FrameMaker 10 crashes when saving a book

[ksoltys]

FrameMaker 10.0.1.402, Windows XP SP3 32-bit, structured

I am experiencing frequent crashes when I save a book after updating it. The books and files I am working with were originally written in FrameMaker 8.

I thought that re-creating the book from scratch in Frame 10 might help (it worked for another user I know who had the same problem) but that didn't help. I've been working with track text edits on these books (I hadn't used it in Frame 8), so I accepted all changes and disabled it. That made no difference. Also, I was working with the structured interface on (I am working with unstructured files, but have been experimenting with DITA). I switched to the unstructured interface, but it made no difference.

The only thing I've found that works, and it's a temporary solution, is to save the book as Frame 10 MIF, and then reopen it. That allows me to save the book, at least until the next update, when it is likely to crash again.

This is getting extremely annoying.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Regards,
Keith

[RoboColum_n_]

Hi Keith. There was a patch released today for FrameMaker 10. Install that and see if it helps.

---

The RoboColum(n)

@robocolumn

Colum McAndrew

[ksoltys]

If you're referring to the 10.0.1.402 update, I'm already running it. I just looked at the updates page and saw nothing new and when I tell Frame to check for updates, it says I'm up to date.

Regards

Keith

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Are you getting hard errors? What happens with these crashes? How much memory are you running?

[ksoltys]

If you mean by hard errors, a dialog box that says that FrameMaker has encountered and unexpected condition and must close, yes.

I'm running an HP quad-core Q6600 system with 2 GB of RAM, of which I typically have a bit less than 1 GB free. I don't think it's a lack of memory issue.

Keith

[Guest]

Keith,

Please mail me the crash logs ( rabansal@adobe.com ) that are getting generated in the user area. You will find them by the name of Framelog_YY_MM_DD_XX_XX_XX.txt at "C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Adobe\FrameMaker\10" (if you are on Win-XP).

Also if you can share the test files (after removing the confidential information), it will be easier to investigate.

Regards,

Rajat Bansal

[ksoltys]

I'll get some of the crash logs off today.

I can't send any of the files. If I removed confidential information, they'd be empty.

Regards

Keith

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Make a copy & replace the text with Lorem Ipsum garbage (http://www.lipsum.com/)

[Bob_Niland]

Make a copy & replace the text with Lorem Ipsum garbage

... keeping in mind that any cross-references containing text from the target usually contain, as <Mtext> tags, the original text at the target, even that text was later replaced (or Loremized). Check the MIF before emailing.

I'd be tempted to create an all-new document that exhibits the problem, and Loremize only if that's too much trouble.

_______

It's amazing how much lingering legacy garbage the typical MIF contains.

[ksoltys]

The documenta are too complex - they're system operations guides full of tables, procedures, lists, etc. Lots of file and script names, etc.

Lorem ipsum wouldnt' do it.

Right now the books seem stable - I recreated them from scratch again. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Keith

[Guest]

Keith, have you looked at the Windows Event viewer to see whether there are any events associated with the crashes? If so, you might post the messages if they point to any particular dll.

Do you use Office 2003 or 2010 on the same system?

[ksoltys]

Sheila, I don't have access to the Event Viewer on my system. We're still using Office 2003, unfortunately.

Regards

Keith

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Have you tried running as a local admin on your machine? Also, 2GB is pretty thin for FM - I'd go with 4GB

[ksoltys]

I am a local admin on my machine. However, IT has blocked access to certain system functions, like the event viewer.

2 GB of RAM should be plenty for Frame. When running Frame, even with several other applications open, I typically am running around 1.0 or 1.1 GB of memory usage. My books are not large - the biggest I have is about 200 pages. Performance is generally fine.

The crashes are due to bad programming (perhaps not on Adobe's part), not lack of memory.

Regards

Keith

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Hmm, if you're a local admin, in XP you would have access to everything. Have IT have a look at your event viewer.

[ksoltys]

IT have removed most system tools from the menus. However, as it turns out, I can run Event Veiwer from the command line. Despite having numerous (more than a dozen) crashes, I can find only one entry in the Event Viewer log:

Faulting application framemaker.exe, version 10.0.1.402, faulting module framemaker.exe, version 10.0.1.402, fault address 0x004241ee.

I'm starting working on a couple of new books today and will see how FM10 behaves with these. (They're converted from FM8, like the others I was working on).

Regards

Keith

[ksoltys]

That should have been "one relevant entry".

Keith

[Guest]

I'm sorry I don't have the details handy, but somebody on the forum here recently discovered an instance where some conditional text (I think from an earlier FM version) was getting munged up because the start and end tags for the conditions weren't correctly nested when conditions overlapped, even if it was just off by one space or something. FM was "ok" with the bad nesting up to a certain point, it could "secretly ignore" the problem and didn't give any errors, but then it would crash in some later usage.

The poster discovered the problem by viewing MIF files (via Graham Wideman's wonderful freebie MIFBrowser,

at MIFBrowser Wideman

You mentioned having used conditional text at some point, perhaps there is some crufty stuff still lurking somewhere and just right set of circumstances cause FM to re-read the files to update them and trigger the crash because it suddenly finds some bad code.

[ksoltys]

I was using track text edits in the books that I was having problems with, and they use special conditionals for tracking the changes. I'm working with a new set of books and not using track text edits, and so far, so good.

My use of conditions is limited and fairly straightforward, and I doubt that I would overlap them, with the possible exception of the text tracking conditionals.

We'll see how it goes with the current books.

Keith

[Guest]

I am having the same problem. It's very annoying. Each time I try to update the book, I have to re-add the

Table of Contents and the Index, because somehow it loses them when the save crashes.

I can save to PDF. But I can't save the FM book. I did have track changes on, but turned it off, and I'm still having problems. I even

accepted/rejected all changes, and I'm still having the problem.

I didn't see anything very helpful in this thread, but I'm adding my two cents, just so ADobe will know this is not a unique problem. I sent the log files in to fmerror@adobe.com, so hopefully they will figure out something. Meanwhile, this is very annoying!

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Have you tried doing a MIF-wash on the book?

[Art_Campbell1]

Have you verified that your version of FM is fully patched?

[ksoltys]

The problem I was having seems to have gone away, but I've only worked on four books since upgrading to FM10.

What I did for the first couple of books was to turn off track changes, accept all changes, and then rebuild the book file from scratch. The second pair of books I worked with didn't have any problems.

I've stopped using track changes but I don't know if that was the cause of the problem.

Regards

Keith

[Art_Campbell1]

Have you MIF-washed your files (SaveAs Mif, open Mif, SaveAs FM) to remove any hidden characters or corrupt bits?

Is the book file a native FM10 book file, or was it converted from an earlier rev? If earlier, try creating a new book in 10, copying your content files over, and saving that as your working book.