FrameMaker 9 UI "dies"

[Guest]

I have started having a problem that is difficult to describe. When I unlock my computer, after having locked it with FrameMaker displayed, it occasionally, and randomly, reappears with the UI displaying incorrectly. The menus and toolbars are simply a blank, gray area. Text fonts are not correct but look like they are rendered in some standard system font. Basically, nothing works. If I scroll up or down, a single line of text, or sometimes just a horizontal line, will be repeated over and over. In a way it looks like a refresh problem except that other apps, like Word and Outlook, continue to display correctly.

This just occurred when I walked away for a few minutes and then returned. The computer was not locked. This machine is obviously too smart to do this while I am watching.

If I stop FrameMaker and restart it, or if I reboot the computer, everything is fine, for a while.

The last time this happened, I also had RoboHelp running and a virtual machine running.

Does this sound like a memory issue? Or has anyone else heard of this behavior?

I am running FrameMaker 9 on a Windows 7 machine with 8GB of RAM.

[Michael_Müller-Hillebrand]

John,

Do you have the latest version, which is 9.0p255 installed?

I experience issues with the UI when the application is driven by FDK plug-ins or scripts, working so hard, the new UI can not be updated and the default Windows appearance becomes visible. Such power usage could also turn-off the display engine of previous versions of FrameMaker, but after the plug-in/script was finished, everything returns to normal.

BTW, restarting FrameMaker should be enough, the only time I can recommend restarting Windows is after font issues, because otherwise some caches are not cleared.

- Michael

[Guest]

Michael, thanks. Yes, I do have p255 installed, and I'm not running the FDK plug-ins or scripts.

I'll update this thread if/when it happens again. In the meantime my working assumption is that I had too many apps open at once. I did reduce the memory available to the VM. Maybe that will help.

John

[Art_Campbell1]

Does Ctrol-l, the Frame refresh command, do anything?

Have you checked to make sure that you have the latest drivers for your video card by going to the vendor's web site (not microsoft's)?

[Guest]

Art, thanks for responding. I will try CTRL-L if this happens again. On the drivers, our IT dept. "manages" the machines, so I assume they have installed the latest drivers. I will check though.

John

[Guest]

This issue continues to plague me. I had thought that someone suggested that I could revert to the older style UI, without all the panels and whatnot, but don't see anything about it in this discussion or in Preferences dialog. Is there any way to simplify the UI so that it works the way it did before all these wonderful improvements?

[AxialInfo]

John, it sounds like you're asking about creating a custom Workspace so that the pods are not activated; there are a couple of good sources of info about Workspaces and "de-podding" FM, here:

Workspaces in FrameMaker 9

Be sure to read all the way through this forum thread as the best info is at the end:

Adobe Forums: Steps to "de-pod" workspaces in FM 9

[Guest]

Great, thanks Sheila. At this point I am trying everything I can think of, and this sounds plausible.

Thanks for help,

John

[Guest]

Sheila, one other possibility. I noticed that there was a new version of Adobe Air available today & there was also a new version I needed to install the last time the UI went haywire.

Is there any way to get notified when a new version is needed (other than by attempting to open the Help)? It wasn't shown in the Upgrade dialog in the Help menu.

Thanks again,

John

[AxialInfo]

I don't believe there is any notification for Air updates (or for any other Adobe apps, for that matter), other than using a tool like Secunia

http://www.secunia.com

which is highly regarded. Their free-for-consumers "PSI" is very useful for keeping up-to-date.

Air has updated a couple of times in the past few months, as has Acrobat.

There are unending updates to Adobe Flash these days, though, and when using multiple browsers it needs to be updated twice (one for FireFox and one for IE), which can make it all the more confusing.

I'm not at all certain of this, but I don't think Air has any relation to the FM UI specifically, other than being the help viewer for FM.

[Mike Wickham]

I'm not at all certain of this, but I don't think Air has any relation to

the FM UI specifically, other than being the help viewer for FM.

>

I'm sort of thinking that I once got a popup window notifying me of an

available AIR update when using help, but I may be remembering it wrong.

[Guest]

I think that's true. If you open the Help & it needs a new version, it will tell you. I was just hoping not to need to open the help every time I want to use Frame.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Your other option is to run FM in the XP virtual machine that Win7 has.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Nope, the Upgrade option in the Help menu is only looking for FM/TCS component upgrades. The help itself upgrades separately.

[DavidAFoster]

Hi. I have been experiencing the same problem and wonder if there's a definitive solution or workaround. My particulars:

• Windows 7  32bit
• FM9 p255
• Dell laptop with  4g of memory
• Nvidia NVS 3100M driver

This problem is massively frustrating (it happens apropos of nothing) and I would love to start the new year with some good news on this front.

