Newly-installed FM 2017 not working

Report · May 15, 2019

I've managed to install FM 2017 on Windows 10, although I did have to uninstall and delete everything Adobe from my machine to get it to work.

It started well. I opened a book file, it asked me if I wanted to convert to the new format, and I clicked OK. Then I wanted to work through all the files to convert them all, but at the fourth file it all went wrong. I clicked OK to convert, and FM shut down. Now it does the same thing with every file I try to open.

There's no error message. The file opens but is blank, the little blue circle turns for a second or two, and then it all disappears. This happens even for the smallest files (one page of text) that don't have graphics or anything complicated.

If anyone has any suggestions, I would be very grateful!

Thank you

Report · May 15, 2019

Hi,

Can you still open the files with which you started?

Can you create a new file and save and open it again?

With "convert" you just mean Save, don't you?

Do you still have the FM version with which these files were created? Can you save them there as MIF before you open them with FM 2017?

Sometimes you can open a file from your file manager but not from the book. Do you notice any difference?

Do you have a working template? Can you open this one, delete all content and import the file which causes the crash? (This had worked for me once.)

Can you create a new file from FM's default template and import the file?

When you can't open the files and need the content, then there is also the Heroic Open command. Barb had just explained this in another thread:

https://forums.adobe.com/message/11074305#11074305

Best regards

Winfried

Report · May 15, 2019

By "convert" i mean clicking OK on this message asking me if it's okay to convert the file to the new 2017 format. The old FM8 files are safe, and I'm working on a copy of them in a new folder, so I don't need to worry about retaining older versions at this point.

FM 2017 closes down whether I open a file from the .book or from the file manager.

I can go into FM2017 and create a new file from scratch, with one of their templates, and that seems to work fine. I've added text, saved it, closed it, re-opened it, edited it, saved it, closed it.

Report · May 15, 2019

So now I'm wondering whether there's another way to convert the FM8 files to FM2017, given that FM2017 doesn't seem to be able to do it.....

Report · May 15, 2019

FrameMaker seems to work correctly. There must be something in your files.

Can you import one of the problem files into a file which you created from FM's default template?

You cannot open these files in FM 8 either, can't you? Then you could save them as MIF. This often clears any unneeded information.

Did you test this Heroic Open command?

Report · May 15, 2019

You mention in post#1 that it's a newly-installed copy of FM2017 - did you apply all the patches that came out after FM2017 was released? I mention this because I think (IIRC) there was a fix for upgrading older files in there after it came out. Just because it was a fresh download doesn't mean that it includes the latest patch fixes - you have to update immediately after installing to get yourself up to date. Also, why FM2017 when the latest version is FM2019? You're already hobbling yourself to an old product.

Report · May 15, 2019

Her company may not have upgraded to the newest version. At my old company, we were generally a release or two behind because the IT department had to approve upgrades for security reasons and it took them forever.

Report · May 16, 2019

Hi,

Yes, I have downloaded and installed the latest patches and updates and that worked, but it didn't solve the problem.

I click on OK to convert and open a file, and after a couple of seconds FM2017 shuts down, with no error message and no error log.

Report · May 16, 2019

Hmm, that sounds like some other process is shutting you down - I wonder if you've got some really overactive anti-virus system installed. Do you have an IT resource there?

Report · May 17, 2019

Thank you all for your suggestions so far. In the end I've decided to get the IT people to re-install Windows10 from scratch, then I'll try again with FrameMaker 2017 on a completely clean base, with as little as possible to interfere with it.

I remain optimistic.