ATSServer causing crash

[eyezayear]

Many of my applications crashes when I attempt to use the font "Helvetica 35 Thin" on applications like Fireworks and FreeHand. The font shows up normally on Font book and has been validated with no error nor problems.

I've checked the console log and found these:-
Apr 8 11:16:51 Ty /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Frameworks/ATS.framework/Support/ATSServer: FOExceptionMainHandler caught a fatal exception at 0x000ddb9f\n
Apr 8 11:16:51 Ty /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Frameworks/ATS.framework/Support/ATSServer: ATSServer got a fatal exception! Please check /var/log/ats.log, also viewable in Console.app

This is just a small selection of the entire log.
Applications that crashed include Finder, iCal, Mail, Dashboard and many others. It even crashes the Crash Reporter. Finder and dock tries to retart itself several times and system becomes unstable.

I could only struggle to hit the restart button to get it back into shape.

I have since disabled the typeface Helvetica 35 Thin and my other versions of Helvetica seems to be working normally. Could it be infected with a virus?

Please advise.

[JDV]

If it were, it would be extremely unusual. I don't know of any viruses that act be modifying a font descrtiptor file even in the PC-world, and Macs still have virtually no viruses to speak of in the real world. Lastly, a virus that worked by affecting a relatively obscure font instead of a system font would be a rather poor vehicle, even if it could be made to do mischief. More than likely, if disabling this font fixes the problem, that font simply has become corrupted, even though it seems to be checking out with Font Book. There are some other, better utilities than Font Book for checking fonts, but it might be easiest if you simply re-install that font from the source from which you originally obtained it.

Joe VanZandt