Cursor blink rate affects FrameMaker stability?

[Susan Curtzwiler]

Hi Framers--
 
>From JX Conasulting
...blinking weird, irregularly. 
I checked the windows  setting in:  
Start -> Control Panel -> Keyboard -> Cursor Blink Rate.

JX -- Thanks for the info.  My FMKR will crash on my if I hold the cursor in one place too long, like if I'm highlighting something and trying to get the last letter of a phrase  OR if I'm scrolling back and forth too fast --  and then for no apparent reason, I get the infinite spinning blue circle and it forces me to close down that file.  Outrageously frustrating.   I just checked my blink rate, they were not at the maximum, a little beyond the middle.  Nonetheless, I took them down a notch or so, to see if that will help. 

BTW:

For Frame 7.0  --  add in    > Hardware and Sound>

Start -> Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound-> Keyboard -> Cursor Blink Rate.

 

Cheers -- Sue Curtzwiler




________________________________

From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com on behalf of JX Consulting
Sent: Wed 10/28/2009 10:41 AM
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: Cursor blink rate affects FrameMaker stability?




Three writers on my team reported too-frequent crashes in FrameMaker 
8, especially notable because it crashed disproportionately during 
idle time. (As opposed to crashes during one of our extremely complex 
FrameScripts that run 20 minutes or more... those usually completed 
fine.) We do not have any fancy keystroke interception code in 
FrameScript. Well, not yet anyway, I have a plan for some soon. :-) 
So, I wouldn't expect that any of our code affects this Idle-Crash 
issue. So, anyway i noticed one of the writers had a cursor that was 
blinking weird, irregularly. I checked the windows  setting in:  Start 
-> Control Panel -> Keyboard -> Cursor Blink Rate.

His blink rate was set to the MAXIMUM setting. I set it down a couple 
notches. And his crashing problem went away! The two other writers 
checked their setting for that, and theirs were set to the MINIMUM 
setting (no blink). They set theirs UP a couple notches. And their 
crashing problems reportedly also went away too!

Perhaps this is superstitious, but these three writers believe this 
change was what made stability improve. It's possible this issue is 
specific to folks with FrameScript, I have no idea. We all use 
FrameScript.  I could easily imagine this being a system event Idle 
issue either in FrameMaker, FrameScript, or both.

Anyway, if you are having crashing problems in FrameMaker, try setting 
this setting to somewhere in the *middle* of the range and see if that 
helps. If this change reduces your crashes noticably, PLEASE REPLY on 
the forum to this post with more information about your configuration. 
For example, that would clarify whether this is unique to FM8 or 
affects FM9 also, and whether this affects non-FrameScript users!

Configuration for the team:
* Win XP SP3 32bit
   (except 1 writer w/ 64bit, who was 1 of the 3 with the issue)
* FrameMaker 8.0p277
* FrameScript 5.2R1 (some might be R2)

For the record, there are other writers on the team, including me, who 
weren't experiencing these crashes. At least two of us had middle-of-
the-range settings for this value (and no "idle time" crashes), I'm 
not sure about the other two writers.

   -- JX Bell
      JX Consulting

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