Frame 9 Crash - Conditional Text Issues SOLVED

Tue Feb 11 10:27:11 PST 2014

Thanks to everyone who sent suggestions - none of which worked.

They reinstalled Frame 9 yesterday and everything works fine now - the files that were "corrupted" are now behaving properly.

Alison

Alison Craig | Technical Documentation Lead
Ultrasonix | 130-4311 Viking Way | Richmond, BC  V6V 2K9 | analogicultrasound.com<http://www.analogicultrasound.com>
T 604-279-8550 ext 127 | F 604-279-8559

From: Craig, Alison
Sent: Thursday, February 06, 2014 10:28 AM
To: 'Zimmerman, Gary'
Subject: RE: Frame 9 Crash - Conditional Text Issues (More Info)

Thanks Gary.

I'll pass this along - but we're running unstructured Frame 9, so some of this may not apply.

Alison

Alison Craig | Technical Documentation Lead
Ultrasonix | 130-4311 Viking Way | Richmond, BC  V6V 2K9 | analogicultrasound.com<http://www.analogicultrasound.com>
T 604-279-8550 ext 127 | F 604-279-8559

From: Zimmerman, Gary [mailto:Gary.Zimmerman at Teradata.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2014 3:56 PM
To: Craig, Alison
Subject: RE: Frame 9 Crash - Conditional Text Issues (More Info)

Here's what I sent a little while ago to Anita Gutierrez.  Didn't make it to the list, I think, but I haven't looked into that yet.

What it means - I think - is that you have something conditionalized "funny".  For example, there is an errant paragraph mark/pilcrow that's hidden normally but conditionalized.  When you turn on or off the conditions in this case, you might be creating an invalid document or something else FM chokes on.  I also notice it happens a lot when something conditionalized is at the very end of a file or a structure, so likely some important binary formatting or other info is being conditionalized in or out, and FM freaks out when it's gone.

Turn on all the text symbols.  First skim through to see if there are any errant para marks or structures (if you're doing structured FM) that are conditionalized all by themselves.  Delete them.

Next try a mif wash - save as .mif, open .mif, then save back to .fm format.  When you are in the .mif file you can turn on all the conditions before you save as .fm.

Then use the Edit Conditional Text dialog box which (in FM 10, anyway) lists all the places in the file that share a particular condition.  Use the GoTo button to go to each of them and see what's there.

If there are any unused conditions in the file, use the conditional text dialog to delete them and delete any text associated with them. (If it's invisible, you don't care about it, but beware, sometimes this creates a file that Will Not Open - so make a backup before you try!)

Good luck!

I think at some point we had a document (FM7) where I think the last text symbol/pilcrow/end-of-flow or whatever marker in the structured document must have become conditionalized.  I went into the doc and deleted all unused conditions, and I think FM deleted that marker.  After that, just trying to open the document caused an immediate FM crash, though I can't say if it was the same one you experienced.  FM seems to be pretty fragile.

I could reproduce the problem, and recognize when it happened, because I kept the structure view open, and when I deleted one of the "unused" conditions, the entire structure would disappear from the structure window.  If I saved the document at that point, it could never be opened again.  So my strategy became to watch the structure whenever I deleted an unused condition, and if the structure disappeared, immediately do an Undo, and then search for and manually remove any instances I could see of the condition, rather than using the Delete Condition option in the conditional text dialog box/pod.

Hope this can help.

-- garyZ
Gary Zimmerman

From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com> [mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Craig, Alison
Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2014 11:18 AM
To: Matt Sullivan
Cc: framers at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers at lists.frameusers.com>
Subject: RE: Frame 9 Crash - Conditional Text Issues (More Info)

Matt:

A MIF wash was my first suggestion, but I'm told it didn't work.

I'll pass along the import idea.

Thanks, Alison

From: Matt Sullivan [mailto:sullivanmattr at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2014 11:16 AM
To: Craig, Alison
Cc: framers at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers at lists.frameusers.com>
Subject: Re: Frame 9 Crash - Conditional Text Issues (More Info)

Have they attempted a MIF wash, or attempted to import (via Copy into Document) to a fresh Fm file?

-Matt
Matt R. Sullivan
co-author Publishing Fundamentals: Unstructured FrameMaker 11<http://framemaker11book.com/>
P: 714.798.7596 | C: 714.585.2335 | matt at mattrsullivan.com<mailto:matt at mattrsullivan.com>

@mattrsullivan<http://twitter.com/mattrsullivan> linkedIn<http://www.linkedin.com/in/mattrsullivan> facebook<http://www.facebook.com/mattrsullivan> mattrsullivan.com<http://mattrsullivan.com/>

On Feb 5, 2014, at 10:34 AM, Craig, Alison <Alison.Craig at ultrasonix.com<mailto:Alison.Craig at ultrasonix.com>> wrote:

I received additional info from my colleagues.

Alison

Here's a screenshot of what happens when I try to open the safety chapter of our UG:

<image002.jpg>
Same thing happens when I highlight text in the file (after having opened the book file which allows me to open the safety chapter along with the other chapters in the book) and try to open the add/edit condition tag pod.

From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com> [mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Craig, Alison
Sent: Tuesday, February 04, 2014 11:48 AM
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers at lists.frameusers.com>
Subject: Frame 9 Crash - Conditional Text Issues

I received a request for help from my counterparts at a sister company in Denmark. I know they are running unstructured Frame 9 but I don't know if it's all patched. At least one system is a 64 bit Windows 7 Pro machine.

This is the gist of the description I was given - I've asked for further details. There's not a lot to go on, but if it sounds familiar to anyone, your suggestions would be appreciated.

<<We had some serious problems highlighting text to make it conditional. Files crashed and are now corrupt. We can't do anything with conditional text in them anymore.>>

Thanks, Alison

Alison Craig | Technical Documentation Lead
Ultrasonix | 130-4311 Viking Way | Richmond, BC  V6V 2K9 | analogicultrasound.com<http://www.analogicultrasound.com/>
T 604-279-8550 ext 127 | F 604-279-8559

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