Monitor freeze because of Adobe Flash Player??

[Guest]

Recently my monitor froze, displaying parts of various different applications. When I ended FrameMaker with Task Manager, the monitor came back & I got that little Windows thing that offers to search for a solution for the problem online. Strangely, it suggested that I upgrade to the latest version of Adobe Flash Player.

What I'd like to know is, is the current FrameMaker UI dependent on Flash Player somehow to display properly on my monitor? Do I need to be diligent in upgrading to the latest Flash Player version?

thanks,

John

[Art Campbell · Accepted solution]

For a while, I was getting wierd display things happening in FM when I also was doing something in FireFox, usually on pages that used Flash.

So I'm pretty sure there's some use of Flash in FM, but between numerous Flash (and the last FM) upgrade, and plugin sandboxing in FireFox, things are quiet.

But to answer your question, yes, it'd probably be prudent to stay up to date with Flash updates, but only someone familiar with the innards would know exactly where the impact is. I'd guess the UI, but that's just a guess.

[Art Campbell]

John,

What are your other system specs? FM version and so on?

Anything unusual about your configuration?

From what you said about the video cards, it would make me think that some Frame screen display routine is at the root of the problem, maybe at a point it overlaps with another application's...

Art

[Guest]

Frame version is 9.0p255

OS is Windows 7, 64 bit

I was wrong, RAM is 8GB, not 4

Processor is Intel(R) Core2 Quad @2.4GHz

This seems to happen most often if I leave Frame "up" overnight while computer locked, however it also happened recently during the day when I had been working in Frame relatively recently.

Haven't noticed anything specific about other apps implicated.

I'm not sure what would count as an unusual configuration. Our IT dept is pretty good & probably wouldn't allow anything too unusual.

[Guest]

Upgrading Flash is critical from a security standpoint, too. This blog by a respected security blogger has several articles outlining the vulnerabilities in Flash:

http://krebsonsecurity.com/tag/adobe-flash-player/

edited: change "security researcher" to "security blogger"

In Windows there are multiple installs needed for Flash updates, one for I.E. and another for Firefox and other browsers.

Be sure to read the comments, as well, as they often suggest "easier" ways to update Flash than going directly through the Adobe website, which only offers the update for the browser you happen to be using at the time and doesn't make it clear that multiple updates might be needed.

[Guest]

Another Flash update today, Nov. 5:

http://krebsonsecurity.com/2010/11/flash-update-plugs-18-security-holes/

[Guest]

Thanks for the update, Sheila. Frankly, if it were only a question of security, I would be tempted to simply uninstall Flash and leave it off. Its frequent updates are more of a pain than I want to bother with.

In addition, installing the latest version did not solve whatever the problem is with FrameMaker freezing my monitor. I am currently experimenting with always minimizing Frame before working on any other app on that monitor and then only opening Frame when other apps are not showing. So far, no freezes, but it's still early.

[Art Campbell]

John,

Have you checked to make sure that your video drivers are up to date?

And how much RAM are you running? More is better....

[Guest]

Thanks yes. IT has been over my machine several times. I insisted on 4G of RAM. They tried using another video card, but got worse results. Everyone is mystified.

[Guest]

John, do your FM files have lots of paragraphs or large tables or numbers of tables (each cell in a table is at least 1 paragraph), or lots of xrefs or variables? By "large" I mean, for example, an 80-page file that's full of tables, e.g. product specs or catalog or similar kind of content.

The reason I ask is that FM 9 does have a difficult time with this type of files. One reason is because the workspace pods can take for-ev-er to be populated, seeming to freeze the system and leading one to think that FM had crashed. In task manager I can watch FM getting up to 25% CPU and just churning and churning the RAM. Eventually it usually will come back, but I'm afraid my patience level is invariably much lower and I kill the session.

The way to deal with this is to set FM to use a "de-podded" workspace. It can be a bit tricky to do, there's a thread here discussiong how:

http://forums.adobe.com/message/3090617#3090617

be sure to read the whole thing, as M.M.H. posted a much quicker way than I did in opening the thread and Jon posted a good link to an Adobe blog about the pods.

[Guest]

Thanks Sheila, I don't think that's my problem. Frame, or at least the monitor, is well and truly hosed, with very strange looking, fragmented display...fragments of the Uis of several apps. I was thinking I should take a screenshot the next time it happens, except I don't know how to post graphics in forums.

Task Manager does show it running, but when I click End Task, it displays message about (forget exactly what it says) Can't end the process & takes mucho clicking before it finally dies.

My doc is relatively small, compared to the table-heavy docs you describe, but I might want to de-pod the app eventually if I get tired of hunting for things or as a last resort to solve this problem if it continues. So I'll hang onto that link, thanks.

[jaggedpeak]

Hi John. Here's a quick question for you... when the display gets hosed, do the fragments show in weird/inverted colours, and as you move your mouse over them, do they alter their colours?

Reason... that's what happens with my second monitor every couple of days -- haven't nailed down the problem yet, but every little bit of info helps 🙂 (I'm running Win XP Pro.)

Thanks.

[Guest]

No, I get no color change from moving mouse over the display. The main things I remember are that 1) In the part of the display showing part of the Frame page, the font has been changed to something that looks like a plain vanilla system font. 2) Everything is frozen except that in some areas, when I move mouse over display, some parts of the Frame UI reappear, but no reaction to e.g. trying to click Close button.

[Guest]

Another suggestion as a possible troubleshooting step, but please, first, apologies for emphasizing the following for everybody who might read this:

PLEASE have a good, workable backup of your system before you test this;

I have not tested this personally because I haven't had the issue on my Win7 system.

I came across some info about an MS hotfix for Win7 regarding a conflict between the GDI and DirectX. FM9 does use DirectX -- at least in the TCS installation, and possibly in regular FM  and/or Acrobat or Adobe Bridge.

http://www.adobe.com/products/technicalcommunicationsuite/datasheets_brochures/TCS2.5_datasheet.pdf

So, here's the info about the MS Hotfix:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/980731/en

========

You use the Windows XP Display Driver Model (XDDM) driver on a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2. In this situation, the operating system may stop responding when both of the following conditions are true:

    * You run DirectX applications.

    * You move or resize windows.

Note This issue occurs in single-monitor scenarios and in multiple-monitor scenarios. However, computers that have multiple monitors may encounter this issue more frequently.

CAUSE

This issue occurs because of a deadlock issue. This deadlock issue occurs between the Graphics Device Interface (GDI) and the DirectDraw (API).

==========

[Guest]

Added: I forgot to mention that FM =is= known to be very sensitive to GDI issues, it always has been that way.

[Guest]

Thanks, I forwarded that hotfix link to IT. No way I'm going to install some hotfix myself! )