"FrameMaker has detected a problem and must quit" Really?!

[Combs, Richard]

Robert Lauriston wrote:
 
> Note that Ken and his coworker were able to reproduce the problem.
> 
> Sometimes FrameMaker has problems using source files are on network
> file servers, sometimes it doesn't. If you've experienced no problems,
> count yourself lucky.

The problems with files on network servers are usually of two kinds: 

1) Problems with permissions, as Syed suggested elsewhere on this thread. Such problems manifest consistently until the permissions problem is corrected, and then they're gone. 

2) Problems due to network latency, packet loss, slow reads/writes, etc. Such problems may be intermittent. At a given moment, FM may be trying to execute a step that's dependent on some preceding network read/write being complete, and for some (possibly temporary) reason, it isn't. Ideally, all application code would have robust enough error handling to recover gracefully from such a situation, but this isn't an ideal world. :-} 

If your enterprise has a solid, fast, reliable network (not saturated from time to time due to videoconferencing or BitTorrent downloads) and solid, fast, reliable network servers, you'll probably never encounter such problems. 

If not, but you still need to keep your files on a server file share (for backup, etc.), you might want to adopt a policy of always working on a local copy of your files and using a mirroring (folder synching) application to copy changed files to the network location. If management objects to that, politely suggest that the only viable alternative is that they fix the freakin' network. :-)

Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
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rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-903-6372
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