"officelifeboathang" --random Word 2007 crashes

[George T]

I have 3 users out of 45 who have constant spates of Word crashes. I thought
I had ended the crash problem for these 3 a while back by turning off all
sharing services but it is still there.

The crashes are not while saving or printing or at any particular time or
any particular event. Word may lock up on a brand new doc or after a saved
doc created by others is opened. It may happen within a few seconds or after
an hour or typing. It may happen repeatedly all day or just for a short time
or not occur for days.

The Office 2007 installation, other apps and hardware are identical to the
42 users who have no such problem. There is no virus issue. I even swapped
out computers of the three troubled users but the same problems happened for
them on new machines but did not recur for those lucky 3 among the 42 who
received their old machines.

It is pretty clearly related to these 3 users and not the config or
condition of the software.

Most of the time, the event viewer info is useless, mostly just a generic
“the app crashed†code. However, lately I see more of this bizarre
"officelifeboathang" message. What the bloody hell is a 'life boat hang'?
Why is there no reference data anywhere on Microsoft.com? Do I have to pay
to get access to basic support information?

One of the 3 users gave up on me and brought a Mac to work yesterday. (By
the way, thanks a pantload for that, Microsoft. I have been defending the
product and patching holes and all I ask is enough information to let me keep
the product working. I have made to look like a fool for sticking with this
product.)

Where can I go to get information? I am willing to do the research but I
gotta have information.

Is there a repository of known crash causes? Is there some protocol I can
follow? I have renamed Normal.Dotm, run in safe mode, ruled out add-ins,
etc. and done everything I can find on every techie site. Office
Diagnostics is unbelievably useless—it has never found any problem on any
machine at any time.

Is there a list of known ways to intentional crash Word so I can determine
the magic screw-up method common to these 3 users?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The results for "office lifeboat hang" on Google mostly pertain to Excel
(actually they all seem to replicate a single thread about Excel). My guess
would have been that it had to do with document recovery, and this seems to
be the case. One post from Bob Buckland suggests that if you open in Office
Safe Mode (press Ctrl while starting Word), you should be able to open the
document and resave it. Other posts seem to point to MAPI involvement.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[George T]

Most of what I found on on the "lifeboat" thing seemed to apply to Outlook
more than Excel but I guess event and error codes are proprietary pay-to-play
kinds of things with some software companies.

In any case, I am deeply frustrated by months of dealing with this nagging
problem. To make it worse, when I sit at the affected work stations and and
type it almost never locks up. I cannot even reproduce the error from
scratch.

It is not a printer because I replaced the printers.

It is not normal.dot because I have redone that many times. There are no
temp files backup folder because I clean it if there is anything there.

What I really need is a list of known Word crash causes and even a protocol
to induce a crash myself.

I would also like to know how support works. Sometimes Microsoft techs seem
to think it's free and covered and solve the problem over the phone.
Sometimes it's a demand for $500 up front. Once by web and email I paid $49
but got a refund the next day and an email saying that the assigned tech was
not the right guy and I should call another number. There are different
phone numbers, the email I sent was apparently "personal" instead of
"business"

I just want this over with. I surrender and will pay whatever fee Microsoft
demands to release the information and service that has been withheld. I
just don't know how to deliver the ransom and get the help. Does anybody
here know?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

FWIW, are you allowing error reporting each time Word crashes? If there are
enough faults in the given "bucket," eventually someone will be motivated to
figure out what is causing the problem.

As for live tech support, I can see how you would be frustrated. Starting at
http://support.microsoft.com/, I see no information whatsoever about how to
get paid tech support other than as part of "Microsoft Services" (enterprise
support contracts). If you are determined enough, however, you can
eventually get to http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=cntactms,
which will refer you to http://support.microsoft.com/gp/assistsupport, from
which you can select Office 2007 and get to
http://support.microsoft.com/oas/default.aspx?Gprid=8753, where only you can
say what SKU you have (and of course all this applies only if you bought
the product retail; if it's OEM, you have to contact the vendor instead).
Since this is the $49 support call, I suspect you've already made it that
far.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org