We found an interesting issue with QlikSense 2.0 the other day, where the menu options all looked like Hieroglyphics or Greek characters rather than the english characters.

A close up of the right hand menu shows the problem:

The problem ended up being an issue with the customers firewall blocking access to Google Fonts, which Qlik Sense uses.

This meant that the Google Fonts for these menus could not be downloaded by the users browser and the hieroglyphics are displayed instead.

You can actually replicate the problem in firefox or Google Chrome (without having to hack your firewall 😉

Mozilla Firefox

In the Firefox url enter:

about:config

Accept the warning and then in the search box search for:

gfx.downloadable_fonts.enabled

Click on it and it will change the option to false.

Refresh your Qlik session and the Google Fonts will be blocked.

Don’t forget to reset the Firefox option to True by clicking on it again!

Google Chrome

Right Click Chrome’s launcher icon, click “Properties”.

At the end of the launcher string add the following:

” –disable-remote-fonts” (without quotes).

Again dont forget to reset it back!

I’ll leave the re-configuring of your corporate firewall to solve the actual issue to you 😉

Making Sense of Qlik, one Click at a time.