Re: Word 2004 crashes when cutting text - FIXED!!!

From: Tony (nospam_at_nospam.com)
Date: 09/01/04 

Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 00:58:09 +0200

Beth,

Many thanks for the comprehensive feedback. I do appreciate your kind support.

1 - The exact error message was (I even have a screen capture of it!):

"There is insufficient memory. Save the document now".

If I did not quit then, eventually Word unexpectedly quitted in the
next seconds or minutes when working with it.

That error was generated when I tried to paste a small piece of text
(about 20 characters or less). Elliott fixed it for me just
copy/pasting all document --except the last carriage return-- into a
new one. I could not do it because I got also a crash when copying such
text. I later on found that I could copy/paste in other Mac with Word
10.1.4 (Office 10.2.5) but when I chose to save and then close the file
Word unexpectedly quitted. Same happened to Elliott, so eventually he
fixed it.

But as previously indicated, I have a 1 GB RAM and only Word 2004 was
running on Mac OS X 10.3.5. And the terminal top command did not show
any particular memory problem. The Activity Monitor did not show any
strange CPU or Memory problem either.

2 - On "Word/Preferences/View/Show" I have all options selected, except
"Image Placeholders".

But I usually do not have pictures or images in the documents. And the
files which generated the crashes did not have pictures for sure. Not
even tables (except the last one which had 1-column and 2-column tables
with about 200 rows). In other words, I get the crashes even on text
files without pictures or tables.

On "Word/Preferences/Save" I have only selected:

--"Always create backup copy" That one I selected after you told me to
do so a few days ago.

--"Save preview picture with new documents" Do you mean that one? What
is this for anyway?

3 - You said that I should save frequently (actually, that is what I
have been doing for years to avoid losing my work due to the frequent
Word unexpected quits on Mac OS X). But then you also said that if I do
it I will have more probabilities that Word gets into trouble
("Eventually it runs out of file handles for all these temp docs"). So,
what to do?

4 - If I quit Word 2004 and open it again pressing the shift key (safe
mode) and then open the corrupted file that I sent to Elliott and try
to cut the text from the 12 table cells that caused the crash in the
first place, again Word unexpectedly quits.

If then I copy the error text generated automatically, open Word again
in normal way (not safe mode) and try to paste such text, I get the
same error reported above:

"There is insufficient memory. Save the document now".

I had to quit then Word and open TextEdit to paste and save the
contents of such error report. It is a 9-page document that I can send
you.

This is a nightmare, but I would be most than glad to help you find the
culprit.

BTW, since I am beta testers for some applications, sometimes the
developers have sent me special debugger versions of their applications
to track weird behaviors. I just wonder if perhaps you could send me
such debugger version of Word 2004 which would create a log file of
every crash or problem encountered. That way we could track the culprit
very quickly.

That is all for now.

