Framemaker 7 crashes when selecting/highlighting text

[UniqueHoorn]

At pretty random moments my FrameMaker 7 stops working and it seems to do that only when I use my mouse to highlight a portion of text. Now I also noticed it happen when dragging (by mouse pointer) an endpoint of a straight line.

It never occured under Windows XP and now does very often under Windows 7.

Anyone had this problem or know a solution?

[Arnis Gubins]

Only FM9 is supported by Adobe under Windows 7. Depending upon the version of FM7, there were mousing issues that other users addressed with third-party drivers to overcome FM's shortcomings. These probably are being exasperated by the newer OS.

[UniqueHoorn]

Thanks Arnis for the quick response. If I understand well you say that FM has never offered a cure but that maybe using some other mousedriver than my current Microsoft Mouse driver may solve my irritating problem.

Can you please find something more specific about this or is there possibly a google hint to find a solution or driver?

I't just now jumps to mind: Could run as XP while in Windows 7 work, if at all possible?

Unfortunately I can't afford the upgrade to FM9 since it's hobby/volonteer work I still prefer FM for from my past documentation job.

[Art Campbell]

To fix the mouse issue, most people used the freewheel utility. It's still kicking around the net, if your google-fu is strong.

It's an old program; anyone's guess on whether it'll run on w7...

Just in passing, FM 7.2 has run fine for me under w7-32; haven't tried it under 64. Running in XP mode wasn't required.

Of greater importance is how much RAM you're running and disk space.

Art

[UniqueHoorn]

Thanks Art. Going to try and see if I don't lose the special features of this MS mouse.

BTW, my OS is Win7 - 64 bit Professional with 4 Gigabytes RAM and enough drives to keep the C: drive program partition free space between 20 and 60 Gigabytes.

[NL_Derek-56V59O]

Instead of the FreeWheel utility I use KatMouse. See this post http://forums.adobe.com/message/2424130

--- Derek

[UniqueHoorn]

I think my reported problem is quite different from the problem you all address with those solutions. I indeed found Katmouse instead of the Freewheel and only then found out that that all has to do with scrolling and I have no scroll or mousepointer problems mentioned in this kind of reports.

My problem is an immediate hang of FM occuring when selecting a line or piece of text by mouse. It is far too random to find a pattern in this behaviour because more often all these selections go without problem than with that fatal hang up. And sometimes it happens several times in say 15 minutes.

In other words: Something with selecting text or objects and only very randomly.

So far I have not found solutions. I'll let you know when I find something substantial or when someone gives the golden hint .

[Arnis Gubins]

Have you tried running FM7 in XP compatibility mode?

[UniqueHoorn]

I've set it to XP compatibility mode and my first tests did not give any crashes. Have to do more documents before getting convinced that it is one of the solutions.

Can anyone tell me what exactly is the impact of running it in XP compatibility on my win7 64 bit professional?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Does it crash if you use the Shift and arrow keys to select text?

[GwenchMach]

UniqueHoorn,

I'm having the exact problem you described. Did you ever find a fix for this?

Thanks,

GwenchMach

[UniqueHoorn]

GwenchMach,

Arnis Gubins' (thanks!!) solution, given 3 posts up, solved all my problems. Sorry for not returning here to say that it was the correct answer.

So, I'm pretty sure you will be helped too if you "run FM7 in XP compatibility".

I hope you will tell if it was correct for you too.

Good luck,

UH

[Guest]

How do you run FrameMaker in XP compatibility mode? It looks like you have to download something and run it as a virtual PC. Is that right, or is there simply a setting somewhere?

...later: OK. I found it. Right-click on FrameMaker.exe, click Properties, change it there. Seems to be working. Cool!

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Depends on your version of Win7 - some have built in & some you have to download it

[Guest]

Thanks, Jeff. I did some more looking and found out how to do it.

I updated my comment on the forum, in case anyone else doesn't know.

tims

[lenahanson]

A couple of days ago I wrote a question similar to this, didn't see this then.

I tried to do as described in the posts above, but the program didn't start. I am enclosing the error-message I got.

We have the crashes on both Vista and 7.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Cool! Have you sent it in to Adobe Support?

[lenahanson]

Yes. Several times...

[Art Campbell]

First, it's be better to start your own thread rather than coat-tail on to an old one, but....

For people to help, it'd be a good idea for you to provide complete system info: OS and FM versions, RAM, and so on...

And specifically with this problem, does it only occur when you select with a mouse? How about when using the arrow keys?

Art

[lenahanson]

I have started my own thread, a couple of days ago, but nobody replied. That's why I answered in this thread... Yes, it's only with the mouse when marking text. I don't think you can select several table-cells with the mouse, I have never tried.

FM version: 7.2p158

OS: Windows 7

RAM: 4 gb

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

And you tried running FM7.2 in XP mode and it wouldn't even start up? How about setting it up in the XP virtual machine?

[lenahanson]

I haven't tried that. I will ask our IT-guy why... tomorrow (it's 4.38 pm here and he just left).

Lena

[Guest]

I got a similar error one time, but mostly it does not hang up or crash when I run FM in XP compatibility mode. However, updating a book or generating a PDF is extremely slow in XP compatibility and I have to switch back and forth a lot between XP compatibility (for when writing and editing) and normal when generating output.

On a related note, there are some capital funds left over that need to be used up before the end of the year, so I talked our admin into upgrading my FM to 9. I hope that's not too much of a hassle...

tims

[lenahanson]

That was what my own thread was about... the question if these problems would disappear if we upgrade to version 9. I haven't gotten any answers there yet, so I don't know if these problems are rare, or people just don't bother answering me... We are going to upgrade, but as this is the only reason, everything else works perfectly, I just wanted to know how it is in 9 with this problem.

[Mike Wickham]

You may have gotten no answer because nobody knew one. In any case, you can

see if FM9 fixes it by downloading the trial version:

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?loc=en&product=framemaker