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_Larry_Carey_
Participating Frequently
November 9, 2007
Question

FrameMaker 8 crashing constantly

  • November 9, 2007
  • 46 replies
  • 8749 views
Been running FM v8 (unstructured interface) for a couple of weeks now (Windows XP), and it crashes at least 2 times every day. I can produce PDFs fine (with the highly publicized "fix"), but I'm getting all kinds of mysterious memory-related error messages. It seems to happen on Paste operations fairly often, and it seems to happen most often when I'm working in graphic frames. Not seeing much in the forums about FM8 blowing up, and I can't make heads or tails out of the error logs that FM is generating. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. FM8 is now costing me time and trouble, and I'm not impressed.
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    46 replies

    A
    Anonymous
    February 5, 2009
    Pls do not reply to Anthony's posting; he has reposted as a separate thread here:

    http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b7c9ff/3
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    _Anthony_Restivo_
    Participating Frequently
    February 5, 2009
    I have a issue about generating bookmarks when creating a PDF. After I have finished my book, I identify my bookmarks while in the PDF setup window. But for some reason, FM creates bookmarks for paragraph tags that I didn't choose. This is happening in particular to my table of contents. I even reconstructed the book file and created a new table of contents, list of figures and list of tables from scratch, paying close attention to every step and I still get the bookmarks I didn't ask for. If anyone has any advice for me I would appreciate it (Adobe or non-Adobe affiliated). My work email is anthony.restivo@zodiacaerospace.com.... feel free to contact me. Thank you in advance.
    Software Maniac
    Software Maniac
    Inspiring
    September 12, 2008
    Vicki,
    My heart goes out to you. I can't tell you how many tests I ran thru along with Adobe's excellent help (Arnis, Sumeer, ...) and since that point on one of my computer's FM 8 on Vista with Book printing to PDF works well. On another laptop with the exact same configuration - NOT so good. My request is if you could send your e-mail address to me (kwhitaker333@yahoo.com) I will be happy to send you a document summarizing what I did. Most of these other suggestions (above) will probably not work and may simply aggravate you even more.

    I hope Adobe's next FM update focuses on only one thing: PDF generation and I hope that they validate it using a variety of different Acrobats and PDF drivers since not everybody has FM and Acrobat Professional (from CS3).

    best regards,
    Software Maniac (aka Ken Whitaker)
    A
    Art Campbell
    Inspiring
    September 12, 2008
    Well, the error message you're getting is a printer related error, not necessarily a Frame error.

    First, other than running FM 8, you didn't provide any system details, like OS, networked environment, files on a server or local... All of which would be helpful details.

    AND:
    * Are you running standalone Acrobat, or the Distiller applet that ships with FM? If standalone, what version?
    * Do you have an Adobe PDF logical printer in your Printers Folder?
    Is is set as the default printer?
    * When you check its properties, is it properly set up with a File port?
    * Are you using the Print command to generate the PDF or some other method?

    Art
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    _Vicky_Costello_
    Participant
    September 12, 2008
    I have been having problems generating a PDF file using FrameMaker 8.0 on Windows XP.

    Prior to 8.0, we were using 7.2, which gave me NO PROBLEMS when generating a PDF. To try and locate the problem, I went through each chapter in the book to generate a PDF, corrected any problems, and generated PDF files. I then tried to generate the book and was able to print 1/2 of the book before it choked. I then eliminated all the chapters and tried to generate the PDF adding 1 chapter at a time. Now I am getting an error 8004, 6345644, 8487696, 0 message when trying to generate PDF using Print book to generate a PDF.

    I have never been able to use the Save as PDF option because it displays the message "FrameMaker could not find Adobe PDF printer instance, which must be installed to execute Save as PDF command". I researched this error and it appears to be related to the Distiller. When first encountering problems with generating pdfs, I immediately requested updates through FrameMaker (Help | Updates). The problem still occurs.

    The problem will generating PDFs has been extremely frustrating and the problem has been on-going for much too long (over 2 weeks). I tried everything I can to find a resolution to this error and obviously am encountering additonal ones in the process. This is a bad time for having problems -- critical deadlines, one of which is today.

    At this point, FrameMaker is only costing us $$$ in wasted production time trying to resolve an issue that apparently many users are facing. There should be some resolution for this problem and people should not have to continue encountering the same issues over and over again.

    Some one please help.
    Arnis Gubins
    Arnis Gubins
    Inspiring
    September 12, 2008
    Vicky,

    Do you have Acrobat installed in a location other than C:\Program
    Files\Adobe\..... or are you using the PDFMaker that came with FM? If
    you have Acrobat, can you run the PDFMaker utility in other
    applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. ?

    Also, have you installed all of the FM 8.0 patches in order?