Thanks again.
Regards, 

---
On 2004-09-01 23:46:42 +0200, Beth Rosengard 
<bethrosengard@earthlink.net> said:
> Hi Tony,
> 
> I'm going to give you a couple of recommendations at the bottom of this, but
> see inline responses first.
> 
> On 8/30/04 11:39 AM, in article 2004083020395050073%nospam@nospamcom, "Tony"
> <nospam@nospam.com> wrote:
> 
>> The table was a plain one-column with about 250 rows. But I rarely use
>> tables. 99% of my crashes are on documents without tables. Bookmarks
>> from text copy/pasted from web or eMail pages were also a crash culprit
>> and I deleted them all using the "Insert/Bookmark" option. But even
>> with all that fixed crashes continue. You can never be sure with Word.
>> It crashes at any time (and no other application does it my rock-solid
>> Mac OS X 10.3.5).
> 
> Word crashing for no apparent reason is not typical.  Something is wrong; we
> just have to find it.
> 
>> I never had a "disk full" error. On the other hand I rarely use "undo".
>> Maybe I did it three times in total on that session. Certainly not 60
>> or near it.
> 
> You misunderstood.  It doesn't matter how many times you use Undo (if ever);
> what matters is how many times you hit Save.  Every time you save, Word has
> to create a temporary document *in case* you hit Undo, so it knows what to
> undo.  Eventually it runs out of file handles for all these temp docs.
> 
> But if you've never gotten the "disk full" error message, this is probably
> irrelevant anyway.  Do you remember the more-or-less exact wording of the
> memory error you say you're getting?
> 
>> I have "Allow Fast Saves" turned off and, as previously indicated, all
>> options in the Save preferences are off except "Save preview picture
>> with new documents".  Should I turn them on? I have them off because I
>> think that is best to avoid problems with Word --I am becoming paranoid
>> after all this nightmare-- and because I do not want to save every x
>> minutes but when I want (Command S), which usually is after doing
>> something on the document that if lost would take me time to recover.
> 
> Do you actually use the preview pictures?  I seem to remember hearing that
> they use a lot of space so if you don't, turn this option off.  Otherwise,
> you should turn on "Always make backup" as a safety measure and forget all
> the other options.
> 
>> But then, again, this is ludicrous. I have no crash or problem with any
>> of the dozens of applications (including other words processors) that I
>> use on Mac OS X 10.3.5. Why with Word? There is something wrong with
>> Word for sure.
> 
> There is certainly something wrong with the way Word is interacting with
> your system; that doesn't *necessarily* mean there is anything wrong with
> Word itself.  Word is more complex and more demanding than probably 95% of
> the Mac applications available.  That means there are more opportunities for
> conflicts.  It also means there are more things that can go wrong during
> installation.
> 
> Word also contains a good bit of legacy code.  That's the stuff that was
> there in the beginning (like Allow Fast Saves).  From what I understand,
> much of this legacy code is so deeply embedded and intertwined with later
> code that removing it is likely to cause many more issues than leaving it
> alone.
> 
>> And now it seems that frequent savings manually (Command S) can also
>> corrupt the file, as said by Elliott. This is frustrating. What should
>> I do then: save or not save manually frequently (Command S). Should I
>> activate any auto-save or auto-recover option in preferences). I am
>> lost until Microsoft fixes this.
> 
> You *should* save frequently.  Also, closing and reopening your document
> every once in a while doesn't hurt.  And, if you see signs of possible
> corruption, don't wait till it gets worse!  Uncorrupt the document right
> away.  It's easy enough to do following either of the methods in that
> article I pointed you to.
>  On 8/30/04 1:33 PM, in article 2004083022333643658%nospam@nospamcom, "Tony"
> <nospam@nospam.com> wrote:
> 
>> Only one question: if Word crashes (sadly it will do!) where can I look
>> to find such ?backup copy?? Or perhaps Word would open it for me
>> automatically next time that I open such file?
> 
> You'll see the backup copy as a semi-grayed-out icon in the same folder that
> you saved the original doc to.  I don't know, but I suspect that Word will
> not open the backup automatically.  I would think you'd have to do it
> manually (which can be done regardless of the fact that it looks grayed
> out).
> 
>> Well I must say that not being administrators you know so much about
>> Word. I want you to thank you twice for offering such great help being
>> also Word users as I am...
> 
> You're very welcome.  Note that Jeffrey Weston, who *is* a Microsoft
> employee has requested that you send crash logs to him directly.  Please do
> so!
> 
> However, try this regardless:  Quit Word and then relaunch it while you hold
> down the Shift key.  This is known as opening in Safe Mode, since just about
> everything will be disabled (macros, custom dictionaries, add-ins, prefs and
> more).  Now open a document that reliably crashes on you (like maybe the
> original of the one that Elliott fixed for you?).  Perform the actions that
> made Word crash *consistently* before.  If you have no problems, that means
> that Word is fine but something else (one of the disabled components) is
> *not* fine.  If the document continues to crash, then something is wrong
> with Word or your installation of it.
> 
> In that case, my recommendation would be to do a complete step-by-step
> removal and reinstallation of all of Office, following the procedures
> outlined here:  <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/RemoveReinstall.htm>.  And
> don't take any shortcuts!  Do it right.
> 
> Good luck.
> 
> Beth

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