Word 2008 12.1.2 — Constant Crashes

[Ed]

I'm using Word 2008 12.1.2. A few days before I installed the update
from v. 12.1.1, Word started to crash frequently. Do a search and
replace, Word crashes. Fix a footer, Word crashes. Any suggestions on
how I might fix this?

After the most recent crash (I've had 6 today), my scroll bars
disappeared. How do I restore them?

One complaint about Word 2008. I've been using Word since 1985. It
used to be that if I wanted to format a footer or a header, all I
needed to to was open the footer/header and make my changes. Now I
have to open the formatting palette. This is rather cumbersome and a
waste of monitor real estate.

Ed

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Ed -

Have you been repairing disk permissions after applying the OS X & Office
updates? That's frequently a sign of permissions errors.

If that isn't the problem you might try the troubleshooting steps on the
following site pertaining to testing the Normal template and/or your
preferences (although if the problem is with one specific document I'd first
suspect corruption of some type):

http://word.mvps.org/mac/Diagnose.html

As to the limit of H/F tools to the Formatting Palette.... Well, that's the
direction of OS X. Expect to see more of the same in future releases & other
software. Quite honestly, I think that once you get used to it you may find
it to be far more useful than the old H/F toolbar. Even on my 15" MBP I've
come to rely on it quite heavily & recoup screen space by doing away with
the display of the toolbars themselves (oblong button @ right end of Title
Bar) - Vertical is far more valuable to me than horizontal

Also, if you prefer you can somewhat limit what displays in the Toolbox
(Formatting Palette) to only those Groups you find useful. Click the bent
arrow button at the right end of the FP's title bar & hack away at the
checkboxes. And in addition to turning it On/Off altogether you can collapse
it by dbl-clicking its title bar & expand it by clicking the button for the
palette of your choice.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[signal]

I am just chiming in that I am having the same problems. I will try to fix disk permissions.

 

[Daniël]

Hi

I have followed all the advice I could find to prevent Word 2008 crashing (quitting unexpectedly), including:

- Verifying disk permissions
- Doing a 'maggie' (in the event that the doc is corrupt)
- Typing nice and slowly
- Ensuring that all updates till 12.1.2 are applied
- Crying like a girl

Please help: I need to get work done and have spent hours and hours reading forums, re-doing work and now, just moments ago, re-installing 2004, which is horribly clumsy, but at least stable.

Nothing else on my Mac ever crashes. Nothing. Only Word 2008. I wouldn't use Word, but the rest of the world does, and so I must. Pages, is not really really compatible... (BTW Word is actually an excellent application (and so is Excel, of course).. not MS bashing, just want to do my work and not waste R1,500... about $200).

Regards,
Daniël
Johannesburg, South Africa

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Daniel:

I find rude words more effective than crying (I have tried both...). Once I
have convinced the computer that it'll go out of the window if there's one
more crash -- and I am 14 floors up -- it seems to settle down nicely...

OK, when you installed Word 2008, it imported some settings from Word 2004,
and I wish it hadn't, because that's what is causing this problem.

Please:

1) Quit all Microsoft applications.

2) Track down all instances of pre-2008 Normal template on your computer,
and drag them to your desktop. The file is called simply "Normal" and has
no extension.

3) Find and drag the file Normal.dotm to your desktop. Unless you have
moved it, it should be in
/Users/ ~ /Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/User Templates/

4) If the following files exist, Remove or rename them:

~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Word Settings (10)

~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Word Settings (11)

User/Library/Preferences/com.Microsoft.Word.plist

User/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008 (the whole folder!)

5) Now re-start Word 2008 and it should be OK.

Be thorough with this, if you leave any of these files behind Word 2008 will
find them and won't replace them. Do it right and Word will construct a
new, clean, set of preferences and everything should now work.

Hope this helps

Hi

I have followed all the advice I could find to prevent Word 2008 crashing
(quitting unexpectedly), including:

- Verifying disk permissions
- Doing a 'maggie' (in the event that the doc is corrupt)
- Typing nice and slowly
- Ensuring that all updates till 12.1.2 are applied
- Crying like a girl

Please help: I need to get work done and have spent hours and hours reading
forums, re-doing work and now, just moments ago, re-installing 2004, which is
horribly clumsy, but at least stable.

Nothing else on my Mac ever crashes. Nothing. Only Word 2008. I wouldn't use
Word, but the rest of the world does, and so I must. Pages, is not really
really compatible... (BTW Word is actually an excellent application (and so is
Excel, of course).. not MS bashing, just want to do my work and not waste
R1,500... about $200).

