Word 2004 unexpectedly quits

[Tony]

Hi,

Word 2004 (and previously Word v.X) is the only application that
unexpectedly quits and corrupts its own preference and setting files in
our Mac OS X 10.2.8 and Mac OS X 10.3.4 systems (PowerMacs, PowerBooks,
iMacs and eMacs), which otherwise are rock solid. This is a positive
criticism: please, please, please, make Word 2004 a truly Mac OS X
application: stable as the OS itself! Thanks.

Again, it is amazing to me that only Word causes these annoying
problems in Mac OS X. And we use dozens if not hundreds of applications
which never --or almost never-- ever quit.

Word quits unexpectedly mostly when opening files, closing files and
--mostly-- when copy/pasting/cutting text in simple or 100-page
documents even without tables or pictures. But he problem is
unpredictable. You cannot know when it will hit.

Note: deleting all current and previous Office versions and
clean-reinstalling Office 2004 (or Office v.X latest version) does not
help. I used the Remove Office (version 11.0.0) that comes with Office
2004. I also experienced this problem on Mac OS X v.X up to the latest
10.1.5 version.

I guess it has something to do with the "peculiar" way in which Office
(v.X and also 2004) handles the memory. Or else why only with Word and
not the other applications?

Thanks.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Tony,

Thanks for clarifying the situation. As I said on your other threads, this
is not a memory problem. First, OS X manages memory for all applications.
Secondly, most people using Office X and 2004 are not having your problems.
On the other hand, Word is one of the most complex applications around,
which unfortunately seems to result in more occasions for conflicts. What
we have to do is figure out what it is in your systems that is idiosyncratic
and conflicts with Word.

I know you've tried a number of things besides removing and reinstalling
Office. *Exactly* what are they? In other words, I know you tested the
Word .plist file but did you also test, for instance, the Microsoft
Component Preferences file?

You tested for *both* duplicate and corrupt fonts, right? And I mean by
using the elimination method; Font Doctor is great but it's not definitive.
Please give us a complete list of what you've tried so we don't repeat
ourselves or your efforts.

Since these problems occur on various computers and versions of Office, what
do all these computers share that might not be common to other
installations?

--
Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[Tony]

Beth,

Thanks for the feedback.

So far I have:

1 - Removed and reinstalled Office 2004 (version 11.0.0) including Word
2004. Four times so far.

2 - Moved all my fonts to a folder in the Desktop before reinstalling
Word. Just in case they were the culprit:

Fonts from Library
Fonts from System Folder
Fonts from System Folder (disabled)
Fonts from user Library

3 - I have not tested for duplicate and corrupt fonts. Should I? How?

4 - I have not tested the Microsoft Component Preferences. How to do it?

5 - The computers do not share any special setting. They are connected
to internet with ethernet, ADSL and Cable. Some boot from internal
drives and others from external FireWire drives. They include PowerMacs
G5 and G4, iMacs G3, eMacs G4 and PowerBooks G4.

6 - We have experienced this problem with Word 2004 and v.X up to Word
10.1.4 (Office 10.1.5) using Mac OS X 10.3.x and earlier versions
(10.1.x and 10.2.x). I am now on a PowerMac G4/500 1 GB RAM with Mac OS
X 10.2.8 and Word 2004.

7 - As said, no other application crashes. Or if it does it is very
rare indeed (once a year?). The Mac OS X system never crashes to my
knowledge. Word crashes (unexpectedly quits) several days a day mainly
when cutting/pasting/copying and also when you select Command Q to quit.

Should you need further information, please let me know.

Thanks again for your kind support.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Tony,

See inline.

1 - Removed and reinstalled Office 2004 (version 11.0.0) including Word
2004. Four times so far.

Glad you're persistent .

2 - Moved all my fonts to a folder in the Desktop before reinstalling
Word. Just in case they were the culprit:

Fonts from Library
Fonts from System Folder
Fonts from System Folder (disabled)
Fonts from user Library

3 - I have not tested for duplicate and corrupt fonts. Should I? How?

Yes, you should. The procedure is outlined here:

4 - I have not tested the Microsoft Component Preferences. How to do it?

5 - The computers do not share any special setting. They are connected
to internet with ethernet, ADSL and Cable. Some boot from internal
drives and others from external FireWire drives. They include PowerMacs
G5 and G4, iMacs G3, eMacs G4 and PowerBooks G4.

