Word 2007 Hangs with Search feature

[Kyle]

I have an intermittent problem with MS Word 2007. It seems to be the case
that ocassionaly when I use the search feature it will hang the application.
I have tried restarted the application to no avail, and also tried to use
safe-mode "winword /safe" and I have disabled the 1 add-in I had
"PDFComplete", and still the problem exists.

Is there anyway to see some type of crash information (error message) etc,
so that I may further diagnose the issue? MS Word gives me no information to
use other than it just hangs and says it is taking to long to respond when I
attempt to close it.

It happens with basic searches, for example right now I am searching an 80
page document for the text "5.2" and it is crashing each time.

I don't feel this is a hard drive issue, or any other hardware problem which
may be affecting the search as it seems limited to MS Word specifically, and
all my other apps are running fine.

Thanks for any assistance/direction that you may be able to provide.

 

[Neil Cumfer]

Others (myself included) have this problem too

There is a good chance that your search will succeed if you
start at the bottom of the document and search upward

It seems that it first manifested itself when Service Pack 1 was applied
to Word 2007 (hint: reinstall Word 2007 but don't apply the service
pack)

The problem occurs consistently in the same documents but not at all
in most documents

When the Find dialog box freezes, you can recover by pressing the
ESC key (once or twice) without having the restart Word

A search that fails the first time you try it on a problem document may
succeed later but the problem will return when you reopen the document

The bug seems to be related to non-visible and invisible double
punctuation
(such as consecutive tabs or spaces (non-visible), or conditional
hyphens (invisible))
especially when they are in documents where a right-to-left language is,
was,
or could be in use

It seems that under the right circumstances, the Find code goes into an
endless loop ... it appears to lose track of where it is in the document
and
keeps rechecking the same character over and over ... sometimes you can
see the progress meter (for the Find operation) rock back and forth on
the status bar

Your best bet is probably to concentrate on finding workarounds for
problem
documents, I wouldn't count on Microsoft fixing their code any time soon
....
or ever, for that matter

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Neil,

Did you try the Word 2007, July 2008 hotfix
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955587/en-us?FR=1
to see if it made a change in the behavior?

=============
Others (myself included) have this problem too

There is a good chance that your search will succeed if you
start at the bottom of the document and search upward

It seems that it first manifested itself when Service Pack 1 was applied
to Word 2007 (hint: reinstall Word 2007 but don't apply the service
pack)

The problem occurs consistently in the same documents but not at all
in most documents

When the Find dialog box freezes, you can recover by pressing the
ESC key (once or twice) without having the restart Word

A search that fails the first time you try it on a problem document may
succeed later but the problem will return when you reopen the document

The bug seems to be related to non-visible and invisible double
punctuation
(such as consecutive tabs or spaces (non-visible), or conditional
hyphens (invisible))
especially when they are in documents where a right-to-left language is,
was,
or could be in use

It seems that under the right circumstances, the Find code goes into an
endless loop ... it appears to lose track of where it is in the document
and
keeps rechecking the same character over and over ... sometimes you can
see the progress meter (for the Find operation) rock back and forth on
the status bar

Your best bet is probably to concentrate on finding workarounds for
problem
documents, I wouldn't count on Microsoft fixing their code any time soon
....
or ever, for that matter<<
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

 

[Neil Cumfer]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the link, I did not know that was available.

It looks like Microsoft is working on the problem, maybe there is hope
after all

I will probably wait until it is officially available since my problem
is somewhat different than the situations that are addressed in this
hotfix.

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Neil,

From what I could recall of the previous postings to test, it appears that the hotfix did help, but if you wouldn't remind repeating
the steps for a particular scenario where this occured for you I can try tyyping that in as well.

There is a hotfix 'rollup' but the next 'bigger' update would probably be Service Pack 2 which is, I'm guessing a few months out at
this point.

================
Hi Bob,

Thanks for the link, I did not know that was available.

It looks like Microsoft is working on the problem, maybe there is hope
after all

I will probably wait until it is officially available since my problem
is somewhat different than the situations that are addressed in this
hotfix. >>
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

 

[Neil Cumfer]

Hi Bob,

Sure, if you don't mind testing, I don't mind reposting

For the first paragraph of a new blank document, type the word "test"
and press Enter
For the second paragraph, press Tab, then press Enter
For the third paragraph, press Control+Hyphen twice, then press Enter
Using the Show/Hide feature, verify that two conditional hyphens were
indeed inserted
Optional: save the document, close it, close Word, restart Word, reopen
the document ... otherwise, move the insertion point back to the top of
the document.
Bring up the Replace dialog box, the Find text should be "test" and the
replace text should be "testing"
Click on the ReplaceAll button.
(In the event that it works correctly, bring up the Replace dialog box
again and Click on the ReplaceAll button again.)

also, this Word 2000 document is available on the web
http://www.scstatehouse.net/reports/hupdate/8n17.doc
In this document, the Find text should be "^p^w" and the replace text
should be "^p"

Thanks for your help

Neil

Hi Neil,

From what I could recall of the previous postings to test, it appears

that the hotfix did help, but if you wouldn't remind repeating

the steps for a particular scenario where this occured for you I can try tyyping that in as well.

