Launch problems: prefs

[Ben Smith]

Hi. About once a week I have to delete Word 2004 prefs to get it to launch.
It just hangs in the middle for some reason. Any idea why? Deleting the
prefs gets it to work, but it's very annoying, and certainly not intended
behavior.
-Ben

 

[matt neuburg]

Hi. About once a week I have to delete Word 2004 prefs to get it to launch.
It just hangs in the middle for some reason. Any idea why?

In the splash screen that comes up when Word is launching, it tell you
what it's doing. You can use this to figure out what part of the launch
process it's having trouble with. I'm betting you have a fonts problem,
but the splash screen should confirm this the next time it happens. m.

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

In the splash screen that comes up when Word is launching, it tell you
what it's doing. You can use this to figure out what part of the launch
process it's having trouble with. I'm betting you have a fonts problem,
but the splash screen should confirm this the next time it happens. m.

If deleting the prefs does it, it could also be a Permissions issue.
Time to run DiskUtility to fix them on the boot drive.

Corentin

 

[Ben Smith]

I thought the same thing. I repaired them last week, but have continued to
have the problem.
-Ben

 

[Ben Smith]

I thought it might be a font issue, but deleting the prefs fixes it
temporarily. The hang takes place immediately, before any explanatory text
shows on the splash screen.
-Ben

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

I thought it might be a font issue, but deleting the prefs fixes it
temporarily. The hang takes place immediately, before any explanatory text
shows on the splash screen.
-Ben

What if you delete the Office font cache (same folder) ?? It could still
be the font cache...


Corentin

 

[Ben Smith]

What if you delete the Office font cache (same folder) ?? It could still
be the font cache...


Corentin

Upon deleting the font cache, the next launch resulted in an immediate
crash. After sending report and auto recovering, the following launch hung
in the same manner as previously described. Launching without autorecover
resulted in crashes each time. Once again, deleting the prefs was the only
way to bring it back to life.

Any other ideas?

-Ben

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Upon deleting the font cache, the next launch resulted in an immediate
crash. After sending report and auto recovering, the following launch hung
in the same manner as previously described. Launching without autorecover
resulted in crashes each time. Once again, deleting the prefs was the only
way to bring it back to life.

Any other ideas?

If deleting the font cache induced a crash, I would be tempted to check
the active fonts on your drive for corruption. You can get the
assistance of an application like FontDoctor for instance (even in demo
mode) to track them down.

Look first in:
/Library/Fonts
~/Library/Fonts
/System Folder/Fonts


Corentin

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Also, see this article for tracking down corrupt or duplicate fonts:
<http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=313535>

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

Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[Ben Smith]

Also, see this article for tracking down corrupt or duplicate fonts:
<http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=313535>

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

Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

I will try this, but does it not seem odd that after deleting the cache, it
was deleting the prefs that got it working again? Wouldn't you expect that
other apps would be having trouble with fonts in these folders?
-Ben

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Ben,

Not necessarily. Word seems to be more sensitive to font conflicts than
other apps and crash-on-launch in Word is more often due to such conflicts
than any other cause.

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

Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>