6 - We have experienced this problem with Word 2004 and v.X up to Word
10.1.4 (Office 10.1.5) using Mac OS X 10.3.x and earlier versions
(10.1.x and 10.2.x). I am now on a PowerMac G4/500 1 GB RAM with Mac OS
X 10.2.8 and Word 2004.

7 - As said, no other application crashes. Or if it does it is very
rare indeed (once a year?). The Mac OS X system never crashes to my
knowledge. Word crashes (unexpectedly quits) several days a day mainly
when cutting/pasting/copying and also when you select Command Q to quit.

Should you need further information, please let me know.

Thanks again for your kind support.

You're welcome! In addition to the above, you should work *carefully*
through ALL the procedures outlined here:
<http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/TroubleshootingIndex.htm>

See the Diagnose Your Problems page for a starting point. For instance,
have you ever repaired disk permissions? Then keep on going. I'm afraid
that's the best I have to offer. Good luck and keep us posted.

--
Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[Tony]

Hi Beth,

Well, I must say that the site <http://word.mvps.org> is awesome.
Really good! But from such page it is hard to reach the real good
Troubleshooting Index
<http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/TroubleshootingIndex.htm>.

Here is my testing.

SUMMARY: After all these changes the "unexpected quit" persists. Mostly
when copy/pasting/cutting and when quitting Word. But as previously
said it is not a consistent issue. I mean, you never know when it will
strike.

Next follow the details.

I - WITH REGARDS TO Office v. X program unexpectedly quits after the
splash screen appears <http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=313535>

How to tell if a font is duplicated? As far as I can tell I have no
duplicate fonts, yet I can see:

Wingdings
Wingdings 2
Wingdings 3

How duplicate fonts look like?

Removing all fonts, removing Office and reinstalling it does not fix
the problem. I do not use any font management software. I do not have
multiple Mac OS 9 folders. Just one Mac OS 9 system folder in the same
Mac OS X disk.

II - WITH REGARDS TO Damaged Preferences and Settings
<http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/DamagedPrefs.htm>

Note for the webmaster: cannot see such page using Safari 1.0 on Mac OS
X 10.2.8. Must use Internet Explorer 5.2.3 to see its contents. Even
then, if I save the page as Html I get a blank page. I must save it as
Web to see its contents. And even then the page gests stuck and I
cannot scroll it when opening the saved file with the browser. I must
open the live <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/DamagedPrefs.htm> page
to scroll it. If possible, please fix such issues. Thanks.

I have deleted:

~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/com.microsoft.Word.prefs.plist

~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Microsoft Component Preferences <--
CANNOT FIND SUCH FILE!!!

~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/com.microsoft.Office.prefs.plist

~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office Font Cache (11)

Yet the problem persists. Note that "Microsoft Component Preferences"
was missing.

I have run FontDoctor 6.1 and no problems were found.

III - WITH REGARDS TO Troubleshooting Index
<http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/TroubleshootingIndex.htm>

Note for the webmaster 1: same problem as above.

Note for the webmaster 2: the search engine at
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;KBHOWTO does
not work. At least for Word 2004 you get no results always. Whatever
keyword you search. Even worse: you are not warned that the search
engine is not working, but that no matches were found, which is
misleading.

Office 2004 (version 11.0.0) is the latest version available.

Disk permissions repaired. Run DiskWarrior 3.02, Norton DiskDoctor
8.02, TechTool Pro 4.02 and Drive 10 v1.1.5. No problem.

Run Cocktail 3.4.9.

I have further check and carried out the Diagnose Your Problem steps
<http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/DiagnoseYourProblem.htm>. No problems
were found. I do not use master documents. The Normal template,
preferences and all add-ins were removed. Yet the issue remains with
different documents (in case they were corrupt).

The Things to Avoid were taken into account
<http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/ThingsToAvoid.htm>. Yet, if I may say
so, that shocks me. It seems that you must be "careful" with Word 2004.
I use many other applications on Mac OS X 10.2.8 and take no care at
all and never have any crash except with Word 2004.

