Hey FramersI have problems with my FrameMaker 9 installation. I set up a new Windows 7 (64 bit) machine with sufficient system resources - 8 GB of RAM, for example. A couple of days ago, I installed FrameMaker 9 patch 250 (standalone installation) on this machine. Yesterday I noticed for the first time that FrameMaker has the problems below:When switching back to an open FrameMaker document after working with another program, for example, FrameMaker frequently has display problems. In this situation, I try to refresh the display, but this does not have any effect. When scrolling the document, white pages are displayed. Some time after that, FrameMaker does no longer react. I need to kill the FrameMaker process since closing the application normally is no longer possible.Starting FrameMaker is extremely slow.I really do not know what's going on. Would be so nice if anybody could help me with the problems above.Cheers,Nicole

Participating Frequently

Question

FrameMaker 9 crashing on Windows 7

Forum|Forum|15 years ago
June 2, 2010
9 replies
14195 views

Hey Framers

I have problems with my FrameMaker 9 installation. I set up a new Windows 7 (64 bit) machine with sufficient system resources - 8 GB of RAM, for example. A couple of days ago, I installed FrameMaker 9 patch 250 (standalone installation) on this machine. Yesterday I noticed for the first time that FrameMaker has the problems below:

When switching back to an open FrameMaker document after working with another program, for example, FrameMaker frequently has display problems. In this situation, I try to refresh the display, but this does not have any effect. When scrolling the document, white pages are displayed. Some time after that, FrameMaker does no longer react. I need to kill the FrameMaker process since closing the application normally is no longer possible.
Starting FrameMaker is extremely slow.

I really do not know what's going on. Would be so nice if anybody could help me with the problems above.

Cheers,

Nicole

This topic has been closed for replies.

A

Anonymous

For anybody having the FM9 crashes:

1) nobody has mentioned checking the Windows system Event Log for errors. Are there any event errors that are listed when FM crashes?

2) do you also use any Office 2010 and/or earlier Office 2007 / 2003 apps?

The reason I ask is that I've encountered a problem with an Office 2010 font rendering component [Uniscribe, which is an MS API component for rendering complex fonts and Unicode-encoded text] that relates to having "old" Adobe Type1 fonts installed.

This issue affects both XP and Win7. In XP the event viewer log entry indicates the faulting module is usp10.dll

As Adobe's Dov Isaacs points out in this Typography forum thread,

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/767210?tstart=0

the crash is not the fault of Adobe Type1 fonts (in my case, Helvetica, although its likely the problem will continue until I remove Times, Palatino, etc etc) but rather a MS problem that is apparently slated for inclusion in an update.

I'm wondering whether this font rendering problem is also somehow connected with the FM crashes.

Many of us have Type1 fonts. Most of the crashes seem to be when folks are changing from one app to another, which of course would involve font rendering, or importing Word files, and for many of us, also have Outlook or Word 2010 open.

Note that there can be multiple usp10.dll instances and versions on a system due to various MS Office component installs, and that it's also used with other non-MS and non-Adobe applications, so care in investigating is definitely needed.

Sheila

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Petsch77

Participating Frequently

Hi Sheila,

i checked the event log several times, after the crashes. I could never find any useful logs. Mostly smth like "unexpected shutdown" :-) I go now with FM9 p255 + W7 Enterprise + Word 2003. So far no issues with fonts encouraged. Marco

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Petsch77

Participating Frequently

Hi, i got it working in my case. In addition to post no. 37 the final sloution was: turn the windows task manager OFF. I am one of these guys, who always have the task manager running, at least in the background. FM9 crashes while the taskmanager is open. I switched to the process manager instead, since then, FM runs without any problems. Crazy, but real.

A

Anonymous

Hi. I also usually keep Task Manager running in the background, which I will now keep closed and see if my own display problems are resolved. However, I am not familiar with the "process manager". Please clarify. Thank you.

P

Petsch77

Participating Frequently

jaylumio,

there is not so much to clarify. Its "Process Explorer" , kind of alternative to the task manager. Check it out in Google.

