Why is FM10 crashing when I change conditional text settings?

[scaton]

When I go from "show certain conditions" to "show all" in some, but not all, files in a book, FM 10 crashes.

I've tried saving as MIF, then reopening, but it still happens eventually.

Sometimes it happens with the first file I open, sometimes not until after several files have been opened and

had their conditions changed, so it doesn't seem like a memory leak.

[Tekscribe]

It is not easy to provide Adobe with an appropriate sample. The overall project structure in my case is complicated and extensive: many conditions and there are many dependencies (text insets, linked files including OLE, thousands of linked images and screen captures). However, I managed to produce many zips and provide those to their engineering team in India. I met with them online and demo'd the crash situation (and it consistently blew up each time). They were silent at their end, except to ask I send each crash log and various files. It has been weeks and there is no update on their investigation.

I do believe their engineering team is trying their best. Alas, a solution seems elusive, or hoping for one an illusion.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

It may take a lot of time - I had a hard crash situation starting in FM9 that only now seems to have been fixed in FM11.

[Tekscribe]

True. I may have to wait for FM12. I tried an FM11 demo. It crashed too.

I have developed workarounds, as it is still necessary to do ongoing work and meet upcoming deadlines. Some books in the publishing architecture behave OK, as they are not too burdened in the same way as a couple of books that consistently crash.

I have tried dozens of things suggested in this Forum (other Discussions) and various online sources, plus tricks learned over the decades. I tried even seemingly wing-nut ideas - just in case - to no avail. You know how it is: you want to do everything possible to ensure there is not something hiding in plain sight that is causing the problem. Needle in a haystack.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Are you using Track Changes? - that's been implicated in crashes involving conditional text settings too.

[Tekscribe]

Not using Track Changes. I responded similarly to the assertion that this functionality might be the culprit in another Forum Discussion on FM10 chronic crashing. Thanks for the suggestion, nonetheless. However, it is not a Prime Suspect for me.

[scaton]

To Moira_D --

My problem was solved by removing FrameMaker 8 from my system and

re-installing FM10.

This did not fix the problem for others, but it completely resolved it for

me.

Good luck --

Suzanne

[Moira_D]

Thanks  for your reply. The workstation I am working on has never had any FM except 10 installed :S

Moira

[Tekscribe]

It is not a relevant solution if FM8 or any other pre-FM10 version does not exist on the machine. Re-installing assumes something is wrong with the original install or the removal of a prior version somehow compromised the current installation.

At any rate, I did try some due deligence by removing and reinstalling FM10, just in case some gremlin was messing with the installation 🙂

[Guest]

"Progress" is right

Does anyone know if FM11 has this same issue with conditional text? I was going to keep with FM10 since the new "features" in FM11 really won't help me in any way, so I thought I'd save the company a few bucks and continue working in FM10. But if FM11 doesn't have this issue, then it might be worth it to go through the trouble of upgrading since I would have to reinstall FM10 anyway to see if that  solves the problem...

[Matt S - Tech Comm Tools]

I've been using FM11 for most of 2012 (I wrote the FM 11 Reviewer's Guide) and haven't had any problems with conditional text crashing.

In fact I'm working right now on a series of conditional text manuals (4 conditions, a few thousand pages)

But then again, I started working on these when they were in FM9, converted them to FM10, and now they're in FM11. I don't recall crashing at all while switching conditions. (That's not to say I haven't crashed at all...just usually when things time while waiting for unavailable resources)

-Matt

[Guest]

Thanks for the feedback about FM11, Matt. I may ask IT to download the trial to a different system so I can do some testing with my files before making the purchase and uninstalling FM10.

We'll see how it goes...

Smitty

[Tekscribe]

I may give this a shot later (download trial FM11 and see if the crash happens with the same project); I would need to do this on the same laptop, so I can eliminate problems with the laptop itself, Win7 64-bit, and installed software (Acrobat X, etc.). First, I'll wait for Adobe engineering and consult with local IT guy.