Crash report on Word for Mac 11.1 (OS X 10.4.1) -- long, includes data

[peter gallagher]

I'd like to provide Microsoft with the information on this very
frustrating problem but their support site refuses to accept a
submission (although it tells me I have 2 support emails I can send
'for free'). Although it has 'Microsoft Austrlia' on the banner, the
submission form requires a valid US phone number!

The rest of this message contains the data I could put together. If one
of the MVPs who reads this site could pass it on for me, I'd be
grateful.

Best wishes,

Peter

---------------

Word 11.1 (040910) hangs repeatedly under OS X 10.4.1. Dual G5 1.8 mhz.
2 gb of RAM.

Editing. No apparent reason. Now regularly delete Word Prefs (in
~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/) before restarting Word (not
computer).

Have also tried deleting Office font cache. Font Book reports all fonts
valid. No obvious problems in MS Word Font menu or errors in loading
fonts.

Re-start Word after deleting prefs. Set auto recover location. No fast
saves. Backup of files.

Sometimes within 10 minutes or so, Word hangs. Sometimes longer. No
precipitating action (normal editing of a styled document in page
layout mode). I am using a landscape setup with custom page size (equal
to 1024 x 786 pxl). Unclear if this is a problem.

There is no room to attach Activity Monitor sample so I will paste
below (sorry for length). Sample taken after latest hang.
----

Other apps loaded (from Activity monitor with PID first, User, CPU%.,
Threads, Real Mem, Virt Mem
----------------------
0 kernel_task root 2.40 44 147.98 MB 1.30 GB
516 DEVONagent peter 2.20 18 108.05 MB 456.99 MB
191 VersionCueCS2 root 0.20 28 71.36 MB 365.40 MB
109 WindowServer windowserver 6.00 3 103.05 MB 295.69 MB
539 DEVONthink peter 0.00 6 78.56 MB 274.96 MB
624 Word peter 0.30 5 43.19 MB 247.91 MB
622 Excel peter 0.20 4 41.65 MB 237.95 MB
528 Safari peter 0.00 6 76.63 MB 223.45 MB
630 System Profiler peter 0.00 2 46.78 MB 200.42 MB
258 Finder peter 0.00 4 39.59 MB 195.86 MB
270 LaunchBar peter 0.10 1 34.66 MB 192.49 MB
427 Mail peter 0.00 9 36.13 MB 183.91 MB
602 Activity Monitor peter 4.80 3 31.10 MB 180.38 MB
428 SpamSieve peter 0.00 3 24.79 MB 179.66 MB
403 Sambucus peter 4.90 1 14.61 MB 179.04 MB
251 Dock peter 0.00 2 14.57 MB 175.06 MB
274 Snapz Pro X peter 0.40 1 17.55 MB 171.56 MB
280 SystemUIServer peter 0.20 3 3.73 MB 168.58 MB
277 VersionCueCS2Status peter 0.00 1 13.29 MB 161.68 MB
278 MouseWorks Background peter 0.10 1 10.09 MB 157.31 MB
272 witchdaemon peter 0.00 1 10.36 MB 155.43 MB
271 Database Daemon peter 0.10 2 11.19 MB 153.57 MB
276 HP Communications peter 0.50 7 9.25 MB 153.15 MB
269 HP Director (All-in-One) peter 0.40 2 11.89 MB 152.04 MB
114 loginwindow peter 0.00 4 17.14 MB 151.50 MB
273 iCalAlarmScheduler peter 0.00 1 9.01 MB 151.07 MB
501 DevonBackgroundServer peter 0.00 2 9.61 MB 135.32 MB
165 Synk Scheduler root 0.00 1 5.59 MB 101.45 MB
113 ATSServer peter 0.00 2 16.44 MB 89.91 MB
244 mysqld nobody 0.00 11 22.88 MB 80.14 MB
577 mdimport peter 0.00 4 4.46 MB 73.75 MB
238 pbs peter 0.00 2 5.23 MB 55.77 MB
194 mds root 0.00 8 10.22 MB 43.37 MB
112 coreservicesd root 0.00 3 14.84 MB 42.31 MB
629 mdimport nobody 0.00 3 2.41 MB 39.24 MB
412 AppleSpell peter 0.00 1 5.04 MB 37.71 MB
603 pmTool root 2.00 1 1.70 MB 37.39 MB
330 VCSLPHelper nobody 0.00 2 2.69 MB 36.22 MB
223 AppleFileServer root 0.00 2 7.93 MB 33.80 MB
83 DirectoryService root 0.20 3 5.45 MB 30.36 MB
237 slpd root 0.00 6 2.33 MB 30.19 MB
216 automount root 0.10 6 3.66 MB 30.11 MB

