without documentation on the new format: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/freetype/freetype/-/issues/1281

0