Drawing Toolbar Causes PowerPoint to Hang

[pcstockman]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I am running PowerPoint 2008 for Mac v12.1.5. The problem has just started recently (in the last week).

When I View/Toolbars/Drawing PowerPoint freezes. It never recovers. All I can do is Force Quit. I really need that toolbar. There appears to have been a 2007 discussion on this topic but it has expired. Help!

Peter

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Peter -

This seems to be something that sporadically pops up but those who encounter
the problem never seem to want to cooperate in getting it fixed. Apparently
it eventually ceases to occur or resolves on its own or whatever, but I have
no idea why those who report it fail to return. I do know that MacBU has
tried to repro the problem & just hasn't been able to force it to occur, and
if you can't reproduce the problem it's virtually impossible to resolve it.

So, if you can provide complete details including your exact version updates
of both OS X & Office, what specifically triggers the behavior, any
additional details you can supply as well a copies of error logs, etc. I can
assure you there is someone within MacBU who's eager to investigate

In the meantime, the only suggestion I can offer is to make sure you have
Office fully updated (12.1.5), retrieve & apply the OS X 10.5.6 Combo Update
[even if you're already at that level], then repair disk permissions &
restart your Mac. Let us know how you make out.

If no improvement, log in while holding the Shift key to see if the problem
continues. Again, reply with your results pro/con.

You might also try logging in routinely but launch PPt while holding the
Shift key. Results of that might prove useful as well.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[pcstockman]

Bob:

Here goes. By the way...I tried deleting the .plist files as some forums suggested to no effect. I have just now totally reinstalled Microsoft Office for Mac 2008 and run all updates with no effect (!!). Have verified disk. Have repaired disk permissions. Have cold rebooted Mac. All with no effect.

Will try the OS X 10.5.6 Combo Update and re-repair disk permissions. Will try the Shift key log in. Will try to PowerPoint launch with shift key and report back separately.

Data on my installation is below:

OS Version: Mac OS X Version 10.5.6
Hardware: MacBook Pro
Processor: 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory: 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Startup Disk: Macintosh HD
PowerPoint: Microsoft PowerPoint 2008 for Mac Version 12.1.5 (082229).

Peter

Hi Peter -

This seems to be something that sporadically pops up but those who encounter
the problem never seem to want to cooperate in getting it fixed. Apparently
it eventually ceases to occur or resolves on its own or whatever, but I have
no idea why those who report it fail to return. I do know that MacBU has
tried to repro the problem & just hasn't been able to force it to occur, and
if you can't reproduce the problem it's virtually impossible to resolve it.

So, if you can provide complete details including your exact version updates
of both OS X & Office, what specifically triggers the behavior, any
additional details you can supply as well a copies of error logs, etc. I can
assure you there is someone within MacBU who's eager to investigate

In the meantime, the only suggestion I can offer is to make sure you have
Office fully updated (12.1.5), retrieve & apply the OS X 10.5.6 Combo Update
[even if you're already at that level], then repair disk permissions &
restart your Mac. Let us know how you make out.

If no improvement, log in while holding the Shift key to see if the problem
continues. Again, reply with your results pro/con.

You might also try logging in routinely but launch PPt while holding the
Shift key. Results of that might prove useful as well.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I am running PowerPoint 2008 for Mac v12.1.5. The problem has just started
recently (in the last week).

When I View/Toolbars/Drawing PowerPoint freezes. It never recovers. All I can
do is Force Quit. I really need that toolbar. There appears to have been a
2007 discussion on this topic but it has expired. Help!

Peter

 

[pcstockman]

Bob:

Tried each of the incremental steps you suggested above but to no effect.

However I have resolved the problem by reinstalling Office for Mac 2008. I had done this before using the Remove Office tool. This tool removed the application but did not remove the Microsoft libraries in USERNAME/Libraries. When I removed these manually and then did the whole reinstallation again (2004, 2004 Updates, 2008 Upgrade, 2008 updates) the problem was fixed.

Clearly, as other forums suggest, the source of this drawing toolbar hang problem has its source in these libraries. When I reinstalled without removing the Microsoft libraries, the problem remained. When I reinstalled after manually deleting the Microsoft libraries the problem disappeared.

Peter

 

[Mog404]

I was having the same problem with PowerPoint (hang when viewing toolbars). After removing the following preference file, the problem went away.

/Users/USERNAME/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008/PowerPoint Toolbars (12)

 

[Nate Hamilton]

Bob:

Tried each of the incremental steps you suggested above but to no effect.

However I have resolved the problem by reinstalling Office for Mac 2008. I had
done this before using the Remove Office tool. This tool removed the
application but did not remove the Microsoft libraries in USERNAME/Libraries.
When I removed these manually and then did the whole reinstallation again
(2004, 2004 Updates, 2008 Upgrade, 2008 updates) the problem was fixed.

Clearly, as other forums suggest, the source of this drawing toolbar hang
problem has its source in these libraries. When I reinstalled without removing
the Microsoft libraries, the problem remained. When I reinstalled after
manually deleting the Microsoft libraries the problem disappeared.

Peter

It sounds like your Toolbar prefs file was corrupt - do you remember if you
customized the Drawing toolbar or otherwise made any recent changes to that
toolbar? Any information you can give that would help to reproduce this
issue would be great.
--
Nate Hamilton
Microsoft Mac PowerPoint Test Team
v-nahamiATmicrosoftDOTcom

Disclaimer: This posting is provided ³AS IS² with no warranties, and confers
no rights.

 

[thefsb]

i had the same kind of problem but with MS Word 2008. deleting
~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.Word.plist cleared the problem. for
powerpoint you could try deleting
~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.Powerpoint.plist

 

[rht]

I was having the same problem with PowerPoint (hang when viewing toolbars). After removing the following preference file, the problem went away.

/Users/USERNAME/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008/PowerPoint Toolbars (12)

This fixed the problem for me. The .plist thing had no effect. Thanks for posting ...

One wonders if Microsoft pays attention to problems like this. Some of the postings on various web sites go pretty far back.