    In my particular case, I found that the Acrobat installer messes up
    some Registry entries that FM (and MS Office products) looks at to try
    to find the Adobe PDF printer instance. If FM can't find it from the
    Registry info, it simply gives up and throws the error message that
    you're getting (without asking you where it might actually be - bad
    implementation, IMHO).

    I had installed my Acrobat to drive D: and had the same "FrameMaker
    could not find Adobe PDF printer instance, which must be installed to
    execute Save as PDF command" error message. After making the Registry
    entry changes, FM could find the Adobe PDF printer instance once again
    and I could a Save As PDF properly.

    If you're comfortable using Regedit, you could try fixing this as
    follows (Warning: you can mess things up if you don't know what you're
    doing!):

    1. First make a System Restore point before going any further and also
    make a backup copy of the Registry (File > Export... ; Note: it's
    going to be very a big file!).

    2. In the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe section look for the
    Acrobat Distiller entry for InstallPath. Make sure that it's pointing
    to where acrodist.exe actually is installed on your machine.

    3. In the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFWARE\Adobe\Acrobat Distiller\8.0
    section, also check the InstallPath entry and correct as required.
    Then check the lower-level \InstallPath entry to make sure that this
    also matches. Now check the PrinterName entry in the same section to
    make sure that it is "Adobe PDF".

    4. Now (in the same section) look in the \Adobe\Acrobat PDFMaker\8.0
    branch at the Path parameter to make sure that it's pointing to your
    Acrobat installation's actual \PDFMaker folder.

    5. Now check the \Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\8.0 section entries to make sure
    that any paths listed in any of the entries and sub-entries there
    point to the actual locations of the files (Keep your file explorer
    utility open and actually check to see if those files are there).

    Alternatively, you could try uninstalling Acrobat and re-installing it
    (preferably on drive C:).

    You may need to re-boot your machine after the edits, but in my case
    it worked without a re-boot.

    Your mileage may vary and this might not be the solution for
    particular problem.
    A
    Art Campbell
    Inspiring
    April 17, 2008
    Bob,
    What is your system config? And you're working with a file server over a network?

    Art
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    _Bob_Goldberg_
    Participant
    April 16, 2008
    FM8 has been crashing with memory-related errors and internal FM errors for approximately a month. Sumeer suggested that I change my default printer to Adobe PDF. FM still crashed.

    Noticed that saving .fm files to .rtf takes a long time (5 minutes approx.). Could not save very large files (with graphics) as FM 8 could not handle the load. This is puzzling...My colleague could save .rtf files in approx. 1 minute. Can this be memory hardware problems?

    My company technician deleted the fntcache.dat file in Windows\System32 folder (a FM 7.2 suggestion). Thus far (1 day) no crashes. Stay tuned.

    Bob G.
    Arnis Gubins
    Arnis Gubins
    Inspiring
    April 16, 2008
    Bob,

    Saving to RTF from FM can be a bit of a bear, especially if you have
    graphics in your FM document. The best route to go, if you have to do
    this on a regular basis, is to use Omni Systems mif2go tool - see
    http://www.omsys.com/dcl/mif2go_main.htm
    _
    _Phyllis_Palmer_
    Participating Frequently
    February 22, 2008
    I'm back...and I have a fix.

    I listened to the little voice in my head that took note when the FM support group was able to build the file with no problem. Hmmm. So, I built the document onto my local P.C. drive rather than on the network. That was at about 12 noon today. It worked. Whoa.

    So, I had our network guru help me poke around a bit to see if anything changed on our network recently. Nothing.

    My next test was to build the document on a different server on the network. It worked. That's 2 points for the home team!

    Next, I tried my hand at building the book on the SAME server as originally, but in a new folder on that server. It worked.

    For some reason, in this scenario, building a new Book in a new folder was the fix. Mind you, I also had to touch every single last single sourced file to be sure all were v8.0p273. That was very tedious, and we are very leary of what that means for our other manuals being brought up to v8.0.

    This is where things stand today. Thanks to all of you for your help, suggestions, and tenacity with trying to figure things out. I will see if I see any other patterns develop as I work in the other books next week.

    Sincere thanks to all,
    Phyllis
    _
    _Phyllis_Palmer_
    Participating Frequently
    February 22, 2008
    Thanks for all the help everyone.

    We have an archive of our files that is not single-sourced.
    Right now, we are having a hard time determining a problem file.
    I deleted the fntcache.dat...and now I'm checking to see if that helps.

    Also, I went back to a previous BOOK file to see if the book file I'm working with now is corrupt. No luck--no difference.

    THis morning I'm working on one file where I think I may have identified a corruption...more news after I spend time rebuilding it.
    Again, thanks for the help. I'm trying things and trying not to get caught up in the chaos of trying too many things at once.
    Phyllis
    A
    Art Campbell
    Inspiring
    February 22, 2008
    Phyllis,

    Are the component files on a server? Under source control?

    Have you laundered the problem files by saving them out as MIFs and then reopening?

    Art
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