10.1.5: MVPs webpage does not cover Word "Full" freeze/stall?

[Norman R. Nager, Ph.D.]

Help, please.

I wish I had taken notes on the exact error message when Word 10.1.5 froze
in the middle of working on a new document, but "full" was used. That's on
a hard drive with many GB to spare and with a document that was less than
100 lines.

Nothing I could do would allow me to save the document or to un-freeze Word.
I ended up doing a Force-Quit from the Finder and, fortunately, Word rescued
the text on re-launching.

I've just searched through the MVPs FAQs webpages but either missed or could
not find anything on the topic.

I've been using Word X since it came out and versions going back to Word 98,
but this is the first time I recall this particular kind of freeze. I seem
to recall a posting in this newsgroup a while back.

How does one prevent or deal with the "full" error?

Respectfully, Norm

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Help, please.

I wish I had taken notes on the exact error message when Word 10.1.5 froze
in the middle of working on a new document, but "full" was used. That's on
a hard drive with many GB to spare and with a document that was less than
100 lines.

Nothing I could do would allow me to save the document or to un-freeze Word.
I ended up doing a Force-Quit from the Finder and, fortunately, Word rescued
the text on re-launching.

I've just searched through the MVPs FAQs webpages but either missed or could
not find anything on the topic.

I've been using Word X since it came out and versions going back to Word 98,
but this is the first time I recall this particular kind of freeze. I seem
to recall a posting in this newsgroup a while back.

How does one prevent or deal with the "full" error?

See http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/WordMac/DiskFullError.htm

 

[Norman R. Nager, Ph.D.]

Thanks, J.E.! Hopefully, this bug will be squashed in Office 2004. I
trust the MVPs in creating the article reported it to MS developers?

But the explanation of why it's caused (which I quoted verbatim below) in
the MVPs page article did not explain why the bug bit the particular Word
10.1.5 document which had NO graphics related operations and, if any, no
more than a few undo actions. Apparently, another causal factor can trigger
the bug.

"Explanation of why it's caused.
The error is caused by having too many temporary files open, which is in
turn caused by Word trying to maintain the stack (or list) of Undo actions
available, especially for graphic-related operations. What the workaround
does is wipe out the temporary files and, consequently, the stack of Undo
actions. Word is then able to perform the save without error."

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Thanks, J.E.! Hopefully, this bug will be squashed in Office 2004. I
trust the MVPs in creating the article reported it to MS developers?

Actually it was published here first by Matt Centurion, an MacBU
employee.

I would certainly think that this would be fixed in Word 2004, but I've
no information one way or another.

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word]]

Hi Norman:

* The article was WRITTEN by a Microsoft employee. Discretion forbids me
naming Matt Centurion (oops...) but he's the software quality tester at Mac
BU who FINALLY found the bug, which makes him something of a hero. He also
wrote the macro that provides a work-around.

This bug has been soooo frustrating, because the system testers have never
been able to reproduce it reliably enough to examine the running Word
application in system memory to determine why it's failing. We knew it was
a file system error, but we didn't know which one.

It turns out to be "Out of File Handles, cannot create any more files."

I think they will certainly fix this one in Word 2004, but they only
recently found the cause, so the fix is still in coding and testing.

Cheers

This responds to article <BC68E311.10C19%[email protected]>,

Thanks, J.E.! Hopefully, this bug will be squashed in Office 2004. I
trust the MVPs in creating the article reported it to MS developers?

But the explanation of why it's caused (which I quoted verbatim below) in
the MVPs page article did not explain why the bug bit the particular Word
10.1.5 document which had NO graphics related operations and, if any, no
more than a few undo actions. Apparently, another causal factor can trigger
the bug.

"Explanation of why it's caused.
The error is caused by having too many temporary files open, which is in
turn caused by Word trying to maintain the stack (or list) of Undo actions
available, especially for graphic-related operations. What the workaround
does is wipe out the temporary files and, consequently, the stack of Undo
actions. Word is then able to perform the save without error."

--

Please respond only to the newsgroup to preserve the thread.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]