Google Fonts previews not loading in Yemen (all fonts show as □□□ squares)

[MohammedMogeab]

Describe the bug

Google Fonts is not rendering any font previews when accessed from Yemen.
All fonts appear as empty squares (□), including Roboto, Lilex, and others.

The issue affects the entire fonts.google.com interface.

When using a VPN, the fonts load normally.
Without VPN (local Yemen ISP), the fonts do not load.

To Reproduce

Open https://fonts.google.com/
from Yemen without VPN.

All font previews appear as square boxes □□□ instead of real text.

Enable a VPN and reload the page.

Fonts load normally.

Expected behavior

Font previews should load normally without requiring a VPN, as they do in other regions.

Screenshots

Additional context
Country: Yemen

Browsers tested: Opera, Edge

Device: Desktop

Issue: CDN font files (fonts.gstatic.com / fonts.googleapis.com) appear blocked or inaccessible through Yemeni ISPs.

Using a VPN fixes the problem, confirming it's region-specific.

[emmamarichal]

@nathan-williams @garretrieger?

[MohammedMogeab]

@emmamarichal yah, many people facing that problem

[garretrieger]

If this is still happening would you be able to post a screen shot (or details) from the network tab of dev tools (filtered to fonts if possible)?

[MohammedMogeab]

If this is still happening would you be able to post a screen shot (or details) from the network tab of dev tools (filtered to fonts if possible)?

Hi @garretrieger,
Thank you very much for looking into this and for your efforts in fixing the issue — we really appreciate the support 🙏

I also wanted to ask, if possible, what was the root cause of the problem?
Was it related to CDN routing, regional blocking, or something else on the fonts delivery side?

Understanding what caused it would be very helpful for us and for others in the region as well.
Thanks again for your help!
also thanks @emmamarichal

[garretrieger]

If this is still happening would you be able to post a screen shot (or details) from the network tab of dev tools (filtered to fonts if possible)?

Hi @garretrieger, Thank you very much for looking into this and for your efforts in fixing the issue — we really appreciate the support 🙏

I also wanted to ask, if possible, what was the root cause of the problem? Was it related to CDN routing, regional blocking, or something else on the fonts delivery side?

In this case it resolved on it's own before I could get more details on the root cause, what I can say is that there were no issues we could find on our serving side so that points to possibly being something in the regional network.