word 2004 freezes

[Arturo]

For about a month I have been using Office 2004 and three days ago Word
started freezing unexpectedly. Sometimes I have to shut down the
computer (macbook pro about a six week old). No applications were
installed right before freezing started and I do downlownload some
Windows Word files from co-worders. Any ideas on how to fix this
problem? Oh, I'm not running any virus protection programs but I don't
surf the web much and download only a few pdf's and word files from
trusted websites. thanks for your help.

Arturo

 

[Arturo]

thanks, I'll try your suggestion. One thing I forgot to mention is
that when word freezes i get the following message: unexpected error
ocurred (error code 1712) which is an apple event timed out. I don't
know if that points to another solution.

 

[Arturo]

so it turns out that in preferences, "Warn before opening a file that
contains macros" was already checked, but when I opened the
attachmented Word docuemnts I never got the macros warning. Any other
ideas? is there a way to hunt down a virus if in fact one could be the
culprit?

 

[Elliott Roper]

so it turns out that in preferences, "Warn before opening a file that
contains macros" was already checked, but when I opened the
attachmented Word docuemnts I never got the macros warning. Any other
ideas? is there a way to hunt down a virus if in fact one could be the
culprit?

Google the group on that subject. Look for articles written by John
McGhie. He has written quite a few, and even if I don't always agree
with his advocacy of anti-virus tools on Macintosh, he knows lots more
about the subject than I do. With a little luck, he'll be along shortly
(he usually posts in the evening, Eastern Australian Time, currently
GMT+11)
If I'm right about macro virus, then it seems that trashing normal and
any other global templates you may have, as well as quarantining all
your suspect documents from co-worders all at once is a good place to
start. It seems to be a difficult task to directly examine your
templates and docs for the virus. Adopt the motor mechanic's
time-honoured principle of replacing parts at the customer's expense
till the problem goes away. If it is a macro virus, you might need to
repeat some steps after failure since it would safe to assume that
replaced files are quickly re-infected.

Visit http://www.mvps.org/Mac/TroubleshootingIndex.html for general
guides on cleaning up messes like this one.

Good luck, and do report back how you fixed it. Your problem is rare
enough to be newsworthy.

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

Nothing has "turned out" as anything yet, Arturo. No one knows the cause of
your freezing problem, no one knows that a macro is involved, no one knows
that AppleScript is involved, no one knows if the the two things are
directly related. It's all pure speculation so far, with very little
evidence to go on as yet.

The fact that you have "Warn before opening a file that
contains macros" is checked (you only just told us, so don't blame anyone
for speculating otherwise) is pretty clear evidence that the cause is not a
macro in the files. So far, I have not heard of an "undetectable" macro that
starts working somehow without first being detected. I'm not saying that's
totally impossible, but it sure is unlikely, and I never heard of any such
thing.

"Apple Event timed out" usually indicates that an AppleScript is involved
somewhere or other, although it is certainly possible that Apple Events can
be run from other types of code. (However, other types of code usually don't
bother writing in raw Apple Events, at least not in OS X, since AppleScript
is easier.) I'm doubtful that anything in Word itself would use Apple
Events, so it's more likely to be an external script. (It's just barely
possible that some start-up procedure in the Office folder collection of
support files uses some AppleScript, but this is quite unlikely.) External
AppleScript files - unlike similar things over on Windows - cannot start up
by themselves - there are no self-executing programs on the Mac, and
certainly not AppleScript applications. It's just not possible. The user
(you) needs to launch them somehow.

The easiest way for a malicious program - if that's what this is (highly
unlikely) - to introduce itself as an AppleScript is by the simple device of
giving it a false extension. That way it appears with a false icon. So
someone could send you as an email attachment, or you could download from
the web, an AppleScript application that has had its ".app" extension
replaced by ".doc". Then it would look like a Word .doc file, with the
appropriate icon. When you double-clicked it, that would launch it, and it
could do any number of things. So it's always possible that you have one of
these, and in that case it's probably a good thing that Apple Event timed
out and couldn't do whatever it was trying to do.

