Active document disappears from screen upon random commands

[michael.zimmer]

I'm experiencing a very frustrating problem. When working on a
document, it suddenly disappears from my screen when I do certain
(simple) commands.

For example, I could be typing in the document, and then do a "apple-v"
paste, and POOF, the document is gone. To get it back, I need to either
switch apps to some other application and then return to Word, or make
a different document active, and then select the original document in
the Window menu.

The wierdest thing is that the results of my command to actually occur.
If I'm pasting, and the page vanishes, the paste is there when I get
the document back.

Other commands that can trigger this are things as simple as hitting
the delete key, or selecting a "paste without formatting" from the
paste special dialog box.

Any thoughts? I've uninstalled and re-installed Office, and that didn't
seem to help.

I'm using Word 2004 for Mac, Version 11.2 (050714) on an iBook G4.

Please help!

Thanks in advance.

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Michael:

Re-installing usually does "nothing" on Mac OS X, because all of the things
that break are external to the Office software suite

It sounds to me as though something is "hiding" but not "Closing" the file
you are working on. Regrettably, it could be almost anything, including a
broken wire inside your keyboard sending funny keystrokes.

If it were a keyboard problem, I would expect weird things to be happening
in other applications. If the keystrokes were being mis-directed by a
customisation, the following would fix it:

http://word.mvps.org/Mac/DamagedPrefs.html

Is this one document, or any document?

Hope this helps

I'm experiencing a very frustrating problem. When working on a
document, it suddenly disappears from my screen when I do certain
(simple) commands.

For example, I could be typing in the document, and then do a "apple-v"
paste, and POOF, the document is gone. To get it back, I need to either
switch apps to some other application and then return to Word, or make
a different document active, and then select the original document in
the Window menu.

The wierdest thing is that the results of my command to actually occur.
If I'm pasting, and the page vanishes, the paste is there when I get
the document back.

Other commands that can trigger this are things as simple as hitting
the delete key, or selecting a "paste without formatting" from the
paste special dialog box.

Any thoughts? I've uninstalled and re-installed Office, and that didn't
seem to help.

I'm using Word 2004 for Mac, Version 11.2 (050714) on an iBook G4.

Please help!

Thanks in advance.

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[CyberTaz]

If this is happening only in Word, could it be related to Compatibility
Preferences?

Regards |:>)

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi CyberTaz:

I can't see how... There's nothing in Compatibility Preferences about
keystrokes. If he had WordPerfect Help enabled, he would have completely
different symptoms.

I have no idea what it is: I am suspecting a haxie...

Cheers

If this is happening only in Word, could it be related to Compatibility
Preferences?

Regards |:>)

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[CyberTaz]

John -

Just thought I'd ask, as I haven't worked with every alternative & wasn't
certain whether some involved keystrokes or not.

Michael -

John's reference to 'haxies' rang a bell... You don't happen to be using a
program called "Sticky Brain", by any chance? It is known to cause that type
of behavior, but if you visit their web site the latest version supposedly
fixes the problem.

If not using that program, are there any others you've downloaded whose
arrival may coincide with the appearance of the issues you described?

Regards |:>)

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi CyberTaz:

None of the "Compatibility Options" *officially* impact any keystrokes.
However, I did ask our fearless leader at MS three years ago for a list of
what preferences Word stored where.

So far, I do not have a reply This information is readily available for
Windows Word (it's in the registry, and they'll even tell you the names of
the registry keys that store each one...). But the structure in Mac Word is
different...

So I don't actually know WHERE Word stores the compatibility options, and so
I can't say for certain whether a problem with any of those would be likely
to misdirect keystrokes or system events

I hate it when I can't answer

Cheers

John -

Just thought I'd ask, as I haven't worked with every alternative & wasn't
certain whether some involved keystrokes or not.

Michael -

John's reference to 'haxies' rang a bell... You don't happen to be using a
program called "Sticky Brain", by any chance? It is known to cause that type
of behavior, but if you visit their web site the latest version supposedly
fixes the problem.

If not using that program, are there any others you've downloaded whose
arrival may coincide with the appearance of the issues you described?

Regards |:>)

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[CyberTaz]

I hate it when I can't answer

Chin Up, John -

You _did_ answer, you simply were prevented from _resolving_!

Regards |:>)

 

[michael.zimmer]

Thanks everyone. It only happens in word, but I haven't used Excel or
PP enough to really notice. I _did_ recently download the Sticky Brain
trial - perhaps that's the culprit. I did previously the app, but there
could still be pref files sitting somewhere on my drive. I'll check
into that.

 

[A. Scott McCulloch]

Thanks everyone. It only happens in word, but I haven't used Excel or
PP enough to really notice. I _did_ recently download the Sticky Brain
trial - perhaps that's the culprit. I did previously the app, but there
could still be pref files sitting somewhere on my drive. I'll check
into that.

I'm having the exact same problem - just "upgraded" to Office 2004 last
night because of "out of space" errors in Word X... and now this.

Also, I do have StickyBrain installed, and while I have been planning
to move away from SB, hadn't yet gotten around to it. I guess I'll have
to get on with that project.

~Scott

 

[A. Scott McCulloch]

Thanks to the suggestions here, I'm no longer having this problem.

After removing StickyBrain and Chronos Notes, and all related
contextual menus, etc., and rebooting, I can now cut, paste, resize
tables, etc., without having my document window disappear.

Thanks!!

Scott

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Scott:

I think WE are more grateful to YOU than the other way around

Your post is the first confirmation I have seen that it's actually
StickyBrain that is causing this somewhat worrying problem (I don't have
either of those add-ins, and have been at a loss what to advise folks...)

Many thanks...

Thanks to the suggestions here, I'm no longer having this problem.

After removing StickyBrain and Chronos Notes, and all related
contextual menus, etc., and rebooting, I can now cut, paste, resize
tables, etc., without having my document window disappear.

Thanks!!

Scott

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[CyberTaz]

Just to underscore John's post... The topic is widely discussed in the Apple
forums, but there has been little confirmation of it here.

Thanks again for posting back with your results!

Regards |:>)

 

[A. Scott McCulloch]

You're all very welcome!

I'm sure glad it worked - trying to write a dissertation (with
deadlines looming) with the document disappearing all the time would
have surely put me in the asylum! I haven't had a single problem since
removing the Chronos stuff - it's all been smooth sailing... I might
even meet my deadlines! ;-)

Scott

 

[michael.zimmer]

I've uninstalled files & folders related to both StickyBrain and
Chronos Notes, rebooted, but still encounter this problem. Sometimes it
is not even caused by a command - just a simply keystroke (like typing
this sentence) in Word can cause my document to disappear from the
screen (but the keystroke imput does continue to be added to the
document).

Any other files I should look to delete? Is the OpenBase stuff related
to these programs?

Thanks much,
mz

 

[A. Scott McCulloch]

OpenBase stuff is related to Chronos, but it's not the culprit (at
least in my case) -- I still have OpenBase running because it's used by
Daylite.

I think you need to make sure you've gotten rid of all the Chronos
related contextual menus, startup items, etc. Since I've already
banished them all, I can't recall exactly what there is, but make sure
to check the following directories for anything Chronos/StickyBrain
(particularly the contextual menu items, I think):
~/Library/Application Support/
~/Library/Contextual Menu Items/
/Library/Application Support/
/Library/Contextual Menu Items/
/Library/StartupItems/

Scott

 

[michael.zimmer]

Thanks - I've rid myself of all those "Contextual menu" directories. So
far, so good....
-m