-------------------

Sample from AM after hang

Analysis of sampling pid 592 every 10.000000 milliseconds
Call graph:
277 Thread_100f
277 0x20200b8
277 0x1023444
277 0x202063c
277 0x20f382c
277 0x592c90
277 SendEventToEventTarget
277 SendEventToEventTargetInternal(OpaqueEventRef*,
OpaqueEventTargetRef*, HandlerCallRec*)
277 DispatchEventToHandlers(EventTargetRec*,
OpaqueEventRef*, HandlerCallRec*)
277
ToolboxEventDispatcherHandler(OpaqueEventHandlerCallRef*,
OpaqueEventRef*, void*)
277 HandleKeyboardEvent(OpaqueEventRef*,
unsigned long)
277 SendEventToEventTargetWithOptions
277
SendEventToEventTargetInternal(OpaqueEventRef*, OpaqueEventTargetRef*,
HandlerCallRec*)
277
DispatchEventToHandlers(EventTargetRec*, OpaqueEventRef*,
HandlerCallRec*)
277
HIApplication::EventHandler(OpaqueEventHandlerCallRef*,
OpaqueEventRef*, void*)
277
HandleCompatibilityKeyEvent(OpaqueEventRef*)
277 TSMProcessRawKeyEvent
277 TSMKeyEvent
277 utDeliverTSMEvent
277
SendUnicodeTextAEToUnicodeDoc
277 SendTSMEvent
277
SendEventToEventTarget
277
SendEventToEventTargetInternal(OpaqueEventRef*, OpaqueEventTargetRef*,
HandlerCallRec*)
277
DispatchEventToHandlers(EventTargetRec*, OpaqueEventRef*,
HandlerCallRec*)
277
ToolboxEventDispatcherHandler(OpaqueEventHandlerCallRef*,
OpaqueEventRef*, void*)
277
HandleTextInputEvent(OpaqueEventRef*)
277
SendEventToEventTarget
277
SendEventToEventTargetInternal(OpaqueEventRef*, OpaqueEventTargetRef*,
HandlerCallRec*)
277
DispatchEventToHandlers(EventTargetRec*, OpaqueEventRef*,
HandlerCallRec*)
277
0x57870c
277
0x578808
277
0x104fe48
277
0x11b1a4c