Chances are much greater, however, that it's something completely different
going on, more benign. Just something nobody's thought of as yet, since
there really isn't much information to go on.

Make a new user in System Preferences/Accounts. Copy a few different Word
docs to the Mac HD/Users/Shared/ folder, both some docs you've made yourself
and a few of these ones you have suspicions of. Switch to the new user. Drag
the files from the Shared folder to the new desktop.

Launch Word. Any problems? Open a simple .doc file you made yourself. All
OK? Now try to open one of those suspicious files. Do you get a problem here
too?

One possibility is that the files might have been created in a version of
Word Windows containing something or other not available to Word 2004,
although I don't know what that might be if the files really do end in
".doc". Or do they perhaps have a ".docx" extension - might they have been
made in the brand new still officially beta Word 2007?

The "Apple Event timed out" error might be related to a secondary thing
that's supposed to happen when a file can't open - such as a message dialog
trying to appear, or maybe even the Microsoft Error Reporter not being able
to launch, or something like that. It's really not possible to tell at this
point. Try it in another user on your Mac.



--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

From: Arturo <[email protected]>
Organization: http://groups.google.com
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.mac.office.word
Date: 16 Dec 2006 08:32:09 -0800
Subject: Re: word 2004 freezes

so it turns out that in preferences, "Warn before opening a file that
contains macros" was already checked, but when I opened the
attachmented Word docuemnts I never got the macros warning. Any other
ideas? is there a way to hunt down a virus if in fact one could be the
culprit?

 

[Arturo]

Wow. Lots to digest here. I'll try a number of things this weekend as
time permits and report back.

Thanks,

Arturo

Nothing has "turned out" as anything yet, Arturo. No one knows the cause of
your freezing problem, no one knows that a macro is involved, no one knows
that AppleScript is involved, no one knows if the the two things are
directly related. It's all pure speculation so far, with very little
evidence to go on as yet.

The fact that you have "Warn before opening a file that
contains macros" is checked (you only just told us, so don't blame anyone
for speculating otherwise) is pretty clear evidence that the cause is not a
macro in the files. So far, I have not heard of an "undetectable" macro that
starts working somehow without first being detected. I'm not saying that's
totally impossible, but it sure is unlikely, and I never heard of any such
thing.

"Apple Event timed out" usually indicates that an AppleScript is involved
somewhere or other, although it is certainly possible that Apple Events can
be run from other types of code. (However, other types of code usually don't
bother writing in raw Apple Events, at least not in OS X, since AppleScript
is easier.) I'm doubtful that anything in Word itself would use Apple
Events, so it's more likely to be an external script. (It's just barely
possible that some start-up procedure in the Office folder collection of
support files uses some AppleScript, but this is quite unlikely.) External
AppleScript files - unlike similar things over on Windows - cannot start up
by themselves - there are no self-executing programs on the Mac, and
certainly not AppleScript applications. It's just not possible. The user
(you) needs to launch them somehow.

The easiest way for a malicious program - if that's what this is (highly
unlikely) - to introduce itself as an AppleScript is by the simple device of
giving it a false extension. That way it appears with a false icon. So
someone could send you as an email attachment, or you could download from
the web, an AppleScript application that has had its ".app" extension
replaced by ".doc". Then it would look like a Word .doc file, with the
appropriate icon. When you double-clicked it, that would launch it, and it
could do any number of things. So it's always possible that you have one of
these, and in that case it's probably a good thing that Apple Event timed
out and couldn't do whatever it was trying to do.

Chances are much greater, however, that it's something completely different
going on, more benign. Just something nobody's thought of as yet, since
there really isn't much information to go on.

Make a new user in System Preferences/Accounts. Copy a few different Word
docs to the Mac HD/Users/Shared/ folder, both some docs you've made yourself
and a few of these ones you have suspicions of. Switch to the new user. Drag
the files from the Shared folder to the new desktop.

Launch Word. Any problems? Open a simple .doc file you made yourself. All
OK? Now try to open one of those suspicious files. Do you get a problem here
too?

