FrameMaker 9 Repeatable Hard Crash

[Bernard Aschwanden (Publishing Smarter)]

FM9.0p237 on Windows 7 and I get the same result. If I click outside the table (not in the title, not in the body of it) and try to
import, it works fine.

The process I followed was to launch FM, then file > new > document > portrait. File > Save As to my desktop as _DELETEME.fm and
then inserted a table. Mouse stayed in the default location and I imported. Crash. Then I reopened, tried the import and it worked.
Core difference? I was in the default flow, at the very beginning of the document, before the table anchor.

Bernard





Bernard Aschwanden
Publishing Smarter
www.publishingsmarter.com

Write Less. Write Better.




-----Original Message-----
From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Oran Petersen
Sent: May-19-10 01:17
To: FrameMaker List
Subject: FrameMaker 9 Repeatable Hard Crash



We have discovered a repeatable bug causing a hard crash in FrameMaker 9. By hard crash I mean Frame locks up, goes sort of "white
screen", starts eating up the CPU, and requires Task Manager to break out, sometimes after multiple attempts. It will drive the CPU
to 100 percent, effectively disabling the machine. Frame is fully patched p250. 



To demonstrate, just open a new file, insert a default table, such as Format A, and Import Formats Current. You will go down hard.
This happens on any Windows version, XP, or 7, that we have been able to test. It happens on all machines tested. 



I have also discovered that if you change the table designer settings to "No Title" the issue goes away. If you add a title to an
existing table and import formats current you crash. 



More interesting facts: The task manager shows FrameMaker twice, even though only one has been launched. You must actually terminate
both entries in task manager to break out. Then it takes a bit for the CPU usage to calm down. It acts like Frame does not know how
to handle "Current" and is trying to launch Frame a 2nd time and freezing in the processes.

If you import from a different file (not current) you do not crash. 

Of course we can avoid the crash by not importing current. But a more insidious side of this is that we are getting random instant
crashes while performing operations on large book files that are causing serious reliability and usability issues with our attempted
upgrade to Frame 9. Researching the issue is taking time that we do not have. So far it looks like it is files with tables that are
triggering these random crashes as well. If we cannot reliably operate on our books we will not be able to upgrade to Frame 9. We do
thousands of processes a year and random crashes would be a nightmare. 

We are using structured files, but unstructured ones have the same issue. 

Is anyone else experiencing these issues, or does anyone have any clues as how to prevent them? 

Thanks 

Oran