Word 2004 + Macintel + Some Adobe OpenType Fonts = Crash on save

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

We don't know the answer to that.

The crashes seem to be happening in ATSUI. That's an Apple process, so it
appears we're waiting on Apple for a fix.

Cheers

Still the same error with the latest Microsoft Office update 10.2.4 :-(

Do we have to wait for the universal binary version?

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

 

[Gavin Lawrie]

The crashes seem to be happening in ATSUI. That's an Apple process, so it
appears we're waiting on Apple for a fix.

Yes... but they are being caused by Word! Are you aware of any other
app that does this? I would have thought MS would want its product to
work around this problem - not sit back and wait for Apple to get
around to fixing something that doesn't appear broken in any other
app...

G.

 

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

I *personally* am not aware of which other applications are capable of
producing this particular crash.

You would have to ask the people looking at the issue at Apple. I may be a
week or two out of date on this one, but so far, I have not seen anything
from either company to say that we know for sure what the cause of this
actually is. Last I heard, it was still under investigation.

While Microsoft might very much like its product to "work", one of the
things a large-scale software producer would never do is rush out a
*work-around* to a software issue in someone else's code. Particularly not
when they suspect the other company may be working on a fix.

Otherwise they would get into a tail chasing situation: one works-around it,
the other fixes the issue, the first works around the work-around, the
second fixes the fix to the work-around... If each company has three tries
at it, you have 27 possible states a customer's machine could possibly be
in, and two sets of help desks tearing their hair out.

Generally, the rule is to wait until the owner of the code either ships a
fix or announces that they're not going to do so.

I know that's not what you wanted to hear, but it's the way large-scale
software production works...

Cheers

Yes... but they are being caused by Word! Are you aware of any other
app that does this? I would have thought MS would want its product to
work around this problem - not sit back and wait for Apple to get
around to fixing something that doesn't appear broken in any other
app...

G.

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Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
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John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[adam.c.nielsen]

I'm getting the same thing you all are getting (I'm using ITC Franklin
Gothic) on an Intel iMac with Office 2004 (11.2.4). I am also getting
the SBBOD when using Track Changes and sometimes when copying/pasting
from other apps. One solution/work-around I have found is that Office
X (10.1.6) doesn't seem to suffer from any of this. I have it
installed on the same macine as Office 2004 and doing the same thing in
X doesn't crash Word, but doing it in 2004 (on the same exact machine)
does crash it. Not sure if this helps, but I thought I'd share anyway

 

[Elliott Roper]

I'm getting the same thing you all are getting (I'm using ITC Franklin
Gothic) on an Intel iMac with Office 2004 (11.2.4). I am also getting
the SBBOD when using Track Changes and sometimes when copying/pasting
from other apps. One solution/work-around I have found is that Office
X (10.1.6) doesn't seem to suffer from any of this. I have it
installed on the same macine as Office 2004 and doing the same thing in
X doesn't crash Word, but doing it in 2004 (on the same exact machine)
does crash it. Not sure if this helps, but I thought I'd share anyway

That is a *very* useful observation. ATSUI was not used in v.X

 

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

Yep: Everything points to ATSUI. Word 2004 uses ATSUI to produce the
ability to draw Unicode characters. Word X can't draw Unicode and does not
call ATSUI.

That is a *very* useful observation. ATSUI was not used in v.X

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Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
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John McGhie <[email protected]>
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[hdjong]

Again....

I just did an update MS Office 2004 Mac eng version 10.2.5. Tested the
crash on save issue and the problem is still there. I was hoping the
problem should be solved by now.

Hans de Jong

 

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

Hi Hans:

We'll let you know when they put the fix out

But currently neither Microsoft nor Apple can do anything about this,
because they can't find it. Reporting that the bug is "still there" is not
taking us forward: we know it's still there, because so far we do not have
enough information to be able to find it.

We need you to give us the version of Word and the name and manufacturer of
the font that you think is causing the problem. Full details on your system
will help too.

The reason this bug is not already fixed is that currently, Microsoft does
not have enough information to be able to go looking for it.

Yes. It's a serious issue for some users. Everyone accepts that.

Yes. They will fix it as soon as they can. They already said that.

But No. They can't do anything about it until we start getting detailed
information.

So both Microsoft and Apple are simply going to sit there doing nothing
until we get the detail they need.

If you want the bug fixed: please send DETAILS.

Cheers

Again....

I just did an update MS Office 2004 Mac eng version 10.2.5. Tested the
crash on save issue and the problem is still there. I was hoping the
problem should be solved by now.

Hans de Jong

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

 

[John C. Welch]

So both Microsoft and Apple are simply going to sit there doing nothing
until we get the detail they need.

If you want the bug fixed: please send DETAILS.

Specific details that would help:

1) can someone PLEASE test this on 10.4.7? There appear to be some ATSUI
changes in that version.

2) if some of you are comfortable with it, when you see ATSServer doing it's
bouncing, run fs_usage for a bit. That could be helpful in seeing just what
word and other things are doing to the file system.

3) on the systems this is happening on, are there any haxies, addons,
anything in the menu bar that Apple didn't supply, etc. InputManagers and
APE count, even if you aren't actively using them.

4) When this happens, has anyone immediately created a new clean test user
and tried to work with the same document in that?

5) WRT to the fonts, is this in conjunction with a font manager? what is the
specific font setup on the affected machines, i.e. directory locations.

6) On the fonts causing the problem, does Font Book's font check come up
clean?

7) on the affected machines, has anyone touched any of the fonts in
/System/Library/Fonts for any reason?

8) On the affected machines, have you checked the permissions for the fonts.
(No, "Repair Permissions" doesn't count, as it, at most, would only touch
the main font directory.)

john

 

[gruth]

1) can someone PLEASE test this on 10.4.7? There appear to be some ATSUI

changes in that version.