One possibility is that the files might have been created in a version of
Word Windows containing something or other not available to Word 2004,
although I don't know what that might be if the files really do end in
".doc". Or do they perhaps have a ".docx" extension - might they have been
made in the brand new still officially beta Word 2007?

The "Apple Event timed out" error might be related to a secondary thing
that's supposed to happen when a file can't open - such as a message dialog
trying to appear, or maybe even the Microsoft Error Reporter not being able
to launch, or something like that. It's really not possible to tell at this
point. Try it in another user on your Mac.



--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Arturo/Elliott:

I *don't* think this is a virus. The "Macro warning" in Word 2004 gives
lots of false positives, but I don't think I have ever heard of it giving a
false negative.

A Word .doc file is a collection of nested containers. Any active elements
(macros, viruses, customisations...) must be in one of those specific
containers. The macro warning will fire if there is *anything* in that
container of the document.

So while it's quite capable of warning about benign things such as toolbar
customisations or customised keystrokes, it's not, as far as I know, able to
"miss" any code. It can't tell you whether the code is "nice" or "nasty",
it can only tell you that it's there. But if it doesn't say there is some
code there, you can rely on the fact that there is none.

So: My guess (in order) is Haxies, Preferences, Fonts.

The fact that you're getting an Apple Event error means my first suspicion
would be a Haxie. Be extremely suspicious of ANYTHING installed on your
computer that was not written by Apple or Microsoft, particularly if it
offers to "help" with things such as spelling or converting to PDF or
whatever.

Beth has a procedure on the website for replacing the Preferences:
http://word.mvps.org/Mac/DamagedPrefs.html

Fonts: Font Book is your friend: go have a look for duplicates and resolve
them all.

Hope this helps

Google the group on that subject. Look for articles written by John
McGhie. He has written quite a few, and even if I don't always agree
with his advocacy of anti-virus tools on Macintosh, he knows lots more
about the subject than I do. With a little luck, he'll be along shortly
(he usually posts in the evening, Eastern Australian Time, currently
GMT+11)
If I'm right about macro virus, then it seems that trashing normal and
any other global templates you may have, as well as quarantining all
your suspect documents from co-worders all at once is a good place to
start. It seems to be a difficult task to directly examine your
templates and docs for the virus. Adopt the motor mechanic's
time-honoured principle of replacing parts at the customer's expense
till the problem goes away. If it is a macro virus, you might need to
repeat some steps after failure since it would safe to assume that
replaced files are quickly re-infected.

Visit http://www.mvps.org/Mac/TroubleshootingIndex.html for general
guides on cleaning up messes like this one.

Good luck, and do report back how you fixed it. Your problem is rare
enough to be newsworthy.

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[Arturo]

Paul, I tried your suggestion and created a new user account shared
some files from last week to test Word. I opened Word files I had
downloaded and created some new ones and the application worked
perfectly. Also, Word worked fine this weekend on the primary user
account.

I'm wondering if there is a corrupt file that I might have been working
with, or had open while working on others, that was causing the
problem. And that because I'm not using it now, or in tne new user
account, that Word seems to be working OK. Unfortunelty, I don't
remember all of the files I used this past week.

If the freezing problem re-occurrs, I'll make note of all file and
applications in use to try to zero in on other clues.

Thanks for taking the time to help out.

Arturo

Nothing has "turned out" as anything yet, Arturo. No one knows the cause of
your freezing problem, no one knows that a macro is involved, no one knows
that AppleScript is involved, no one knows if the the two things are
directly related. It's all pure speculation so far, with very little
evidence to go on as yet.

The fact that you have "Warn before opening a file that
contains macros" is checked (you only just told us, so don't blame anyone
for speculating otherwise) is pretty clear evidence that the cause is not a
macro in the files. So far, I have not heard of an "undetectable" macro that
starts working somehow without first being detected. I'm not saying that's
totally impossible, but it sure is unlikely, and I never heard of any such
thing.

