Larry,

I think your RAM, or lack of it may be the (or part of the) problem....
especially if you are running any other applications with FM.

For example, several of our systems that only had 1 or 2 G were crashing or locking up if we ran Photoshop or Illustrator at the same time as FM (7). Problems have gone away entirely and performance is much improved with 4G on board.

Art

This may not help but I'll throw it out there anyway. I was running FM8 under Vista and had problems when I held down my mouse button too long. FM8 froze and I often lost data. I called Adobe and they asked if I had used AutoPlay when I loaded the app. Told them I had. They suggested uninstalling it and then reinstall through Windows Explorer by opening the CD's Framemaker8 folder, right-clicking on the Setup icon, and selecting Run as Administrator. Supposedly it fixes several problems. It didn't seem to fix mine but it may be worth a try. I did not have to reactivate the software when I did that. Also, did you contact Adobe and provide the error message numbers to them. They were very helpful when I called, as well they should be.

Larry, you mentioned using graphics as being when the crashes seem to occur, and you also mentioned it happening on pasting.

Could you tell us what type of graphic files you're using? What is the source application that you're pasting from? How many graphics do you have in an average FM file?

Also have you experimented with using referenced graphics rather than copied (pasted) in? Several advantages for referenced graphics: 1) makes your FM files much, much smaller, 2) removes significant amounts of re-work when graphics are updated, 3) makes the files more portable, 4) uses much less memory -- some graphics formats expand the FM file size dramatically when pasted into FM, often several times the graphic's actual file size on disk.

I have to say I agree with the other folks that 1gig of RAM is more than likely your culprit; years ago I experienced instabilities in FM that were resolved once I got more RAM.

No offense taken, but you're kinda misquoting me. What I said was the same thing you said -- if other memory hogs (PS; Illustrator) are running at the same time as FM, then FM ends up without enough RAM, especially if it is also trying to process graphics.

Instability is a whole other issue, but either way the only practical way to compensate is by adding more RAM.

Art

This post seems to reflect my experiences with FrameMaker 8 on Vista.

I downloaded Frame 8 to create a Christmas & New Years newsletter. The graphics are in JPEG, PNG, PSD,and one GIF. I have 12 pictures on two pages. The computer is a Dell 1520 laptop, Vista, 128 MB video card, 2 GB RAM, 200 GB 7200 RPM drive. Have been using FrameMaker for 12 years.

I experienced four or more crashes a day. The FrameMaker application freezes and the window whittens. This seems to happen when I cut and paste. If I hold the mouse button down too long also might cause it.

I really can't figure out what the problems is. The Adobe InDesign version of my previous newsletter was essentially the same letter. InDesign on Vista does not crash; FrameMaker 8 on Vista crashes often.

With Windows XP Professional SP2, FrameMaker 8 crashes with about 20 documents in a book whenever I either do an Update Book and Generate Lists or Save As PDF. I am not using a font manager but have installed Adobe CS3 including Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional. I assumed that Acrobat 8 is a superset of the version of Acrobat Distiller that comes with FrameMaker 8 and hopefully should work.

My configuration is:
FrameMaker 8.0.0 for Intel
Build: 8.0p266
Window System: MSWindows XP Professional SP2
Operating System: Windows NT 5.1 (major.minor.build: 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2)
System: Quad-Core, 4GB RAM, plenty of available disk storage, two 24 inch monitors
Adobe Acrobat: 8.1.1
Adobe Distiller: 8.1.0 (Note that I started this up and this is what was displayed in the log text window (Im not sure if this is a problem):

Acrobat Distiller 8.0
Started: Monday, December 24, 2007 at 15:29:07

Adobe PostScript software version: 3016.102
CID support library initialization completed.
Error in PDFX4 2007.joboptions:
/CheckCompliance out of range

The book uses OpenType/Type 1 fonts, cross-references, tables, and links to graphic files. Page size is 8 in. x 9.25 (so it is smaller than letter page size). I made sure that no other Adobe CS3 application was running and I did the following with this book:
1. Save [the book] As XML. Worked (all files were processed successfully to create the XML).
2. Print [the book] to an HP Laserjet as a PRN file. Worked.
3. Update Book and Generate Lists. Crash with Error number 8004 (Internal Error: 8004, 8443407, 4460228, 4414681).
4. Save As PDF with PDF Job Options of Standard (just to keep it simple). Crash with Error number 8004:

And then, in this case, when I click OK, another error window is automatically displayed.

Bam!

Im not sure if:
The book has too many chapters.
The book has content that FM 8 doesnt like.
There is a coordination issue with Acrobat Distiller (does FM 8 still use Distiller?).

So, I made a simplified book with four files (Title, TOC, 1 chapter, and index).
1. Saved As XML. Worked.
2. Update Book. Worked! (This is great, compared to the long book example that crashed)
3. Save As PDF. Crashed with error 8004.

I am packaging the files to send to Sameer of Adobe (looks like he volunteered in a prior posting) but I am having to keep both InDesign and FrameMaker documents updated cause I am not trusting FrameMaker 8 at the moment. If, as Larry Carey, says in a prior posting that there is a much publicized fix, Id sure like to know about it.

With Adobe CS3 installed I really dont want to remove / uninstall Acrobat 8 if I can help it. The Activate/De-activate feature can be a mess. I also dont quite know how to diagnose this issue because the number of possible causes of these errors are almost endless and I dont have the time. I still have FrameMaker 7.1 installed (is that the cause?) so I guess I could try that too.

Please, any suggestions???

Ken (Software Maniac)
Seattle, WA

Both FM 8 and Adobe Acrobat 8 have been patched since release... Are y'all up-to-date?

Art

- Removed duplicate response. -

Ken...

As an additional weapon for your Frame arsenal, you might want to look at your installed printers on your computer. You should find one that is named "Adobe PDF."

Instead of creating PDFs using the Save as PDF menu selection, try "printing" the book using the Print command. Select Adobe PDF as the Printer and make certain that the Print to File check box is UNCHECKED. You will be prompted for a location to print the PDF, and you can edit the name of the PDF while you're at it.

If you have cross-references, hyperlinks and such that you want to preserve in the PDF, check the Generate Acrobat Data box after reviewing and configuring what you want via the PDF Setup button.

The Print method always works perfectly for me. I have had all kinds of problems using the Save As PDF approach, including crashes.

The free SetPrint plug-in is useful for ensuring that the Adobe PDF printer becomes your "default" printer just for FrameMaker when it is launched. Here is a link to SetPrint:

http://www.sundorne.com/FrameMaker/Freeware/setPrint.htm

I hope this helps...either way, Happy New Year!

Dennis...
Grass Valley, CA

Larry,

You mentioned: "I can produce PDFs fine (with the highly publicized "fix"), "

What fix is this? You mean FM build 266?

Ken Whitaker
Seattle, WA 98012

Would like an update from Adobe on this. How do I engage them.
Thanks for any help.
Phyllis

Phyllis,

If you scroll back to the earlier portion of the thread, a FM engineer posted his email address and asked people to send him crash logs...

I assume he's still looking for input.

Cheers,
Art

Phyllis...

At the top of this screen, just below and to the right of your original posting, click on the "Show All Messages" link. Then simply scroll down to message #19 from Sumeer Goyal.

Dennis...

Phyllis,

Not to minimize your troubles at all, but not everyone is having problems, and few shops are having the severity that you're experiencing. I was a beta tester, and then delayed adopting until after the first patch was released. But no major problems to report...

So at least consider that it's something in your configuration that's contributing.

Just in passing, did you ever post details of your system and network configs? It's useful trouble shooting info for the rest of us to have.

Art