277 0x11b20dc

277 0x11b24a4

277 0x105b1b4

277 SendEventToEventTarget

277 SendEventToEventTargetInternal(OpaqueEventRef*,
OpaqueEventTargetRef*, HandlerCallRec*)

277 DispatchEventToHandlers(EventTargetRec*, OpaqueEventRef*,
HandlerCallRec*)

277 0x57870c

277 0x578808

277 0x104fe7c

277 0x105b95c

277 0x105ba2c

277 0x1020b9c

277 0x1020804

277 0x20f3bc0

277 0x20f4864

277 0x20f4e30

277 0x216b478

277 0x216b570

277 0x26338a8

277 0x2633980

277 0x21d48b8

277 0x212ee20

277 0x22eea00

277 0x23d4680

277 0x2326e78

277 0x271de5c

277 0x23c1f64

141 0x23c25a4

73 0x25c3fc0

69 0x2088ec4

8 0x2b01754

8 0x2b01754

7 0x2b01758

7 0x2b01758

6 0x2b01744

6 0x2b01744

5 0x2b017a8

5 0x2b017a8

4 0x2b01764

4 0x2b01764

4 0x2b01774

4 0x2b01774

3 0x2b01784

3 0x2b01784

3 0x2b0178c

3 0x2b0178c

2 0x2088f7c

2 0x2088f7c

2 0x2088f90

2 0x2088f90

2 0x2089008

2 0x2089008

2 0x2b0170c

2 0x2b0170c

2 0x2b0175c

2 0x2b0175c

2 0x2b01798

2 0x2b01798

2 0x2b017a4

2 0x2b017a4

1 0x2027420

1 0x2027420

1 0x2088f00

1 0x2088f00

1 0x2088f6c

1 0x2088f6c

1 0x2088fcc

1 0x2088fcc

1 0x2088fd4

1 0x2088fd4

1 0x2088fe8

1 0x2088fe8

1 0x2088ff8

1 0x2088ff8

1 0x2b01630

1 0x2b01630

1 0x2b01704

1 0x2b01704

1 0x2b01780

1 0x2b01780

1 0x2b017a0

1 0x2b017a0

1 0x2b01868

1 0x2b01868

1 0x2b0187c

1 0x2b0187c

1 0x2b018f4

1 0x2b018f4

1 0x2b018fc

1 0x2b018fc

1 0x2088ee0

1 0x2088ee0

1 0x2088ef8

1 0x2088ef8

1 0x2089020

1 0x2089020

1 0x2089028

1 0x2089028

65 0x25c4050

9 0x2b01744

9 0x2b01744

8 0x2b01748

8 0x2b01748

6 0x2089080

6 0x2089080

5 0x2b016e8

5 0x2b016e8

5 0x2b01754

5 0x2b01754

5 0x2b01784

5 0x2b01784

4 0x2b016f4

4 0x2b016f4

2 0x2027434

2 0x2027434

2 0x2089064

2 0x2089064

2 0x2b016e4

2 0x2b016e4

2 0x2b0178c

2 0x2b0178c

2 0x2b017a0

2 0x2b017a0

2 0x2b017a8

2 0x2b017a8

1 0x2027410

1 0x2027410

1 0x2027424

1 0x2027424

1 0x2089060

1 0x2089060

1 0x2089070

1 0x2089070

1 0x2b0170c

1 0x2b0170c

1 0x2b01724

1 0x2b01724

1 0x2b0174c

1 0x2b0174c

1 0x2b01764

1 0x2b01764

1 0x2b01788

1 0x2b01788

1 0x2b017b0

1 0x2b017b0

1 0x2b01868

1 0x2b01868

1 0x2089034

1 0x2089034

1 0x2089084

1 0x2089084

1 0x23c25a4

117 0x23c25b4

110 0x23ec5e4

45 0x2088f6c

9 0x2b01784

9 0x2b01784

4 0x2089050

4 0x2089050

4 0x2b01788

4 0x2b01788

4 0x2b018fc

4 0x2b018fc

3 0x2089080

3 0x2089080

2 0x2027424

2 0x2027424

2 0x2b01630

2 0x2b01630

2 0x2b016e4

2 0x2b016e4

2 0x2b016e8

2 0x2b016e8

2 0x2b016f4

2 0x2b016f4

2 0x2b01744

2 0x2b01744

1 0x2b01700

1 0x2b01700

1 0x2b0170c

1 0x2b0170c

1 0x2b01754

1 0x2b01754

1 0x2b01764

1 0x2b01764

1 0x2b01774

1 0x2b01774

1 0x2b01798

1 0x2b01798

1 0x2b01840

1 0x2b01840

1 0x2b01850

1 0x2b01850

1 0x2b018f4

1 0x2b018f4

7 0x2b01744

7 0x2b01744

5 0x2b017bc

5 0x2b017bc

4 0x2b01700

4 0x2b01700

4 0x2b017a0

4 0x2b017a0

3 0x2088f7c

3 0x2088f7c

3 0x2b01858

3 0x2b01858

2 0x2088f00

2 0x2088f00

2 0x2089038

2 0x2089038

2 0x2b01774

2 0x2b01774

2 0x2b01784

2 0x2b01784

2 0x2b017a4

2 0x2b017a4

2 0x2b017f4

2 0x2b017f4

1 0x2027410

1 0x2027410

1 0x2027420

1 0x2027420

1 0x2027434

1 0x2027434

1 0x2088f64

1 0x2088f64

1 0x2088fcc

1 0x2088fcc

1 0x2088fe8

1 0x2088fe8