"Apple Event timed out" usually indicates that an AppleScript is involved
somewhere or other, although it is certainly possible that Apple Events can
be run from other types of code. (However, other types of code usually don't
bother writing in raw Apple Events, at least not in OS X, since AppleScript
is easier.) I'm doubtful that anything in Word itself would use Apple
Events, so it's more likely to be an external script. (It's just barely
possible that some start-up procedure in the Office folder collection of
support files uses some AppleScript, but this is quite unlikely.) External
AppleScript files - unlike similar things over on Windows - cannot start up
by themselves - there are no self-executing programs on the Mac, and
certainly not AppleScript applications. It's just not possible. The user
(you) needs to launch them somehow.

The easiest way for a malicious program - if that's what this is (highly
unlikely) - to introduce itself as an AppleScript is by the simple device of
giving it a false extension. That way it appears with a false icon. So
someone could send you as an email attachment, or you could download from
the web, an AppleScript application that has had its ".app" extension
replaced by ".doc". Then it would look like a Word .doc file, with the
appropriate icon. When you double-clicked it, that would launch it, and it
could do any number of things. So it's always possible that you have one of
these, and in that case it's probably a good thing that Apple Event timed
out and couldn't do whatever it was trying to do.

Chances are much greater, however, that it's something completely different
going on, more benign. Just something nobody's thought of as yet, since
there really isn't much information to go on.

Make a new user in System Preferences/Accounts. Copy a few different Word
docs to the Mac HD/Users/Shared/ folder, both some docs you've made yourself
and a few of these ones you have suspicions of. Switch to the new user. Drag
the files from the Shared folder to the new desktop.

Launch Word. Any problems? Open a simple .doc file you made yourself. All
OK? Now try to open one of those suspicious files. Do you get a problem here
too?

One possibility is that the files might have been created in a version of
Word Windows containing something or other not available to Word 2004,
although I don't know what that might be if the files really do end in
".doc". Or do they perhaps have a ".docx" extension - might they have been
made in the brand new still officially beta Word 2007?

The "Apple Event timed out" error might be related to a secondary thing
that's supposed to happen when a file can't open - such as a message dialog
trying to appear, or maybe even the Microsoft Error Reporter not being able
to launch, or something like that. It's really not possible to tell at this
point. Try it in another user on your Mac.



--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

 

[Arturo]

John, that only thing on my computer other than Apple and Microsoft
products is Parallels, which I have hardly used and which was installed
weeks before the Word freezing problem occured. I just installed (this
past Friday) Office 2003 on the Windows virtual machine but have not
used it yet; and the freezing problem started before this. Also,
Parallels was not launched or or running at the time of the problem
with Word. I mention this in case it provides any clues. Also see
response to Paul's suggestions which I posted earlier.

Thanks,

Arturo

 

[Arturo]

John, I think your latest suggestion might be on the right path because
now another problem has surfaced. I'm not able to use several fonts in
Word or in Excel. The default font is now Courier where as before it
was Times New Roman and which no longer appears in the font pull down
menu. I can't see several other fonts previously available. If I copy
a small amount of text from another document using Times New Roman, it
does display and I'm able to keep using in tne new document.

Last week when I created teh new user account, I noticed that when I
opened Word it took a long time to load and right before it did, I saw
a rapid changing message saying that something was checking fonts,
though I don't remember the exact message because I caught it right
before Word opened.

I'm going to try your suggestions and see what happens. Curiously,
Word hasn't crashed, so I'm assuming that some file I was using last
week was causing the problem. ???

Thanks,

Arturo

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Arturo:

Yes, I think it will turn out to be bad preferences, as described in the web
article I sent you to.

Whenever Word starts for the first time in a user ID, it runs a utility that
checks that certain fonts that it requires to operate are available, and
re-installs them if they're not.

For example: Certain fonts are required to draw the Office user interface.
Without them, all the menus are in Courier (or blank!).

