This started happening after an update last month. I am currently on Version 2.1.33. Some text is showing up as question marks, as seen in the screenshots below. They seem to only appear around numbers (integer variables) but not all numbers have this problem.
I’ve tried starting Anki in safe mode (no add-ons enabled) but the problem is still there. Any other Mac users experiencing this?
What macOS version are you using? Those are invisible characters that should not be appearing, but perhaps older macOS versions did not support them.
I’m running Mojave (10.14.6). Unfortunately I can’t upgrade to Catalina as I need access to iTunes to sync my iPod 
Hi,
I experienced something similar to this when I installed a RTL interface language. Do you have more language packages installed in your computer?
Absolutely off topic here, I noticed you are learning Catalan language? I’m curious since I am a native speaker and it’s not an usual language to learn.
To my knowledge I’m just using English, and most probably no RTL languages.
Also yeah I discovered Txarango last year and I was supposed to see them on their final tour in Amposta last month, but everything has been postponed I ended up learning Catalan with their lyrics and a couple of decks here.
I tested on a macOS 10.10 install and was not able to reproduce it, so it does not seem to be version-dependent. Perhaps changing your language preferences / restarting your machine will help? Do you get the same issue out of night mode? Do you have any non-standard fonts installed?
The issue persists whether in light mode or night mode, and after restarting the machine. For languages/fonts are you referring to the OS in general or specifically in Anki? The OS font is untouched (San Francisco) and the primary language is English (Canada). I have installed fonts to the system which I am using in the styling of some cards, but nothing to do with the interface itself. The Anki interface language is set to English (United Kingdom).
I’m afraid I’m not sure what would cause this - I’ll keep an eye out for other people reporting the same problem, and perhaps a pattern can be found.
Just discovered a clue while checking media. In Windows I copied some of the output into Notepad so I could fix some filenames and found that there are boxes labelled FSI and PDI. It seems that these have to do with bidirectional text support in Unicode.
Now I’ll go see if/why my Mac is having trouble dealing with these characters.
Those characters are normal and are part of the translation system. They’re not supposed to be visible, but will show up like that if the font/platform doesn’t support them.
