Some answers: The dreaded Internal Error error meets the dreaded Adobe support, sigh

Fri Jan 11 11:04:22 PST 2008

Hi Emily,

Eeek, what a horrible story.  Doesn't bode well for Adobe support, does it?
Personally, when I have a question, I never ask support. I post the question
here.  I think there are about 5000 - 6000 Frame users on this list, many of
whom I have talked with for at least 10 years and some of them since 93 or
so whan I joined it.  We do have a few experts here.  And Adobe monitors the
list and answers questions from time to time as well.  I know of no better
place to get FM answers.

That said, I have both FM7.1 and FM8 on my system, have been using FM since
92, and I _think_ I speeke Engrish purty gud :-), so maybe I can help you.
An no long waits on the phone.  :-)

To familiarize myself with the problem, I need to ask some questions.

Exactly how are you creating the PDF file?  Are you printing to PS and
distilling, using Save As PDF, or what?
Exactly where in the process does FM crash?
Are you attempting to print the entire book or just one file?
What version of Acrobat do you have installed on your system?
Did you install Acrobat after you installed FM (I hope)?
If you are printing from FM to PS and distilling, what printer driver are
you using?
Does FM crash on only one book or on all FM files?  How about a brand new
file from scratch?

I assume that at one point, the files were printing normally.  Can you think
of anything you did that changed the system configuration since that time?
Installed or deleted another program, etc?

Without knowing any of this information, here are some possible solutions,
from simple to complex.

1. Reboot your system.  A full memory can cause all kinds of problems.
2. Wash the files through MIF (Save all of the files, including the book
file, to MIF.  Delete the FM and book files.  Open the MIF files and save
them to FM.)
3. Try to PDF one file at a time.  The problem could be caused by one file
in the book and not all of them.
4. Create a brand new file in FM and enter some text manually. No graphics.
Try to print it to PDF and see what happens.
5. Reinstall FM, but do not install the distiller from the FM disk.

If none of this works, send me the offending files and I'll see if I can
find the problem.

Hope this helps.

Diane

PS.  Hey, what's with this "old" stuff?  I have 7 grandkids and I am have a
few years behind me, but I will never be "old."

========================

-----Original Message-----
From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com
[mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com]On Behalf Of Emily Berk
Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 4:29 PM
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: The dreaded Internal Error error meets the dreaded Adobe
support, sigh

Hi FrameUsers:

I don't know why I thought this list was no more.  I'm glad that it is.
Please help me with my FrameMaker 7.1 (yes, I know it's old; I am too and
it's all the company I work for is willing to use and I need to be able to
generate this one little PDF sometime within the next decade).

Following is my latest tale of woe.

I always forget why I always get queasy before calling Adobe's tech support.

But then, once again, once my interaction with Adobe is complete, the
nightmare has only just begun.

Take today, for instance.  Well, it all started yesterday when I began to
get Internal Error crashes when I tried to generate a PDF, any PDF, on any
Frame file (not on Word docs) using FrameMaker 7.1.  Because I had a vague
recollection of what it was like to interact with Adobe support, I didn't
try that.  But I did try a LOT of other stuff.  For hours and hours.  All to
no avail.

So, I decided to try to sleep on the problem, which wasn't a successful
strategy for me.  I've had a number of these Internal Error issues come up
in the past and they never, ever, never go away on their own.

Since sleep did not come, I chose to begin my Adobe nightmare early.  Called
tech support and spoke with about 3 or 4 perfectly nice folks whose English
was very unclear.

They would have to ask their questions, oh, six or seven times before I
realized that they were asking, for the seventh or eighth time, what my
customer number or serial number or product .... was.

Eventually, (I was on hold and/or being transferred and then asked redundant
questions about 45 minutes) I get to speak with someone about my problem.
He doesn't speak very good English, but I am given to understand that he
does not DO FrameMaker support.

So now I'm on hold again for another very long interval.

And a guy picks up who DOES speak English.  And I explain my tale of woe --
no change on my end in terms of the software for at least 2 years.  The doc
is one I've been working on since last October at least.

I tell him the whole story and he lets me go on and on and then he tells me,
in his good English, that he doesn't know anything whatsoever about
FrameMaker.

But assures me that the guy who next picks up with both know FrameMaker AND
be able to speak English.  So I'm on hold again for -- not all that long --
maybe another 8 minutes, but time has been ticking away.

Then a guy picks up and yes he does speak English and implies that he knows
everything one might want to know about FrameMaker.  But he knows nothing
about me.

SO, I have to re-iterate EVERYTHING again.  Customer number, phone number,
address, hair color, eye color, preferred brand of beer, product serial
number, tale of woe.

And then, after I'd re-iterated everything, he says, "FrameMaker 7.1 is no
longer supported.  You need to search the knowledgebase or buy FrameMaker
8."

1.  THEY ALL KNEW THAT THEY WERE NOT GOING TO PROVIDE SUPPORT TO ME ONCE
THEY KNEW I WAS USING FRAMEMAKER 7.1.  Why did they just not hang up on me
then?

2.  AND YET THEY KEPT ME ON HOLD/TALKING for NEARLY TWO HOURS.  (I'm
guessing all those guys who didn't speak good English get paid to delay
people like me by the minute.)

3.  AND THEN THEY REFUSED TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM, BUT IMPLIED THAT THE
SOLUTION IS IN THE KNOWLEDGEBASE.

4.  WHICH IT ISN'T BECAUSE I'VE TRIED TO DO EVERYTHING MENTIONED IN THE
DATABASE FOR Internal Error: 7104, 6063074, 7693891, 0

And, no, the company I'm working with is NOT going to upgrade to FrameMaker
8 just because Adobe did some hidden "upgrade" to 7.1 that made it
psychotic.

Do I sound frantic?  It's probably just stress.

Anyone have any suggestions?

-- Emily

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