I have also checked Word 2004 MSKB Known Issues
<http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/MSKBKnownIssues.htm>

IV CONCLUSIONS

All in all I am puzzled. I am very sorry about all the trouble that I
am reporting, but that is my experience. I am sure this issue must have
something to do with our Macs, but at the same time since we have no
problem with the OS itself or other applications (and we use dozens if
not hundreds of them) there must be ALSO something PECULIAR about Word
2004.

On the other hand, as previously said, this is not something new for
us. We have experienced it since Word v.X up to 10.1.4 (Office 10.1.5)
and now Word 2004. Using Mac OS X 10.1.x, 10.2.x and 10.3.x. Weird!

What else an I do?

V ONE MORE THING

Last but not least, Word 2004 (not previous versions) do not see and
thus cannot add words to the custom dictionary for languages like
Spanish. No problem with other languages like French. I have open a
discussion about that (Cannot "add" to Spanish dictionary) but none has
answered yet.

Your feedback most welcome.

Thanks for your help.

---

 

[Matt Centurión [MS]]

Hi Tony,

I'm sorry you're having so many issues with our product. I implore you to
contact our phone support and have them work on your case and gather all the
necessary data. If they are unable to help you they will request assistance
from us the engineers and see if we can work together to solve your issues.
Please make sure you let them know all the steps you have taken to try and
solve the issue yourself.

Thanks,

Matt
MacWord Testing
Macintosh Business Unit

--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Please do not send email directly to this e-mail address. It is for
newsgroup purposes only.

Find out everything about Microsoft Mac Newsgroups at:
[http://www.microsoft.com/mac/community/community.aspx?pid=newsgroups]
Check out product updates and news & info at:
[http://www.microsoft.com/mac]

 

[matt neuburg]

As far as I can tell I have no
duplicate fonts, yet I can see:

Wingdings
Wingdings 2
Wingdings 3

How duplicate fonts look like?

There's no problem; there are in fact three different fonts called
Wingdings, Wingdings 2, Wingdings 3 - as you can see by looking in your
Fonts folder.

 

[Tony]

Matt,

Thanks.

How to know if a font is "duplicated"? Do they have exactly the same
name? How do they look like?

Thanks again.

---

 

[Tony]

Matt,

Thanks.

1. I have already phoned them since Word v.X. We could not find the
problem. That is why I came to this news forum.

2. Concerning my post, how to know if a font is "duplicated"? Do they
have exactly the same name? How do they look like? As said, I have, for
instance:

Wingdings
Wingdings 2
Wingdings 3

3. On the other hand, any idea about the problem with the "custom
Spanish dictionary? As previously explained:

Word 2004 (not previous versions) do not see and thus cannot add words
to the custom dictionary for languages like Spanish. No problem with
other languages like French. I have open a discussion about that
(Cannot "add" to Spanish dictionary) but none has answered yet.

4. Finally, I have tested Office 2004 and have now a very long list of
issues (more than 100 pages). Where can I send it by eMail?

Your feedback most welcome.

Sorry for all the trouble.

Thanks again for your help.

 

[matt neuburg]

How to know if a font is "duplicated"?

Font Book will tell you. m.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Tony,

First, about the word.mvps.org website. You've posted about this before and
you've received at least one answer previously. The story is this: Safari
does not handle web pages constructed with multiple frames very well. The
word.mvps.org site is so constructed. Completely redesigning the site
because Apple has not gotten around to fixing Safari is not a great option.
Nevertheless, we are currently examining ways to accommodate Safari users
though I don't know if we'll come up with an acceptable solution.

In the meantime, if you have to use Safari to access the site, you'll need
to hit Reload once or twice to bring up each page. The best alternative is
to use Internet Explorer for this purpose. If you're having problems with
IE as well, then something is wrong with your IE, since no one else has any
trouble.

As for saving a page, why would you want to? You can bookmark the page and
return to it any time you wish. Or you can print it out. However, if you
really want to save it anyway, save as Web Archive, not HTML Source. HTML
Source doesn't work with these pages because of the frames structure. As
for Web Archive, I have no trouble scrolling at all.

Now, concerning the MSKB search page for Word 2004: It *does* work (try the
word "quit"). However, there are very few KB articles so far for Word 2004,
which is why you mostly get a no results page. However, articles written
for other versions of Word which list Word 2004 in their "View products that
this article applies to" section *will* show up in a Word 2004 search. What
terms were you searching for?