Thanks, and best wishes to all for a happy new year.

David

[Guest]

David,

Sorry, I don't have anything definite about this problem yet.

One thing I have noticed is that two times this has happened to me the Framemaker Help has needed an update of Adobe Air. If both things happen together one more time, I am going to send Adobe a rocket.

Palliative things I am trying are 1) reboot the machine on Wed (I usually leave it up all week). 2) Minimise Frame if I am going to open many other apps on the same monitor. But frankly I have no idea whether either of these procedures makes any difference at all.

Good luck. Let me know if you discover anything definite.

John

[DavidAFoster]

Hi, John. Thanks for the reply. I've experienced "the Plague" (as I've

come to call it) three times today already. I don't even have to be

using FrameMaker actively to experience. Case in point: fired up FM9,

opened a book file and two chapter files, went for a walk, came back,

et voila!

Some other tidbits:

- I noted that I'm running Windows 7 32 bit; I meant, I'm running

Windows 7 64 bit, FM9 as a 32 bit app

- I started experiencing these problems after installing a Samsung

SyncMaster P2450 monitor; I don't seem to recall this with the Dell

monitor I was using

- Sometimes the behavior is exactly as you describe; other times I

can't even get FM9 to appear -- clicking the icon in the tool tray

sends some minimized black rectangle shooting towards the upper left

corner of the monitor, but nothing I do restores FM9 on the monitor.

- FM9 memory use is a constant(ish) 128k

I'll let you know if I learn anything....

Thanks!

David

[DavidAFoster]

Our IT guy suggested turning off the Enable Transparency setting

(Control Panel > Personalization > Window Color and Appearance). I

did, and since then FM9 has been well-behaved.

Curious to know if any other Windows7 users experiencing this problem

have had any luck playing with this setting.

Thanks!

David

[Karmakat66]

Hi David. I experience the font freeze problem all the time, and my colleages too. I have had the windows  transparency turned off for a long time but this has not helped.

[Guest]

A recent post suggested that this could be a problem with RAM. My last incident did happen when I had many other applications running at the same time (including two instances of RoboHelp). Could this be a factor on your machine?

John

[DavidAFoster]

Hi, John. That's possible, I suppose, and it was one of the first things I

looked at because my RAM usage seemed so high. I have 4g RAM. Just booting

up takes something like 1.8g or so which seemed unusual, but I'm told by IT

it is not. I'm currently using 2.7g or so, and this is typical of daily

usage for me.

I'll knock wood again, but I have not had a recurrence of the problem since

I went to the Dell web site and looked for patches related to display/video.

I found two (one from Intel, one from Nvidia). I installed both and... well,

like I said, knock wood.

David

[Karmakat66]

Hi again. I also use a dell 64 bit machine with Windows 7, so I have gone to Dell to try and figure out what drivers to update. I will report back if it find it stops the problem. I have a bunch of engineers who are starting to complain about this problem so if I can find a solution, it would be great! Just as part of the FYI, I have 6GB of RAM, and although I work with a 3D modeling program, and like most tech writers often have several windows open at the same time, I haven't found any pattern with the font problem.

[DavidAFoster]

So, I appear to have reawakened the beast:

- Printed a book to PS and sent the resulting PDF out for review

- Went to close the book, et voila, menus and window controls all vanished.

Interestingly (I say interestingly to make this appear interesting and not

INCREDIBLY MADDENING), I clicked in the approximate location of the to

close the Frame window, and the window closed. So, if you can perhaps

imagine/memorize where all the menus/controls are and what they mean, no

biggie.

Grumble.

[Guest]

I just hope it isn't catching. After reading your mail, I'm going to wash my hands before I touch the monitor again.

[MrsVJW]

You are not alone.

I may have had one or two crashes since we moved to Windows 7 (begining of November) but this has been a constant problem for me since the calender flipped to 2011.  So far in our group (two other 32-bit users and one 64-bit user) I am the only one having this problem, but I moved to Windows 7 1-2 weeks before the rest of the group.

If I am lucky, Frame will be responsive enough that I can save my work and close the program, then re-open Frame and the file.  If I am unlucky, I can't get any response from Frame and I have to cross my fingers and hope I didn't lose any work.  If I catch it while it is "happening" sometimes my display will go goofy (fonts display incorrectly, odd results while scrolling through the window) but only in Frame - all other programs respond fine and behave normally.

Our head IT guy and I have checked display/video card settings and have had no luck.  It's gotten to the point I may need to try a system rebuild to see if I can make the problems go away.