Cheers

John, I think your latest suggestion might be on the right path because
now another problem has surfaced. I'm not able to use several fonts in
Word or in Excel. The default font is now Courier where as before it
was Times New Roman and which no longer appears in the font pull down
menu. I can't see several other fonts previously available. If I copy
a small amount of text from another document using Times New Roman, it
does display and I'm able to keep using in tne new document.

Last week when I created teh new user account, I noticed that when I
opened Word it took a long time to load and right before it did, I saw
a rapid changing message saying that something was checking fonts,
though I don't remember the exact message because I caught it right
before Word opened.

I'm going to try your suggestions and see what happens. Curiously,
Word hasn't crashed, so I'm assuming that some file I was using last
week was causing the problem. ???

Thanks,

Arturo

Hi Arturo:

OK, the test that Paul suggested is fairly definitive. Word works perfectly
in the new User ID.

That indicates the problem is most likely with Word's preference files in
your other User installation. It "might" be a corrupt Normal template, but
the symptoms you're getting make that quite unlikely.

You can either delete all the preferences from that user as described here:
http://word.mvps.org/Mac/DamagedPrefs.html

Or you could simply migrate to the new user you have created and ignore the
old problem

Cheers

John, that only thing on my computer other than Apple and Microsoft
products is Parallels, which I have hardly used and which was installed
weeks before the Word freezing problem occured. I just installed (this
past Friday) Office 2003 on the Windows virtual machine but have not
used it yet; and the freezing problem started before this. Also,
Parallels was not launched or or running at the time of the problem
with Word. I mention this in case it provides any clues. Also see
response to Paul's suggestions which I posted earlier.

Thanks,

Arturo


John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh] wrote:
Hi Arturo/Elliott:

I *don't* think this is a virus. The "Macro warning" in Word 2004 gives
lots of false positives, but I don't think I have ever heard of it giving a
false negative.

A Word .doc file is a collection of nested containers. Any active elements
(macros, viruses, customisations...) must be in one of those specific
containers. The macro warning will fire if there is *anything* in that
container of the document.

So while it's quite capable of warning about benign things such as toolbar
customisations or customised keystrokes, it's not, as far as I know, able
to
"miss" any code. It can't tell you whether the code is "nice" or "nasty",
it can only tell you that it's there. But if it doesn't say there is some
code there, you can rely on the fact that there is none.

So: My guess (in order) is Haxies, Preferences, Fonts.

The fact that you're getting an Apple Event error means my first suspicion
would be a Haxie. Be extremely suspicious of ANYTHING installed on your
computer that was not written by Apple or Microsoft, particularly if it
offers to "help" with things such as spelling or converting to PDF or
whatever.

Beth has a procedure on the website for replacing the Preferences:
http://word.mvps.org/Mac/DamagedPrefs.html

Fonts: Font Book is your friend: go have a look for duplicates and resolve
them all.

Hope this helps

On 17/12/06 4:11 AM, in article 161220061711389624%[email protected],

so it turns out that in preferences, "Warn before opening a file that
contains macros" was already checked, but when I opened the
attachmented Word docuemnts I never got the macros warning. Any other
ideas? is there a way to hunt down a virus if in fact one could be the
culprit?

Google the group on that subject. Look for articles written by John
McGhie. He has written quite a few, and even if I don't always agree
with his advocacy of anti-virus tools on Macintosh, he knows lots more
about the subject than I do. With a little luck, he'll be along shortly
(he usually posts in the evening, Eastern Australian Time, currently
GMT+11)
If I'm right about macro virus, then it seems that trashing normal and
any other global templates you may have, as well as quarantining all
your suspect documents from co-worders all at once is a good place to
start. It seems to be a difficult task to directly examine your
templates and docs for the virus. Adopt the motor mechanic's
time-honoured principle of replacing parts at the customer's expense
till the problem goes away. If it is a macro virus, you might need to
repeat some steps after failure since it would safe to assume that
replaced files are quickly re-infected.

Visit http://www.mvps.org/Mac/TroubleshootingIndex.html for general
guides on cleaning up messes like this one.

Good luck, and do report back how you fixed it. Your problem is rare
enough to be newsworthy.

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410