copy and paste text crashes word

[Hadron]

I know I posted the original message and then haven't responded - been
busy. I also have Promethian Activeboard software on my Mac, but
removing it isn't an option as I need it to teach. Here is a crash log
that I get from force-quitting after copying text from a pdf file
(note I didn't not even have to attempt to paste the text in word,
after copying any keystrokes in word crash it):
http://www.binarydiversion.com/temp/word_crash.rtf

 

[John McGhie]

I am not good enough at reading crash dumps to say definitively what is
causing this.

Your dump looks very similar to the other two, and you all have ACTIVBoards
installed.

I have asked the MS guys to dig the crash reports out of the database and
see if they can advise what the cause is (yes, your "Send to Apple" or "Send
to Microsoft" reports really do go "somewhere", and they really can dig them
out of the database and analyse them...)

Given that the guys are flat out trying to get Office 2011 on the shop
shelves right now, it may be a few weeks before we get an answer.

Cheers

I know I posted the original message and then haven't responded - been
busy. I also have Promethian Activeboard software on my Mac, but
removing it isn't an option as I need it to teach. Here is a crash log
that I get from force-quitting after copying text from a pdf file
(note I didn't not even have to attempt to paste the text in word,
after copying any keystrokes in word crash it):
http://www.binarydiversion.com/temp/word_crash.rtf

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[John Heffernan]

What's next, John?

 

[John McGhie]

I got a query back from the engineers asking if this was affecting "All
Microsoft Office applications, or only Word."

I answered that to the best of our knowledge, this specific issue affects
only Word.

They haven't said any more yet. Reading between the tea-leaves, I suggest
this means they have gone out to buy an ACTIVBoard card

Cheers

What's next, John?

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[John Heffernan]

I missed the "More..." at the bottom of the screen for a couple of days and
did not realize there were new replies here...


Will respond soon.

 

[John Heffernan]

John,

I removed the Prometheus Activboard software and still had the problem so I
don't think that's it.

John

 

[John Heffernan]

Hi John,

I just reproduced the problem again. The text I used this time (not that it
seems to matter) is from http://www.burgyschools.org/ and show below.

We wish to guide our children toward a lifelong love of learning for its own
sake; toward an appreciation of the limitless power of knowledge; toward a
vision of the future founded on lessons of the past; toward reverence for
health of mind and body; toward dedication to principles of truth, friendship
and justice in human affairs; and toward a desire to enjoy, to enhance and to
preserve the beauty of the world in which their children will one day live.

I just send in the crash dump via Apple. Do you want me to post it as a PDF
or will you be able to find it. By the way, I have sent quite a collection
of them to MS so I am glad that they make it to someone. ;-)

John

 

[John Heffernan]

More info...

EXCEL seems to have the same issue.

Cutting and pasting from Firefox, using the same text, does work. Cutting
and pasting to OpenOffice does work. Cutting and pasting from other Apple
applications exhibits the same issue. So it seems to be an Apple/Microsoft
issue ;-)

John

 

[John McGhie]

Hi John:

If you send them in, they'll get them The crash dumps are injected into
a database keyed on memory offset, so any developer working on the bug will
see them ALL. The more you send, the more accurately it will point at the
source of the problem.

I just needed the first one so I could tell 'em where to look in the
database.

Users who elect to "Don't send" are actually preventing Microsoft from
working on the bug, and should not be surprised if it doesn't get fixed

Cheers

Hi John,

I just reproduced the problem again. The text I used this time (not that it
seems to matter) is from http://www.burgyschools.org/ and show below.

We wish to guide our children toward a lifelong love of learning for its own
sake; toward an appreciation of the limitless power of knowledge; toward a
vision of the future founded on lessons of the past; toward reverence for
health of mind and body; toward dedication to principles of truth, friendship
and justice in human affairs; and toward a desire to enjoy, to enhance and to
preserve the beauty of the world in which their children will one day live.

I just send in the crash dump via Apple. Do you want me to post it as a PDF
or will you be able to find it. By the way, I have sent quite a collection
of them to MS so I am glad that they make it to someone. ;-)

John

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[John McGhie]

Hi John:

Please re-write this information to make it very specific, so I can send it
to the developers.

By "does work.." do you mean it doesn't crash, or it does?

By "other Apple applications" -- Which ones, please?

Cheers

More info...

EXCEL seems to have the same issue.

Cutting and pasting from Firefox, using the same text, does work. Cutting
and pasting to OpenOffice does work. Cutting and pasting from other Apple
applications exhibits the same issue. So it seems to be an Apple/Microsoft
issue ;-)

John

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[John Heffernan]

More info...