1 0x2089000

1 0x2089000

1 0x2089008

1 0x2089008

1 0x2089018

1 0x2089018

1 0x208908c

1 0x208908c

1 0x2b016d8

1 0x2b016d8

1 0x2b016f4

1 0x2b016f4

1 0x2b01730

1 0x2b01730

1 0x2b01748

1 0x2b01748

1 0x2b01750

1 0x2b01750

1 0x2b01760

1 0x2b01760

1 0x2b01764

1 0x2b01764

1 0x2b01780

1 0x2b01780

1 0x2b0178c

1 0x2b0178c

1 0x2b01790

1 0x2b01790

1 0x2b01798

1 0x2b01798

1 0x2b017c0

1 0x2b017c0

1 0x2b01804

1 0x2b01804

1 0x2b01814

1 0x2b01814

1 0x2b0183c

1 0x2b0183c

1 0x2b01840

1 0x2b01840

1 0x2b018f4

1 0x2b018f4

2 0x2088ef8

2 0x2088ef8

2 0x2089028

2 0x2089028

1 0x2088ee8

1 0x2088ee8

1 0x2089020

1 0x2089020

1 0x23c25b4

4 0x23ec5dc

4 0x23ec5dc

3 0x25c4058

3 0x25c4058

2 0x25c4060

2 0x25c4060

1 0x23c2458

1 0x23c2458

1 0x23c246c

1 0x23c246c

1 0x23c24b4

1 0x23c24b4

1 0x23c24dc

1 0x23c24dc

1 0x23c2598

1 0x23c2598

1 0x23ec5d0

1 0x23ec5d0

1 0x23ec5ec

1 0x23ec5ec

1 0x25c3fa0

1 0x25c3fa0

1 0x25c3fa8

1 0x25c3fa8

1 0x25c405c

1 0x25c405c
277 Thread_1103
277 _pthread_body
277 MerpUnregisterCFMFragment
277 mach_msg
277 mach_msg_trap
277 mach_msg_trap
277 Thread_1203
277 _pthread_body
277 PrivateMPEntryPoint
277 _MP_CFMTaskProc
277 0x6a958c
277 0x6a93a8
277 0x7488c4
277 FWaitForConnection
277 accept
277 accept
277 Thread_1303
277 _pthread_body
277 PrivateMPEntryPoint
277 _MP_CFMTaskProc
277 0x6a9954
277 0x6a97bc
277 0x748a3c
277 FReceiveMessage
277 recvfrom
277 recvfrom
277 Thread_1403
277 _pthread_body
277 PrivateMPEntryPoint
277 _MP_CFMTaskProc
277 0x6a9af8
277 MPWaitOnSemaphore
277 pthread_cond_timedwait_relative_np
277 semaphore_timedwait_signal_trap
277 semaphore_timedwait_signal_trap
277 Thread_1503
277 _pthread_body
277 PrivateMPEntryPoint
277 TFSNotificationTask::FSNotificationTaskProc(void*)
277 kevent
277 kevent
277 Thread_1603
277 _pthread_body
277 PrivateMPEntryPoint
277 TNodeSyncTask::SyncTaskProc(void*)
277 MPWaitOnQueue
277 pthread_cond_wait
277 semaphore_wait_signal_trap
277 semaphore_wait_signal_trap

Total number in stack (recursive counted multiple, when >=5):
6 _pthread_body
5 DispatchEventToHandlers(EventTargetRec*,
OpaqueEventRef*, HandlerCallRec*)
5 PrivateMPEntryPoint
5 SendEventToEventTargetInternal(OpaqueEventRef*,
OpaqueEventTargetRef*, HandlerCallRec*)

Sort by top of stack, same collapsed (when >= 5):
accept 277
kevent 277
mach_msg_trap 277
recvfrom 277
semaphore_timedwait_signal_trap 277
semaphore_wait_signal_trap 277
0x2b01744 24
0x2b01784 19
0x2b01754 14
0x2089080 9
0x2b01748 9
0x2b016e8 7
0x2b016f4 7
0x2b01758 7
0x2b01764 7
0x2b01774 7
0x2b017a0 7
0x2b017a8 7
0x2b0178c 6
0x2088f7c 5
0x2b01700 5
0x2b01788 5
0x2b017bc 5
0x2b018fc 5
Sample analysis of process 592 written to file /dev/stdout
Sampling process 592 each 10 msecs 300 times

 

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

Hi Peter:

You just did pass it on. Microsoft is reading here

I "think" this is another "font conflict problem". Try this:

1) Quit all Office applications

2) Delete the Office Font Cache

3) Delete the Tiger Font Cache

4) Move your Classic font folder(s) to the desktop

5) Perform a Safe Startup in Tiger (to force a rebuild of the Tiger Font
Cache)

6) Restart Tiger

7) Start Word next.

