Re: Word freezes, then crashes

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Hello Terry, and Hello Webrider,

A quick update on the freeze/crash problems following your prior comments,
which are much appreciated.

I followed Terry’s advice and checked the video driver, but it was
up-to-date. I followed Webrider’s advice, and ran full scans for viruses and
spyware, but nothing came up.

I tried saving one of the problematic documents as and ‘.htm’ file, then
converting this back to a ‘.doc’ file. But, as in Webrider’s experience, this
did not work: the document still crashed after a while.

I then followed Webrider’s advice and let Word create a new ‘normal.dot’
template, and I worked from this new ‘normal.dot’ file. However, since I have
a great deal of ongoing work, I could not re-type everything; this would have
just taken too long. I tried to compromise by cutting and pasting the text
from the old document which had been crashing, but I cut and pasted only the
text, while leaving the paragraph marks within the old file. (I read
somewhere that documents corruptions are often stored in the paragraph marks).

In order to format the document, instead of recreating all the styles, I
imported styles I had already created using the style ‘organiser’ function.

Perhaps this cutting and pasting and importing of styles defeats the purpose
of creating a new ‘normal.dot’ template. However, given the length of the
things I’m working on, it was the only viable possibility open to me.

This new document, based on the new ‘normal.dot’ template, worked fine for a
while. Quite a while actually. Then, last night, just before I stopped I ran
into problems again.

I had been working on the new document based on the new ‘normal.dot’
template. And I had left another old document open which had been crashing.
With this new and this old document open things went smoothly, and Word did
not crash.

Then, just before quitting, I had to open another old document, which had
crashed in the past. I cut a small amount of text from it, without the
paragraph mark, and pasted it into the new document based on the new
‘normal.dot’ template. Then, when I began typing again in the new document,
Word froze and crashed again. I experienced the same pattern. Quick typing,
and then a freeze, followed by Word scrolling automatically, followed by
almost 100% CPU usage, then a crash, with no error message.

Although up until that point I had been slowing my typing down, as you
suggested, I seemed to be typing quickly and inaccurately again, and using,
at the moment of the freeze, the SHIFT+Number keys, and also the CTRL+Arrow
keys (which might explain Word’s scrolling up or down the document. Also,
I’ve tried to recreate the crash with keyboard shortcuts, but I haven’t been
successful).

Also, I’m wondering if opening an old document could have brought on the
crash of the new document based on the new ‘normal.dot’ template. In any
case, as you’ve said before, it’s bizarre. And, unfortunately, Word is
becoming very difficult to work in: sometimes it works, and then sometimes it
crashes unpredictably.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Steve

"Terry Farrell" wrote:

So it sounds like rapid navigation using keyboard shortcuts is the possible
trigger for the lockups. That would certainly point towards a couple of
possibilities: a graphics driver problem or hitting the wrong keyboard
combo. Check with the graphics support site to see that you have the latest
driver and try installing or reinstalling the graphics to eliminate that
from the problem.

I guess when you navigate, you are using the arrow keys and Ctrl+End,
Ctrl+Home and similar combinations to navigate. How about try using the
mouse to navigate for a while to see if that stops the problem. If it shows
that it is the navigation that is the problem, maybe we can find a keyboard
combination that is the root cause.

Terry

"Steve" <Steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:2CC5FCCB-8F71-462B-A6FE-03E6FFAE674E@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hello Terry,

And thanks again for your prompt reply. I had found Graham Mayor's pages
about 'What to do when Word crashes'. I did follow his tips, as you
suggest,
and today again, as I said, while working in 'Safe mode', I experienced
the
same freeze and crash.

I'm no expert, but I agree that it seems strange indeed.

The machine I'm experienceing the problem on is a fairly new laptop which
stands alone and is never hooked up to any network (only the Internet). I
run
XP home SP2.

Is there a pattern to the crashes? A good question. Perhaps there is. Here
is what I've noticed.

It seems to me that the freeze always happens at more or less the same
moment. I can end up typing very quickly, but also quite badly, in the
sense
that I often hit two or more keys at the same time. As I'm doing this, I'm
thus backtracking within the line and/or paragraph to correct my mistakes,
and I do so using keyboard shortcuts. Sometimes it seems like I hit the
arrow
key at the same time as the Ctrl key on my keyboard, or another key, and
then
everything freezes and Word scrolls quickly up or down the screen,
stopping
and freezing again before crashing. What I'm trying to say is that any
'pattern' I seem to detect is related to this rapid typing, to the keys
used
quickly and together, and sometimes perhaps not very precisley. This is
the
only 'pattern' I can detect, but it is nevertheless a pattern.

Would this be enough to corrupt the document 'in progress', and even in
'safe mode'? Would there be some vicious, hidden shortcut that brings this
on?

To answer your other queries: only one problematic file contains a table,
and a very short table at that (two tables in fact, spanning a total of
two
pages out of a grand total of 60 pages in the file). All the documents
exhibiting the problem are 'similar' in that they contain the same
personalised paragraph and character styles, and have text and paragraphs
copied between them. Again, the freeze and crash occurs even in safe mode,
and even with all the temp stuff that G. Mayor mentions cleaned up.