EXCEL seems to have the same issue. That is, EXCEL hangs with the spinning
rainbow ball as soon as you put focus on the Edit Menu (or hit Apple V).

Cutting and pasting from Firefox, using the same text, does work. The text
is pasted successfully from FireFox (same website) into a new, blank Word
Document.

Cutting and pasting to OpenOffice does work. The text is pasted
successfully.

Cutting and pasting from other Apple applications exhibits the same issue. I
have seen the same problem with Pages and Macintosh Mail specifically.

So it seems to be an Apple/Microsoft issue ;-)

John

 

[John McGhie]

Thanks John:

I've sent that in to the developers.

Cheers

More info...

EXCEL seems to have the same issue. That is, EXCEL hangs with the spinning
rainbow ball as soon as you put focus on the Edit Menu (or hit Apple V).

Cutting and pasting from Firefox, using the same text, does work. The text
is pasted successfully from FireFox (same website) into a new, blank Word
Document.

Cutting and pasting to OpenOffice does work. The text is pasted
successfully.

Cutting and pasting from other Apple applications exhibits the same issue. I
have seen the same problem with Pages and Macintosh Mail specifically.

So it seems to be an Apple/Microsoft issue ;-)

John

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[John McGhie]

The Microsoft Developers have come back to us.

Their analysis of the dump John sent indicate "none of the call stacks
involve Word". In other words: the system is not reading the memory
locations where Word is loaded in the lead-up to the hang.

This is, in fact, a step forward: of the three possible companies involved,
we now have one we can say for sure it isn't. Given that Apple is the
other, and we must normally accept the operating system as a "given" when
making software to run on it, that leaves the compass pointing in only one
direction.

The Microsoft team suggest that, if you haven't done so already, you should
contact Promethean about this error. They suggest that Promethean is bound
to have a copy of Microsoft Office on one of their computers with which they
can test all their cards and drivers, whereas Microsoft does not have
samples of all the Promethean cards

In other words: "Sorry, we can't fix that one, because it's not happening
in our code."

Hope this helps

Thanks John:

I've sent that in to the developers.

Cheers




--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[John Heffernan]

I have repeated said that removing all the Promethean Board software does not
alter the problem.

Guess I will stick to have to stick to Open Office, which does not exhibit
the same issue.

 

[John Heffernan]

And switch over our school district, too!

 

[John McGhie]

Yeah, looks like it.

Whatever it is, it's not Word.

There is "something" on your system doing it. I am not very good at reading
dumps, but looking at that one, it appears that the system calls the
handwriting software and never comes back...

Cheers

And switch over our school district, too!

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[John Heffernan]

I am disappointed in the response from Microsoft on this. Many people have
reported this and the Microsoft products are the ones that are hanging while
products that compete directly with Offce do not (OpenOffice). So I think
that good software engineers and good software engineering companies would
want to get to the bottom of this problem, which directly or indirectly
involves their product.

 

[John Heffernan]

Even though Microsoft is not pursuing this issue, I am still going to try and
solve it. One interesting thing is that Word is using 100% of the CPU when
in this hung condition.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi John:

I believe they have got to the bottom of it. They know what the cause is,
and it's not in their code. I believe that this is not a "choice" Microsoft
is making, there's nothing it *can* do about it: the hang is not happening
in their code.

And yes, Word will "show" 100% CPU when this is happening, but that's a bit
misleading: it's hanging in a wait-loop waiting for the system to come back
to it. That will "show" 100% CPU, but the CPU is not actually 'doing'
anything, other than testing for the interrupt that would tell it that
whatever it asked for is now ready.

If it were actually DOING anything, you wouldn't be able to move the mouse
because there would be no CPU left to do that.

Cheers

I am disappointed in the response from Microsoft on this. Many people have
reported this and the Microsoft products are the ones that are hanging while
products that compete directly with Offce do not (OpenOffice). So I think
that good software engineers and good software engineering companies would
want to get to the bottom of this problem, which directly or indirectly
involves their product.

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[John Heffernan]

Hi John,

Can you elaborate on what the developers found out and whose code it is?

I got this response on the Apple boards (not from Apple) for what it is
worth...

Thanks for your all your help, by the way.

John



If their software is freezing up, it's certainly nobody else's fault. If
those Apple apps are for
some reason creating bad clipboard data, Microsoft's apps should be able to
gracefully recover and report the problem. Error handling is probably one of
the most important, and most difficult, aspects of programming, but you can't
blame poor error handling on anyone but the developer. I suspect that, rather
than bad clipboard data, it's more likely to be a case of Microsoft's apps
simply not understanding something about perfectly valid clipboard data,
because they haven't properly followed Apple developer guidelines.