Chances are that will fix it until you next restart Tiger.

Microsoft is working very hard to try to identify this problem: but as far
as I know, they still do not know what's causing it. I think that so far,
they have got no closer than "There is something about some old fonts, often
the fonts in the Classic Environment, that causes a conflict that Word
doesn't like..."

They WILL fix it as soon as they nail it, and your report will help that.

Cheers

--

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 4 1209 1410

 

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

Hi Peter:

Further to your posting: do you have the URL of the web page you went to to
try to submit this problem? I would like to get that fixed for you.

For your information, the ability to email Product Support is extremely new
(in fact, we were told it would not be operating outside of the USA for some
months).

So somehow, you have happened onto a domestic USA page. The bad news is
that when they get that fixed, you will instead see a "Sorry, this service
is not yet available outside the continental USA" notice.

The good news is that we and the rest of the world will soon get the
service. Right now, Microsoft and the MVPs are working very busily to debug
the infrastructure. The general idea is that anyone on the planet will be
able to submit support requests in their native language, and get an answer
back in the same language.

From someone who, as the Sensis advertisement I saw today says "knows that
when you say 'gumboot' you have not just stepped in some chewy."

Sorry people: don't get us going... Australian is nothing like American,
and we will become totally incomprehensible if you allow us the smallest
chance...

Cheers

I'd like to provide Microsoft with the information on this very
frustrating problem but their support site refuses to accept a
submission (although it tells me I have 2 support emails I can send
'for free'). Although it has 'Microsoft Austrlia' on the banner, the
submission form requires a valid US phone number!

The rest of this message contains the data I could put together. If one
of the MVPs who reads this site could pass it on for me, I'd be
grateful.

Best wishes,

Peter

--

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 4 1209 1410

 

[peter gallagher]

Hi John,

Thanks for the advice on clearing the font caches. I'll try that again
in the order you suggest.

Meanwhile, here is the URL of the start page I found for email support
(http://support.microsoft.com/oas/default.aspx?ln=en-au&prid=7840&gprid=36012).
If you click the obvious button it starts a process that leads through
a form that asks for the Product ID number and then provides an email
form that requires a telephone number in the last field. After the
first error (it claimed the phone number was invalid or empty) I tried
to reformat my Melbourne number in a US format. From that point on I
received only 'error' messages. The form would cancel the entry for the
operating system ("Macintosh") after each submit and throw an error.
I'd reset the information, press reset and get the identical error ....

Best wishes,

Peter

 

[peter gallagher]

John,

Just to complete the story: I tried your suggested method of clearing
and restoring both the MS and System font caches.

No luck, I'm afraid. I've had two 'hangs' since (10 mins apart).

The problem may well lie in the way Tiger handles fonts, but rebuilding
the caches does not fix the problem for me. I am regularly saving my
work but still experiencing unexplained 'hangs'.

This may call for a re-install (of Panther) and Office -- damnit!

Thanks for your interest

Peter

 

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

Hi Peter:

Before you re-install (BTW: reinstalling is unlikely to solve the
problem...) please contact me by direct email.

I've had a response from Microsoft: They are unable to reproduce the issue,
so we need to get a lot more detail to them.

Microsoft is not saying that there is no problem. What they are saying is
that they cannot get it to happen on their test machines where they can
instrument the code and find out exactly what is failing and where.

I need to get enough detail from you so that the MS Testers can build a
machine just like yours, which will actually show the fault.

Cheers

John,

Just to complete the story: I tried your suggested method of clearing
and restoring both the MS and System font caches.

No luck, I'm afraid. I've had two 'hangs' since (10 mins apart).

The problem may well lie in the way Tiger handles fonts, but rebuilding
the caches does not fix the problem for me. I am regularly saving my
work but still experiencing unexplained 'hangs'.

This may call for a re-install (of Panther) and Office -- damnit!