About the Microsoft Component Preferences file: Sorry! It doesn't exist in
Word 2004 (just Word X). I have corrected the information on the site.

In general: I suggest you follow Matt Centurion's advice and call MS
support, even if you have done so before. Focus on Word 2004, but do let
them know you have the same problems with Word X. Print out Matt's email so
you can refer to it and use his name! Make sure you get passed up the "food
chain"; don't let it end with the first support person you talk to.

Finally, thanks for the nice words about the word.mvps.org site. I hope you
get these problems solved. I know how frustrating it can be.

--
Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[Tony]

Beth,

Thanks.

The search engine works now.

Regards,

 

[Tony]

Matt,

Thanks.

I am using Mac OS X 10.2.8 (Jaguar). As far as I know Font Book is only
available in Mac OS X 10.3.x (Panther).

Any alternatives?

Thanks again.
Regards,

---

 

[Matt Centurión [MS]]

Hi Tony,

I don't have answers for you right now but in order to access the
information our phone support has gathered I'll need more information from
you. Please call me at (425) 882-8080 and leave me the following
information:
FirstName/LastName
SR Case #
And phone number you left with them

You can also leave me a phone number you'd like me to reach you at and
an email and we can continue from there

As for the issues you've found we can arrange that when we talk, or you can
also send them to the newsgroup and more people can discuss them as well.

Thanks,

Matthew Centurion
MacWord Testing
Macintosh Business Unit

--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Please do not send email directly to this e-mail address. It is for
newsgroup purposes only.

Find out everything about Microsoft Mac Newsgroups at:
[http://www.microsoft.com/mac/community/community.aspx?pid=newsgroups]
Check out product updates and news & info at:
[http://www.microsoft.com/mac]

 

[Matt Centurión [MS]]

Hi Tony, it's been about a week since I posted this message and we haven't
heard from you. Please let us know if you've solved your problem and what
the solution was as it may help others out here. If you are having problems
making the phone call let me know and we'll try to help as best we can!

Matt
MacWord Testing
Macintosh Business Unit

--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Please do not send email directly to this e-mail address. It is for
newsgroup purposes only.

Find out everything about Microsoft Mac Newsgroups at:
[http://www.microsoft.com/mac/community/community.aspx?pid=newsgroups]
Check out product updates and news & info at:
[http://www.microsoft.com/mac]

 

[Tony]

Matt,

Thanks.

No way so far after testing all suggestions. The summary is in my post
of 2004-08-13:

From: Tony ([email protected] )
Subject: Re: Word 2004 crash on quit
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.mac.office.word
Date: 2004-08-13 01:45:03 PST

violetcrumble,

Welcome to the club. Word 2004 unexpectedly quits also for me when
quitting it and also when copy/pasting/cutting text. About 25% of the
times. And once it starts quitting, the issue is almost 100%
reproducible all the times in a row. Even with small one-page documents
with a single font text size.

Machine: PowerMac G4/500 (AGP) booting from external FireWire (400)
hard disk. 1 GB RAM.

I have tried all at
< http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/TroubleshootingIndex.htm > and even
formatted the hard drive and clean install all. Fixed permissions, run
FontDoctor, reset PRAM, run Disk Utility First Aid, DiskWarrior, Norton
Utiligies, Cocktail, etc.

I have no problem with any other application in my Mac OS X 10.2.8
including the latest versions of word processors like:

AppleWorks
BBEdit
Mariner Write
Mellel
Nisus Writer Express
TextEdit
TextWorks

Thus, for me this may be related to my machine or system configuratuon,
but it is ALSO a Word-related problem, because otherwise I would have
also similar issues with the hundreds of applications that I use.

And I have no third-party add-ons on the "/Applications/Microsoft
Office 2004/Office/Startup".

BTW, except the unexpected quit on quit (which is new to Word 2004), I
have experience the other unexpected quits in all versions since Word
v.X on Mac OS X 10.1 and newer.

A real pain.

Anyone else?

 

[Rupert Burrows]

My copy of Word 2004 does exactly the same: every time I quit, it
crashes. I am using 10.3.5 on three different Macs, and the same
happens on all of them: 700MHz iBook G3, FP iMac Rev A, 1200MHz G4
Cube. Surely this is a Word problem?

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Rupert,

See here: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/TroubleshootingIndex.htm>

--
Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>