Regards,
Daniël
Johannesburg, South Africa

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[Joe B]

Hi John,

Thanks for your post above regarding removing preference files, etc. Unfortunately, I have tried all of this and Word continues to crash on me. I have an existing file saved in the .docx format and I wanted to change the format to .doc for Word 97-2004. Every time I try and re-save the file under the new format, Word crashes. I have even tried copying and pasting the text into a new document with a new name and Word continues to crash. I am hoping Microsoft can fix this problem soon as it is VERY ANNOYING!

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Joe -

Does the document in question happen to contain any inserted PDF objects? If
so, that's probably the problem. The 12.1.2 update introduced a bug
Office-wide causing the program to crash when saving files in the 97-2004
format if they contain PDFs. As yet there is no fix for the problem.

As a workaround you might try Control/Right-Clicking the PDFs, select Save
As Picture to save in a different format, then delete the PDF & insert the
new version in its place. A PITA but the only option I can offer.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Joe:

"The post above" on my screen does not apply to your situation

That's one reason why we suggest that everybody should post their own new
question Everyone's circumstances are different.

We are all seeing different views of different servers (there are 30-odd
servers in the newsgroup farm, and another 30-odd in the web farm). Most of
the people giving help in here are looking only at the newsgroup farm, we do
not see the web view.

It helps to quote back part of a post if you refer to another one, so we can
be sure we know which one you are talking about.

Bob's answer should sort your problem.

Cheers

Hi John,

Thanks for your post above regarding removing preference files, etc.
Unfortunately, I have tried all of this and Word continues to crash on me. I
have an existing file saved in the .docx format and I wanted to change the
format to .doc for Word 97-2004. Every time I try and re-save the file under
the new format, Word crashes. I have even tried copying and pasting the text
into a new document with a new name and Word continues to crash. I am hoping
Microsoft can fix this problem soon as it is VERY ANNOYING!

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[Daniël]

Hi

Thanks so much for your prompt and helpful response (and for the bonus advice on developing emotional maturity).

I carefully followed your directions, and Word was much more stable (I was able to work for about 90 mins), until I saved the doc as .docx; went into Publish mode and then back again; it then bombed.

Herewith my error log from my most recent crash (note: I still have Word 2004 installed, but removed all the preference files and 'Normal' as instructed; haven't restarted 2004 since):

Error Signature:
Exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS
Date/Time: 2008-09-16 07:35:24 +0200
Application Name: Microsoft Word
Application Bundle ID: com.microsoft.Word
Application Signature: MSWD
Application Version: 12.1.2.080729
Crashed Module Name: Microsoft Word
Crashed Module Version: 12.1.2.080729
Crashed Module Offset: 0x0097c643
Blame Module Name: Microsoft Word
Blame Module Version: 12.1.2.080729
Blame Module Offset: 0x0097c643
Application LCID: 1033
Extra app info: Reg=en Loc=0x0409

....
Operating System Information
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5.4 (Build 9E17)
CPU: Intel Core Duo, Number: 2, Speed: 2000 MHz
gestaltPhysicalRAMSize err = 0, result = 1024 MB
gestaltSystemVersion err = 0, result = 0x1054
Screen: 1280 x 800, depth = 32, ltbr = 0, 0, 800, 1280

Microsoft Application Information:
Error Reporting UUID: D1109456-A247-43D4-A773-AC6468A3425A
Time from launch: 0 hours, 2 minutes, 48 seconds
Total errors on this client: 32

Thanks so much for your care and concern.. haha!

Daniël

Hi Daniel:





I find rude words more effective than crying (I have tried both...). Once
I have convinced the computer that it'll go out of the window if there's
one more crash -- and I am 14 floors up -- it seems to settle down nicely...





OK, when you installed Word 2008, it imported some settings from Word
2004, and I wish it hadn't, because that's what is causing this problem.





Please:





1) Quit all Microsoft applications.





2) Track down all instances of pre-2008 Normal template on your computer,
and drag them to your desktop. The file is called simply "Normal" and
has no extension.





3) Find and drag the file Normal.dotm to your desktop. Unless you have
moved it, it should be in /Users/ ~ /Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/User
Templates/





4) If the following files exist, Remove or rename them:





~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Word Settings (10)





~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Word Settings (11)





User/Library/Preferences/com.Microsoft.Word.plist





User/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008 (the whole folder!)





5) Now re-start Word 2008 and it should be OK.





Be thorough with this, if you leave any of these files behind Word 2008
will find them and won't replace them. Do it right and Word will construct
a new, clean, set of preferences and everything should now work.





