Office apps taking a long time to close after 12.2.3

[K.B.]

Diane,

Thanks for responding. I'm going to have to hold off on the brute-force
approach you speak of. I need this machine as a backup and can't afford to
even attempt reinstalling 10.6.

Part of me is a little annoyed that in order to troubleshoot an office app,
I'd have to reinstall the entire OS. Now if it was 10.6.2 that caused the
issue, then I'll deal and wait for 10.6.3 to see if that fixes it.

Part of the problem is I can't be sure if it was 10.6.2 or 12.2.3 that
caused this. Primarily because I use Entourage as my primary work email
app.....so it's ALWAYS open. And as I've shown, as long as one office app
is opened first, that's the one that get's the sluggishness, not the others.
That and my machine is up 24x7.....so once Entourage is open.....I wouldn't
have issues with Word or Excel anyway because Entourage would be open.

Something is going on for this to be happening to me, on two different
machines, but doesn't seem to be happening to anyone else. One of my 10.6.2
installs is from SU, while the other is from the Combo update.

I'd really LOVE to have someone else notice this problem so that I could
assume it's not me or my setup.

Thanks for all your help thus far. If you should happen to think of
anything else, let me know.

-Kevin

 

[K.B.]

Diane and Bob,

Ok, I may have figured it out. I may have to do with the built in OS X
Firewall.

I have the Firewall turned on. I have the following checked on the
Advanced screen:

Auto allow signed software incoming connections
Enable Stealth Mode

Now, typically after every Office update, the first time an app launches, OS
X asks if you want to Allow or Deny incoming connections to that app. In
the past (including this last update 12.2.3) I've always said Deny.

After playing around with removing/reinstalling on my MacBook, I finally
decided to choose Allow.

Sure enough, Word opens fine and quits immediately.

So I went back into the Firewall settings and turned it from Allow to Deny.
Same issue again....sluggish closing.

I tried will all the Office apps, and as long as they are set to Allow
Incoming Connections, then they close fine.

Can you test this?

I've tested on both my MacBook (which I've uninstalled and reinstalled a few
times) as well as my Mac Pro which I haven't touched other than the initial
12.2.3 install.

Once I allow all apps to have incoming connections, the closing issue goes
away.

If this is the case.....any ideas why?

-Kevin

 

[Diane Ross]

Part of the problem is I can't be sure if it was 10.6.2 or 12.2.3 that
caused this.

We've discussed using SuperDuper!(backup software) before, but this is an
excellent time to remind users about a feature it has that protects you from
system updates that so bad.

One of the options in SuperDuper! is to create what the author calls a
"Sandbox". It's used to revert to pre-update state of your OS. Here's a
description of how this option works:

A Sandbox is a bootable copy of your system, stored on another hard drive or
partition, that shares your personal documents and data with the original.
With SuperDuper!, you actually use the Sandbox as your startup volume. You
can safely install any system updates, drivers or programs in the Sandbox,
without worrying about what might happen to your system. If anything goes
wrong, you can simply start up from the original system. SuperDuper! has
preserved it in its original, pre-disaster state but all your new and
changed personal documents are totally up to date. Within minutes, you're up
and running again without having to go through a difficult and
time-consuming restore process.

SuperDuper! Is $27.95. I¹m not affiliated with the product. Just a satisfied
user. <http://www.shirt-pocket.com/>

 

[K.B.]

Diane,

Thanks for the link, I'll take a look again at Super Duper....didn't realize
it had that functionality. I thought it just did cloned backups.

Make sure you read my other post about the possible solution with the
Firewall settings.

-Kevin

 

[K.B.]

Anyone else have a chance to look to see if they can reproduce this issue
with Office and the OS X Firewall?

-Kevin