diff --git a/src/type1/t1load.c b/src/type1/t1load.c
index 719667982..ab9a00fbe 100644
--- a/src/type1/t1load.c
+++ b/src/type1/t1load.c
@@ -960,6 +960,11 @@
       FT_Error      error;
 
 
+      if ( encode->char_index )
+        /*  with synthetic fonts, it's possible we get here twice  */
+        return;
+
+
       /* read the number of entries in the encoding, should be 256 */
       count = T1_ToInt( parser );
       if ( parser->root.error )