Thanks for your interest

Peter

--

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 4 1209 1410

 

[dave.mahoney]

Hello All,

As an FYI. I am experiencing a very similar issue as Peter. Running
Office 11.1.1 with Tiger 10.4.1. When launching Word, I get a very
large amount of error messages saying these fonts are corrupt and
should be deleted. There are so many that I can not get past the error
messages. I know that these fonts are not corrupt. I have tried what
John suggested - deleting the font caches, but no luck there. Does
anybody know what the issue is with the fonts and MS Office?

Thanks, Dave

 

[dave.mahoney]

Hello All,

As an FYI. I am experiencing a very similar issue as Peter. Running
Office 11.1.1 with Tiger 10.4.1. When launching Word, I get a very
large amount of error messages saying these fonts are corrupt and
should be deleted. There are so many that I can not get past the error
messages. I know that these fonts are not corrupt. I have tried what
John suggested - deleting the font caches, but no luck there. Does
anybody know what the issue is with the fonts and MS Office?

Thanks, Dave

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Dave,

Before assuming your fonts are okay, use Font Book to remove duplicates.
You'll find Font Book in your Applications folder. When you open it, you'll
see a listing of all your fonts. Many of them probably have a small black
dot to the right; that means there are duplicates.

Click on the name of the font to select it and go to Edit> Resolve
Duplicates. When you're finished, all of the dupes will have been disabled.

You can also use Font Book to disable the fonts that are causing the error
messages. Maybe you're right and they're not corrupt, but disabling them
temporarily will tell you for sure.

Also, when you deleted the font caches, did you also pull the Classic font
file to the desktop (or rename it)?

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
(If using Safari, hit Refresh once or twice ­ or use another browser.)
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

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

Dave:

The "fonts are corrupt" message is apparently an Apple bug and they're
working on it.

The subsequent freezing or crashing of Word that some users are experiencing
is thought to be a Microsoft issue, and they are trying to find it.

Please prepare the following report, giving full details of your machine and
its software:

1) take a sample report as explained by Marc Bizer in here earlier today

2) Please run System Profiler and include its report

3) And please include the crash dump if you got one.

Please send me a plain text email asking for a spam filter password.

I will give you a password to ensure that my spam filter does not
automatically delete your message (it otherwise routinely silently deletes
any email that has an attachment).

I will ask you then to please zip all three reports together and send them
to me.

Cheers

Hello All,

As an FYI. I am experiencing a very similar issue as Peter. Running
Office 11.1.1 with Tiger 10.4.1. When launching Word, I get a very
large amount of error messages saying these fonts are corrupt and
should be deleted. There are so many that I can not get past the error
messages. I know that these fonts are not corrupt. I have tried what
John suggested - deleting the font caches, but no luck there. Does
anybody know what the issue is with the fonts and MS Office?

Thanks, Dave

--

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 4 1209 1410

 

[Guest]

As an FYI. I am experiencing a very similar issue as Peter. Running
Office 11.1.1 with Tiger 10.4.1. When launching Word, I get a very
large amount of error messages saying these fonts are corrupt and
should be deleted. There are so many that I can not get past the error
messages. I know that these fonts are not corrupt. I have tried what
John suggested - deleting the font caches, but no luck there. Does
anybody know what the issue is with the fonts and MS Office?

See my posting in the thread "Re: Word 11.1 hangs under OS X 10.4.1 for
a precise explanation of how I resolved this exact problem for myself.
Your mileage may vary, alas... But it's very easy to have duplicate
fonts in different places in OS X.

George

 

[Guest]

Microsoft is working very hard to try to identify this problem: but as far
as I know, they still do not know what's causing it. I think that so far,
they have got no closer than "There is something about some old fonts, often
the fonts in the Classic Environment, that causes a conflict that Word
doesn't like..."

In my case, the duplicate fonts were .ttf windows true type fonts (I
copied the big unicode fonts out of my VPC Windows XP installation and
put them both into Library/Fonts and ~/Library/Fonts, user error. Once I
deleted the extra set from ~/Library/Fonts, the font corruption problem
went away, completely so far (knock on wood).