There is a hotfix 'rollup' but the next 'bigger' update would probably

be Service Pack 2 which is, I'm guessing a few months out at

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Neil,

In both the 'start here' test (using a .docx file) and in the 'download document' test (using a .doc) file, Word 2007 with the
hotfix in place replaced everything without hanging.

FYI, in your test documents the logo in the header covers over
the top half of the 'Robert W. Harrell' text in the header.

==============
Hi Bob,

Sure, if you don't mind testing, I don't mind reposting

For the first paragraph of a new blank document, type the word "test"
and press Enter
For the second paragraph, press Tab, then press Enter
For the third paragraph, press Control+Hyphen twice, then press Enter
Using the Show/Hide feature, verify that two conditional hyphens were
indeed inserted
Optional: save the document, close it, close Word, restart Word, reopen
the document ... otherwise, move the insertion point back to the top of
the document.
Bring up the Replace dialog box, the Find text should be "test" and the
replace text should be "testing"
Click on the ReplaceAll button.
(In the event that it works correctly, bring up the Replace dialog box
again and Click on the ReplaceAll button again.)

also, this Word 2000 document is available on the web
http://www.scstatehouse.net/reports/hupdate/8n17.doc
In this document, the Find text should be "^p^w" and the replace text
should be "^p"

Thanks for your help

Neil >>

--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

FWIW... I tried Neil's test scenario just now -- before and after applying
the hot fix. Before applying the hotfix, it caused the noted hang -- just as
described. After applying the hotfix, find/replace works perfectly--without
hanging.

I've encountered this problem a number of times, and it's a relief to have
it fixed. I had overlooked the hotfix until Bob pointed it out. Maybe I
should go study the list of hotfixes and see how many other annoyances are
fixed.

 

[Neil Cumfer]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for testing ... I guess I will bite the bullet and get the hotfix
now. I'm glad that Microsoft has been working on this issue and came up
with the fix. Thanks for any role you might have played in making that
happen.

P.S. thanks also for reporting the problem with the header ... I wonder
if this is printer-dependent, it doesn't happen for us. I can see a lot
of things in the header I would change LOL

Hi Neil,

In both the 'start here' test (using a .docx file) and in the

'download document' test (using a .doc) file, Word 2007 with the

 

[Neil Cumfer]

Hi Herb,

Thanks for testing and posting. I feel much better now about trying the
hotfix.

Let me take this opportunity to plug your book It's a great book
and highly recommended for anyone.

 

[Neil Cumfer]

Hi Bob,

I found another document yesterday that was giving me fits when I tried
to use the Replace dialog box so I bit the bullet and downloaded the hot
fix.

It appears that all my woes are gone now. Apparently this patch fixes
many more problems than were described in the article. So far, the Find
operation hasn't got stuck in an infinite loop yet. I am very happy

Thanks again for finding that hotfix.

Neil

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Neil,

Glad that it worked for you.

Folks tend to see 'hotfixes' from different view points,

example

- why did Microsoft ever release the product when they must have known about this problem.

- So many hotfixes being released it - obviously a flawed product

- Who has time to deploy all of these hot fixes. Put them in a service pack

- It's nice that Microsoft is being responsive to customers by not waiting to release a Service Pack to address issues.

- Oh great, they release hot fixes for *that* problem, but what about *my problem*?!

- Microsoft can work on hotfixes, but they can't release one to add back the 'classic interface'...


Microsoft Office hotfixes are cumulative (if the same file is affected)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949370/en-us?FR=1
and Microsoft now has a quarterly(?) hotfix rollup release available as well,
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957022/en-us?FR=1
so folks don't have to try to find all of the separate hot fixes http://support.microsoft.com, but it does have to be requested.

=============
Hi Bob,

I found another document yesterday that was giving me fits when I tried
to use the Replace dialog box so I bit the bullet and downloaded the hot
fix.

It appears that all my woes are gone now. Apparently this patch fixes
many more problems than were described in the article. So far, the Find
operation hasn't got stuck in an infinite loop yet. I am very happy

Thanks again for finding that hotfix.

Neil <<
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*