A

Anonymous

I was upgraded to Windows 7 (from XP) last week. Got in one good day of work, then started to see the crashes. Was able to work Friday with only a couple of crashes, but today Frame crashed five times in three hours!

This is kind-of a big deal. It's not easy for me to go back to XP, for reasons that are too complicated to mention here.

I anyone from Adobe listening to this forum. Why can't this problem be fixed?

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

Try installing the XP 32 bit VM for Win7 and run FM9 in there. You might find it more stable.

A

Anonymous

Hi,

I'm on Framemaker 7.2, and have just moved to Windows 7 32-bit. Frame freezes, and doesn't unfreeze. This wasn't a problem before.

It doesn't happen all the time, and I can't really say what exactly I'm doing at the point when it freezes. Perhaps it's when I'm flicking between applications. It may have happened when I tried to copy and paste something.

It's happened when I've had a Frame book and 3 or 4 files open and when I've had the book and just one file open.

Cheers, Ed.

A

Anonymous

I just came across an interesting tidbit about Win7 performance with regard to desktop settings with Aero vs. Classic mode which I wonder might possibly be related to the varying experiences reported here with FM 9 crashing. (FM has always been classed as a GDI-sensitive application.)

I emphasize **may** -- this is complete speculation on my part, but at least the source of the info appears reputable (MS TechNet posting, author appears to have considerable experience in Windows UI development), plus the MS blog entry referred to has much more background info.

For those experiencing crashing, could you report which desktop display settings you use, and if possible, test both desktop settings with FM?

Here's the link:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproui/thread/34a8a5ea-f469-469a-89ec-80098c8ec268

look toward the bottom of the thread, msg. dated Jan 1/2010:

Your system actually performs better when you run Aero, because the entire desktop is turned into textures and processed by the video card alone.

When you turn off Aero to use Classic/yuk display, you swich into GDI mode which is painfully memory and resource intensive, and applications have to be 'asked' to re-draw their contents when you drag a window or anything is on top of it.

Turning off themes in XP saved memory and boosted performance, but in Vista and 7 -- you actually gain performance with the eyecandy (as long as you have a good video card).

Check out the Engineering 7 blog (blogs.msdn.com/e7) for really details explanations and data.

As that post suggests, check out entry #43 in the blog mentioned: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/e7/

Sheila

M

MarkLeh

Participating Frequently

G'day Folks,

No help I'm afraid. Just letting you know that I'm having similar problems -- slow interface and major display issues that only Task Manager > End Task can fix.

I'm using FrameMaker 9.0p250 on WIndows 7 Home Premium.

Food for thought:

• I've found that disabling the Desktop Window Manager (dwm.exe; used for Aero) improves the GUI stability "somewhat", and that the GUI is significantly faster when the Paragraph Designer is closed! (And having the Char Designer or Table Designer open is OK, but not both!!!)

• I can reliably bring on the problem by Alt-tabbing to the Console window. When I do this, GUI hell breaks loose.

• I can only save workspaces when XP2 compatibility is enabled. Hmmmm.

• I've tried Frame 9 with the basic Windows 7 theme, with all Aero functionality disabled, and with minimal Advanced Performance Options (no Visual Effects; it looks like an NT machine) -- no improvement.

• I've found that 3rd-party Frame plugins, structured or unstructured interface, altering Interface Preferences, and general PC utilities (antivirus, reminder, etc) have no effect on the problem.

• My PC is quite new, with 4GB RAM and plenty of free hard disk space.

• Yes, video drivers are up-to-date and Adobe PDF is the default (via Sundorne SetPrint).

• I do still have Frame 7 installed on the computer as well. I wonder . . .

Any ideas very gratefully received.

Cheers,

Mark Lehmann

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picardythe3rd

Participant

I'm evaluating FrameMaker 9 for my company, but unfortunately I'm having the same issues as Mark. I'm excited about the new features, but the stability issues are so bad that we won't be upgrading.

I'm using version 9.0.4 on Windows 7 Professional.