Hope this helps

Hi > > I have followed all the advice I could find to prevent Word 2008

crashing > (quitting unexpectedly), including: > > - Verifying disk permissions

- Doing a 'maggie' (in the event that the doc is corrupt) > - Typing

nice and slowly > - Ensuring that all updates till 12.1.2 are applied

- Crying like a girl > > Please help: I need to get work done and have

spent hours and hours reading > forums, re-doing work and now, just moments
ago, re-installing 2004, which is > horribly clumsy, but at least stable.use > Word, but the rest of the world does, and so I must. Pages, is not
really > really compatible... (BTW Word is actually an excellent application
(and so is > Excel, of course).. not MS bashing, just want to do my work
and not waste > R1,500... about $200). > > Regards, > Daniël > Johannesburg,
South Africa





-- Don't wait for your answer, click here: <http://www.word.mvps.org/>





Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.





John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Daniel -

What's included in the "Nothing else crashes..." mentioned in your first
post? If it doesn't include any apps in the same "heavyweight class" as Word
I think I see what may be causing your problem Apparently you have only
1 Gig of RAM in that system & OS X, itself, is grabbing a minimum of 512 MB
of that. It may not seem like it on the surface, but transitioning from Pub
Layout mode & back again is a massive & intense operation under the hood.

I don't think your Mac can handle the load unless you boost it up with at
least another 512 MB - preferably another Gig.

BTW - I'm not sure why you're switching in/out of Publishing Layout View in
the first place. Pub files, Notes files & "standard" docs are each
structured differently & best left in their respective identities - it's
what I file under the heading of "Just because you *can* doesn't mean you
*should*."

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Guest]

Hi John

I use Illustrator, Photoshop and ProTools, so I'm not convinced that it's a memory issue.

I will however look into getting another Gig, and I'll stop flicking between Pub and Print modes (was just doing it to see if I could; which I shouldn't; even if it would; but it wouldn't).

Thanks for your help...

Daniël

What's included in the "Nothing else crashes..." mentioned in your first
post? If it doesn't include any apps in the same "heavyweight class" as
Word I think I see what may be causing your problem Apparently you
have only 1 Gig of RAM in that system & OS X, itself, is grabbing a minimum
of 512 MB of that. It may not seem like it on the surface, but transitioning
from Pub Layout mode & back again is a massive & intense operation under
the hood.





I don't think your Mac can handle the load unless you boost it up with
at least another 512 MB - preferably another Gig.

 

[John McGhie]

I would love to take the credit for Bob's good ideas, but this time I really
can't

I do agree that 1 GB is very light on for RAM, particularly if you have
things like Illustrator and PhotoShop on the system

It "shouldn't" crash when you switch between those two views, but it's a
fairly provocative thing to do to the poor little thing

Cheers

Hi John

I use Illustrator, Photoshop and ProTools, so I'm not convinced that it's a
memory issue.

I will however look into getting another Gig, and I'll stop flicking between
Pub and Print modes (was just doing it to see if I could; which I shouldn't;
even if it would; but it wouldn't).

Thanks for your help...

Daniël

What's included in the "Nothing else crashes..." mentioned in your first
post? If it doesn't include any apps in the same "heavyweight class" as
Word I think I see what may be causing your problem Apparently you
have only 1 Gig of RAM in that system & OS X, itself, is grabbing a
minimum
of 512 MB of that. It may not seem like it on the surface, but
transitioning
from Pub Layout mode & back again is a massive & intense operation under
the hood.





I don't think your Mac can handle the load unless you boost it up with
at least another 512 MB - preferably another Gig.

--

Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Nhulunbuy, NT, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[johnc]

Hi John & Others with the Word 2008 PDF crash problem:

Just test John's advice on deleting different prefs files. It actually
worked - as long as the document is saved in Word 2008 format (docx)
and not the Word 97-2004 format (.doc). Then the document crashes at
one, even if the PDF files is inserted in the docx format and then
saved.

Is this a way that they try to get us to to use the docx format?

Keep smiling

 

[John McGhie]

Hi John:

{Giggle} It's a particularly annoying BUG, and there is a fix on the way.

Keep your Microsoft, Apple, and Adobe updates current, because I am not sure
which company will issue the fix for this one.

Cheers

Hi John & Others with the Word 2008 PDF crash problem:

Just test John's advice on deleting different prefs files. It actually
worked - as long as the document is saved in Word 2008 format (docx)
and not the Word 97-2004 format (.doc). Then the document crashes at
one, even if the PDF files is inserted in the docx format and then
saved.

Is this a way that they try to get us to to use the docx format?

Keep smiling

--

Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Nhulunbuy, NT, Australia. mailto:[email protected]