opening any htm file causes PC to hang

B

Brian Meyette

I've been using FrontPage2000 to write my web pages for a
couple years. For the last few days, every time I start
FrontPage, it starts up OK, but when I tell it to open one
of my existing htm files, it causes the PC to hang up. It
does this with different existing htm files. Even Ctl_alt-
Del has no effect after that. It was initially saying the
page file was not big enough, so it was increasing it.
The HD would crank quite awhile, then stop responding. I
have uninstalled FrontPage and reinstalled it, but it
still does the same thing. I have also manually increased
the page file, and de-fragged the HD. It still hangs when
I try to open any existing htm file. Can anyone help me
with any ideas on this, please?
 
K

Kathleen Anderson [MVP - FrontPage]

What OS are you running? Is it up-to-date with all bulletins and service
packs? Have you scanned your system for viruses and spyware?
 
G

Guest

Thanks for the response. OS is Windows 2000 5.00.2195
SP4. It is always fully up to date, using the Microsoft
update service. My entire system is scanned daily for
viruses, using AVG anti-virus software last updated
9/10/2004. I have not done a spyware scan. The only
thing I can think of that I've installed in the last month
or so is a Java-based utility, the Sun JRE, and Apple
iTunes. I think I've successuflly used FrontPage after
installing the Java program and the JRE. I am not sure if
I had the FrontPage problem before I installed iTunes or
afterward. Nor am I sure if I have successfully run FP
after installing iTunes.
 
B

Brian Meyette

I've been testing this quite a bit more thoroughly since
my last reply, and I have more precise info about the
problem. When I said it "hangs", it doesn't really hang,
it just gets so slow it's like a hang, and interupts like
Rt-click on taskbar to get Task Manager up just don't seem
to get processed.

I tried running FP again; same thing. It starts OK, but
as soon as I tell it to open a small 1 or 2 screen htm
file of all text, everything comes to a huge slowdown. I
can't get any response to RT-click on taskbar. If I Ctl-
Alt-Del to get task bar, the screen clears, and stays that
way, and all responsiveness is lost. Hard drive is
cranking hard through all of this.

I powered it down and back up, and updated my AVG anti-
virus with today's latest update. Then I ran a full virus
scan of everything. No virus found.

I rebooted the PC and shut down everything that starts
automatically. I started Task Manager first, so I could
see what was going on. Nothing else was open.

I started FP and told it to open one of my htm files. In
Task Manager, FP immediately went to 99%, sometimes
dropping as low as 35%. Hard drive is cranking away like
mad. FP is using 10-35 MB RAM during this. After 5-10
minutes of this, Frontpg.exe drops to a low % and low RAM
usage, and system (not system idle) is at about 10%. The
hard drive is cranking hard through all this. The hard
drive cranks hard another 5-10 minutes, then the htm text
comes up in the FP window, but with no background.

The CPU is now showing mostly idle in Task Manager, but
the hard drive is still cranking away. The mouse will
move around, but very jerky and non-responsive. If I move
the Task Manager window a bit, it does move it, after a
big delay, but it does not do a screen refresh behind
where the Task Manager window was.

It cranks another 5-10 minutes, and the background for the
file appears. Idle is 99% and the disk is still
cranking. It cranks another 10-15 minutes, then finally
stops. I can move the Task Manager window around, but
mouse responsiveness is very poor, and there is no screen
refresh on the FP window where the Task Manager window was
covering part of it. The drive starts cranking again when
I do this. After several minutes of cranking, the FP
screen refreshes.

Just clicking the mouse anywhere in the htm file produces
more heavy disk cranking and takes another minute or so of
cranking to move the cursor. Then responsiveness to mouse
clicks in the file seems normal.

Then I tried moving the Task Manager window a little bit
again. This produces much disk cranking for about a
minute to refresh the FP screen.

I scroll down in the FP window (this is only a 2 screen
file of just text). This again produces much disk
cranking and takes about a minute to scroll down.

I close FP. Disk cranking again for about a minute. Then
it closes. Any other app I open seems to behave normally,
both before and after this.

I go to SYSTEM in Control Panel. It is optimized for
applications. The paging is set up like this:
recommended = 382
initial was 382; earlier today I manually set it to 444
max was about 700; earlier I set manually to 888
allocated is 884

When this problem first occurred a few days ago, it did
the disk cranking and told me it was resizing the paging
file automatically for me. I let it do that, but then it
kept doing it every time I opened an htm file.

The more recent iterations of this problem do all the disk
cranking, but no message about paging file.

All other applications on the PC run normally. FP used to
run normally. I've set the paging larger than
recommended. I've defragged the disk. I've uninstalled
and reinstalled FP. I just don't know what its problem
is, but it sure seems to be related to taking up vast
amounts of memory that it then tries to swap out to disk.

The only thing I haven't tried yet is to uninstall
iTunes. I did uninstall the related MusicMatch, but it
made no difference. From checking my records, I see that
the last time I successfully edited some of my htm files
was 9/10/04. I installed iTunes 9/1, so I don't think
that's it. I don't know of anything that changed after
9/10.

Any ideas??

thanks,
brian
 
R

Ronx

With FrontPage closed, in Windows Explorer find and delete the hidden,
system files named *.web

FrontPage will recreate these as required.

Do not delete any *.web files associated with Xara, if you use any Xara
products.

Ron
 
B

Brian Meyette

I did what you suggested. There was one such file, dated
9/10, the date FP last worked for me. After deleting the
file, I started FP and opened up an htm file. It opened
normally.

THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH FOR YOUR WISE ADVICE.
brian
 

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