I am running 10.4.7, and I have idential crashes to what others have
described.

3) on the systems this is happening on, are there any haxies, addons,
anything in the menu bar that Apple didn't supply, etc. InputManagers and
APE count, even if you aren't actively using them.

When I ran into this problem, I first tried stripping all non-Apple
add-ons (SideTrack and MenuMeters). The problem persists with and
without them.

4) When this happens, has anyone immediately created a new clean test user
and tried to work with the same document in that?

Yes. I in fact reimaged the entire drive with a clean 10.4.7 install
and a clean Office install.

5) WRT to the fonts, is this in conjunction with a font manager? what is the
specific font setup on the affected machines, i.e. directory locations.

I've tried it with the fault at blame in both the "root" location
(/Library/Fonts) and in the "User" location
(/Users/myaccountname/Library/Fonts)

6) On the fonts causing the problem, does Font Book's font check come up
clean?

Yes. I've also tried checking for duplicates with Font Book -- no luck.

7) on the affected machines, has anyone touched any of the fonts in
/System/Library/Fonts for any reason? No.

8) On the affected machines, have you checked the permissions for the fonts.
(No, "Repair Permissions" doesn't count, as it, at most, would only touch
the main font directory.)

I could do this, but I'm not sure how to -- Disk Utility is the only
way I know to check permissions.

Also, the particular font that's creating trouble for me is Adobe
Garamond, Postscript Type 1. The font version is 001.002, for what it's
worth.

Thanks!

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi gruth,

Navigate to the Garamond font you mentioned (Home/Library/Fonts). Click
once on the font to select it and do a Get Info (Cmd>i). Under Owner &
Permissions, does it say you can both Read & Write?

Thanks very much for your thorough reply on this!

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

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/Mac/WordMacHome.html>
My Site: <http://www.bethrosengard.com>

 

[John C. Welch]

I could do this, but I'm not sure how to -- Disk Utility is the only
way I know to check permissions.

Gotta do it the hard way, via terminal most likely.

Also, the particular font that's creating trouble for me is Adobe
Garamond, Postscript Type 1. The font version is 001.002, for what it's
worth.

That's of use, as it means it's not strictly an open type issue.

 

[John C. Welch]

Navigate to the Garamond font you mentioned (Home/Library/Fonts). Click
once on the font to select it and do a Get Info (Cmd>i). Under Owner &
Permissions, does it say you can both Read & Write?

Terminal's a better choice, as the Finder doesn't fully show all the
permissions.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Terminal's a better choice, as the Finder doesn't fully show all the
permissions.

It would help if you'd explain how to do this, John. I don't know enough
about Terminal to do it myself.

Do you really think that font permissions has anything to do with this
problem?

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

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/Mac/WordMacHome.html>
My Site: <http://www.bethrosengard.com>

 

[gruth]

Hi gruth,

Navigate to the Garamond font you mentioned (Home/Library/Fonts). Click
once on the font to select it and do a Get Info (Cmd>i). Under Owner &
Permissions, does it say you can both Read & Write?

Yes, I can both read and write.

 

[Chris Ridd]

It would help if you'd explain how to do this, John. I don't know enough
about Terminal to do it myself.

In terminal, type "ls -l " without the quotes but with the two spaces.
Then drag the Garamond font file into that terminal window and then
type return. The output will look something like (obviously I used a
different font):

-rwxr-xr-x 1 cjr 502 0 Apr 8 2004 /Library/Fonts/Office/Book Antiqua

^^^^^^^^^^ these characters show the file permissions. They are
organized this way:

- means this is a plain file and not a directory
or other special file

rwx means this can be read, written and executed
by the owner of the file (cjr in this case)

r-x means this can be read and executed but not
written by members of the group (502 in this
case)

r-x means this can be read and executed but not
written by all other users

Hopefully that doesn't get word-wrapped too badly...

Cheers,

Chris

 

[gruth]

Here are the results I get when I use Chris's method to look at the
permissions for one fo the fonts in the Garamond family:

-rwxr-xr-x 1 urban urban 0 Dec 8 1998
/Users/urban/Library/Fonts/AGarReg

 

[gruth]

So does anyone in Microsoft's Mac division have an estimate on when
this problem will be resolved? I understand that it involves both Apple
& MS, but given this, can you shed any light on the timeline?

 

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

Geoff:

That's the $64,000 question we would all love to have answered.

The employees of both Apple and Microsoft are not allowed to comment
publicly on this. And they're certainly not allowed to tell us.

So I think the best answers I can give you are "Weeks, rather than months"
and "Those who know are not allowed to tell us, and those who tell us, don't
know!"

The first one is just my guess. The second is a known fact

Cheers

So does anyone in Microsoft's Mac division have an estimate on when
this problem will be resolved? I understand that it involves both Apple
& MS, but given this, can you shed any light on the timeline?

--

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. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[paulnyc]

I, too, am having this problem. It only seems to have cropped up
recently in the last few weeks, but it may have existed before when I
didn't try using fancier fonts than just Times or Times New Roman. I've
had it occur with Adobe's Minion and Myriad and just now with
ACaslonRegular. I have the latest versions of OSX 10.4.7 and Mac Office
2004 on my macbook pro 2.17. What happens is that I get the beachball
in Word as it tries to save and then other applications quit (Preview,
Safari, TextEdit) and I lose everything in those applications. It is a
frightening error because it feels like a virus is killing everything.
After losing an hour of work, I really want to avoid using offending
fonts until there's a permanent fix from MS and Apple.

I wish somebody could explain in simple language which fonts are okay
to use and which are not. I don't really understand the difference
between OTF and PS fonts, though I'm pretty sure I have both.

Paul