L

LoriWriter

Participant

Most all of the new features don't work right, and many of them remove functionality that used to be there. A few of them give you some added functionality, but the balance is a lot of bugs, a lot less of the features that previously helped productivity, and only a few new features that actually work. The patches so far have not addressed any interface bugs, other than the F8 and F9 functionality, but even that isn't all the way fixed. I've created a very long list of bugs as I find them, but after a while I started to feel like the Adobe QA person and since FM9 was seriously impeding my productivity, I simply went back to Frame 7. Adobe warned me that I wouldn't have their support if I did this, but I never once needed their support when on Frame 7 because it worked.

A

Anonymous

I have been using Framemaker as my only document software since Framemaker 2 on Unix.

Adobe is apparently determined to make this into a legacy product that us oldtimers can reminisce about. Not at all new age. It completely freezes in Windows 7 64 bit, even when I demoted it to XP sp 2 compatibility. I did try all the suggestions on this forum to no avail. Next try will be XP mode. I hope I can get the old jitney to fire up there.

Maybe Steve Jobs is right.

---Ken

A

Anonymous

When I first started using FM9 I had a problem of it crashing similiar to your situation. I'm using Windows XP and a plugin to produce iSpec2200 compliant documents. To make a long story short the fix was reloading both FM9 and the plugin. It was a pain, but haven't had a problem since (been 7 months or so). Didn't see anyone mention a reload....anyway hope it's not a Windows 7 compatibility issue.

Eric G.

D

darkjester0130

Participant

I am also experiencing a similar problem. I am running Framemaker 9 on a Windows 7 x64 Ultimate machine.

Whenever I try to import a .docx document, the program crashes.

A

Anonymous

darkjester, have you tried saving your .docx documents as the older Office 2003 .doc format first and then try the import into FM? FM's filters for Word can be "tempermental" at the best of times, so there's a better chance of success with an older format. For example, see this recent forum posting:

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/656514?tstart=0

Another troubleshooting step would be to save your Word files as smaller units of pages and test the import again, to see if you can identify any specific feature that might be causing import problems, e.g. a particular graphic or table or something.

If you continue to have problems please post a new thread on the forum, so that this this thread can continue to explore FM freezes / crashes that (so far) don't have identifiable cause(s).

Sheila

A

Anonymous

Nicole, I'm not on Win7 yet, but I'd suggest the same troubleshooting steps as on XP, which would be to

check your video card drivers to be sure you've got the latest available. FM has always been notoriously sensitive to video card issues, which would tie in with the white page display you mention.
Check the Win7 equivalent to your system and event logs to see if anything is recorded that might coincide with the crash.
Do you have other applications open at the same time as you're running FM?

About FM being extremely slow to load, can you identify what stage is taking the bulk of the time, by watching the bottom of the splash screen -- on XP there's a "ticker" line where it says loading fonts and localization and filters -- can you tell what is taking the longest time?

Also, what printer do you have set as your system default printer when FM loads? Did you install the Distiller printer that came with the FM installation or do you have a separate Acrobat Pro license?

Sheila

N

nichahnAuthor

Participating Frequently

Hey Sheila

First, thanks for your answer.

My video controller driver is up to date.
In the event log of my operating system, besides the message that FrameMaker stopped working no other message coinciding with the event is output.
When working with FrameMaker, Office applications (Word, OneNote, Outlook ), Internet Explorer and VMware Workstation are running in parallel. The latter is required to run a virtual machine with a server application.

Today, starting FrameMaker has been fine. Startup time was normal, I think.

My default printer is a HP printer on our network.

We have a separate Acrobat Pro license, version 9.3.2 is currently installed on my system.

I still have problems with FrameMaker crashing.

Cheers,

Nicole

Van Kurtz

Inspiring

Nicole,

Not sure that this will fix the crashing, but you should always use Adobe PDF as the default printer in FrameMaker. In my work, I set Adobe PDF as the default printer, and select another printer when using OTHER applications, on a case by case basis.

In FrameMaker, I ALWAYS print to Adobe PDF, even if I want to print to a physical printer, which creates a PDF; then I print the PDF to the physical printer. It is a slight annoyance but keeps FrameMaker happy.

There is a free app that will switch the printer to Adobe PDF when you enter FrameMaker, which means you do not have to set it as your default printer. I do not use it, so I do not know where to get it. I am sure someone else will chime in with the answer.

Van

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