If I'm following things correctly, the question seems to be: What on earth
is causing the document to corrupt?

Thanks for your help.

Steve

"Terry Farrell" wrote:

It doesn't sound like virus or malware - but then I'd never guarantee
that!

However, this is really a strange problem. It would suggest that the
document is corrupting at some point. Is there any pattern to when this
happens? Are you maybe creating or working on similar documents with long
tables? Is this all on a standalone PC or a networked PC?

As you have had the problem occurring frequently, I suggest that the next
step is to clean up your system of any abandoned temp files. See the
following FAQ for how to clear up after Word.

http://www.gmayor.com/what_to_do_when_word_crashes.htm

Terry

"Steve" <Steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:DC70C562-109E-47A6-B238-59E9BF9A60FA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hello again Terry,

News just in... I tried exactly what you suggested, and booted Word in
Safe
mode, and worked like that for a while. But Word appears not to be any
more
stable in Safe mode. After about an hour or so, I encountered the same
problem: Word freezes up, hitting any key makes the program scroll
rapidly
through the document, the screen freezes again, it's impossible to do
anything, and then Word just shuts itself down, closing all open Word
documents.

No warning is given, and no error messages shows up.

Also, I'll add that if I go into task manager (or whatever it's called
in
English) by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete, this program will indicate to me
that
Word is not responding. But, again (and even in Safe mode), it crashes
all
on
its own and I get no error message.

I've just downlowded Microsoft's malware removal program (as Charles
suggested) and run a full system scan, but no infected files were
picked
up.

I'm baffled.

Steve

"Terry Farrell" wrote:

Steve

That makes a big difference <g>

Try starting Word in Safe Mode and testing it to see if it is stable.
That
should narrow down the field of possibilities. To start in Safe Mode,
from
Start, Run, type in

winword /a

and press enter. Word will start in Safe Mode where it bypasses all
add-ins,
templates, macros or any other third party changes or customisations.
Try
opening and working on one of your documents now to see if it this
stabilises Word. This will give us a better idea of the area of the
problem.

Terry

"Steve" <Steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:26F3D046-C524-40BF-ADE4-4ADF49EF22F1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hello Terry,

And thanks for your quick reply.

Unfortunately, my comment about the printer was completely
misleading.
I
added it (a little too hastily) just before I hit 'post', and I what
I
meant
to say was that I'm not connected to a NETWORK printer. I was
reading
on
the
MVP help page entitled 'Problems Opening Word' that a network
printer
can
sometimes be the source of problems, and I wanted to make it clear
that
it
wasn't so in this case. I do have a default printer, whose driver is
up
to
date. And, in any case, Word opens fine, and works fine for a while,
before
it decides to freeze and then crash, quite erratically. (It doesn't
do
it
every time, just sometimes, and just enough to make it very annoying
indeed,
because Word doesn't always 'recover' the documents I'm working on
after
it
crashes).

Any other ideas would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Steve


"Terry Farrell" wrote:

Uninstalling and reinstalling is usually a complete waste of time.
But
from
what you say, printer seems to be the probable cause. Word MUST see
a
default windows printer to work correctly. So make sure that you
have
the
latest driver and install a printer and set it as the Windows
default.
Let
us know if this is resolves the problem or if you need further
help.

--
Terry Farrell - MS Word MVP

"Steve" <Steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1B273DB7-6582-41F4-A21D-3D85FB71B03F@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hello,

I’ve been using a version of Word contained in Office 2000
Professional
for
about 4 years now without any problems (except the ‘usual’
formatting
headaches, for which I’ve found help here). I first used it on
Win
98,
and
I’m now using XP Home SP2.

Recently, Word started acting strangely indeed. As I type, the
program
suddenly freezes, without any warning. Then, hitting any key
appears
to
make
Word scroll very quickly through the document, until it suddenly
freezes
up
again. The program then appears to take up most of the CPU usage,
and
the
computer’s fan turns up to high speed. It’s impossible to do
anything
in the
document and, within a few seconds, or perhaps longer (it seems
to
depend),
the program just crashes without any warning, and all open word
documents
close.

I de-installed Office, as well as its the corresponding registry
keys,
and
after shutting down the computer, etc., I re-installed Office. I
thought
this
would make the difference... but it didn’t. My Word documents
still
exhibit
the same behaviour. And it’s become very annoying indeed.

After de-installing and re-installing Office I was a little
surprised
to
see
that, when opening Word after the re-installation, my old
customised
toolbars
were showing instead of the default ones (nothing fancy, just
reduced
down
to
the icons one uses most often). I didn’t quite understand why
this
was,
but
might it be a clue as to why Word is still acting in the same
way?

I’ve checked out some comments and some help pages linked to
through
the
discussions here (‘Corrupt documents’ and ‘What to do when
word
crashes,
etc.), but I can’t seem to find anything similar.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Steve

(P.S.: I’m not connected to a default printer).




.

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