BTW, everyone who has Windows XP and who uses lots of different Unicode
sets should replace the Mac Times New Roman with the Windows Times New
Roman (four faces). It has a much larger range of characters available.
I assume this is legal if you own Windows; at least, the fonts are not
locked down to permit this, and the Mac OS now enables you to use .ttf
Windows format fonts. There are about half a dozen I consider worth
replacing on the Mac in this fashion.

George

 

[Clive Huggan]

In my case, the duplicate fonts were .ttf windows true type fonts (I
copied the big unicode fonts out of my VPC Windows XP installation and
put them both into Library/Fonts and ~/Library/Fonts, user error. Once I
deleted the extra set from ~/Library/Fonts, the font corruption problem
went away, completely so far (knock on wood).

BTW, everyone who has Windows XP and who uses lots of different Unicode
sets should replace the Mac Times New Roman with the Windows Times New
Roman (four faces). It has a much larger range of characters available.
I assume this is legal if you own Windows; at least, the fonts are not
locked down to permit this, and the Mac OS now enables you to use .ttf
Windows format fonts. There are about half a dozen I consider worth
replacing on the Mac in this fashion.

George

Interesting, George -- thank you.

And the other five fonts are ... ?

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is at least 7 hours different from the US and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
============================================================

 

[Guest]

And the other five fonts are ... ?

The other fonts I personally have copied over from Windows, finding them
of potential use and containing decently implemented Unicode sets, are:

ANTQUAB.TTF
ANTQUABI.TTF
ANTQUAI.TTF
BKANT.TTF
CENSCBK.TTF
GARA.TTF
GARABD.TTF
GARAIT.TTF
MSGEOTB1.TTF
MSGEOTB2.TTF
MSGEOTI1.TTF
MSGEOTI2.TTF
MSGEOTR1.TTF
MSGEOTR2.TTF
MSGEOTX1.TTF
MSGEOTX2.TTF
PALA.TTF
PALAB.TTF
PALABI.TTF
PALAI.TTF
SCHLBKB.TTF
SCHLBKBI.TTF
SCHLBKI.TTF

George

 

[Clive Huggan]

The other fonts I personally have copied over from Windows, finding them
of potential use and containing decently implemented Unicode sets, are:

ANTQUAB.TTF
ANTQUABI.TTF
ANTQUAI.TTF
BKANT.TTF
CENSCBK.TTF
GARA.TTF
GARABD.TTF
GARAIT.TTF
MSGEOTB1.TTF
MSGEOTB2.TTF
MSGEOTI1.TTF
MSGEOTI2.TTF
MSGEOTR1.TTF
MSGEOTR2.TTF
MSGEOTX1.TTF
MSGEOTX2.TTF
PALA.TTF
PALAB.TTF
PALABI.TTF
PALAI.TTF
SCHLBKB.TTF
SCHLBKBI.TTF
SCHLBKI.TTF

George

Thanks, George!

Clive
=====

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi George,

If you don't mind, would you write up your Unicode font workarounds, as well
as your solution for dealing with those corrupt font errors, and repost them
to this newsgroup in two separate posts with appropriate titles? That way
this very useful information will come up easily in relevant Google searches
of the newsgroup archives.

For titles, how about something like "Font Corruption Errors Cause Hangs in
Tiger" and "Using Windows Unicode Fonts in MacOffice 2004"? What do you
say?

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
(If using Safari, hit Refresh once or twice ­ or use another browser.)
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[peter gallagher]

Dear John,

Sorry, I have been off the air for a few days. Thank you very much for
your kind support. Microsoft DID, in fact, find my report via the
'email help' system. But the 'tech' that was handling it has just sent
me a message saying that my problem has not been 'determined to be a
bug etc.' so I have to pay money to get any more assistance.

In fact, I suspect that I may now know what the problem is. Before we
launch into asking Microsoft to do anything serious, I'd like to try
the current configuration (which is certainly causing LESS trouble than
before). I tried disabling the demons and kernel extensions (? I think
they are) on my machine. The culprit *may* be SnapZPro 2.0.2 which I
have temporarily turned off. It may also be a combination of that an
another un-named database demon that I found in my Startup (system
prefs) set. I killed the latter, too and things seem a bit more stable.
If there are no more problems for a day or so I'll turn on SnapZPro
again.

I very much appreciate your offer of help. I'll let you know how this
comes out.

Peter