Critical: PPT 2004 occasionally crashes on save and deletes thefile

[Panu Korpela]

Hi!

I found a previous thread "Hair-raising Powerpoint Crashes" about my
problem: Occasionally (about one time in ten saves) PPT 2004 SP 1 on OS X
10.3.8 crashes (vanishes) on save with no crash notification window. The
file being edited also vanishes. I could not find any help from the previous
thread.

I have also not been able to find any autorecover files (the feature is on).

As said, about 9 times out of ten the save feature works perfectly.

Has anyone found any cure for this? Or should I revert back to PPT version
X?

Br,
Panu

 

[CyberTaz]

Don't have anything to offer on this specific issue, but here are a a
couple of general thoughts if you haven't already done so:

1) If you had a "Test Drive" ver. of Office, did you Uninstall it
before installing '04?

2) Have you used Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions since
installing Office?

3) Try Trashing PPt's Preferences file & see if that helps.

Good Luck |:>)

 

[haraujo]

please did u solved your problem. I had the same thing using the tiger
and I have a presentation tomorow, and lost 4days of work, please hel
me

thanks Helde

 

[Andrew Chiang [MSFT]]

Hello,

I don't have any solutions for you but I'd like to gather some more
information about your environment so that we can investigate. Some of the
suggestions might help.

I'd like to know:
- the exact version number of PowerPoint
- the exact version of Tiger you're running on
- Is Allow Fast Saves in Preferences->Save checked or unchecked?
- a rough idea of what's in the presentation when you hit the issue
- Can you repro the problem w/an empty or one slide presentation?
- How are you saving? File->Save? Save button in the toolbar? Command-S?
Some other method?
- Are you saving to your local hard drive, external Firewire or USB drive,
some removable media, or a network volume?
- Are you hitting any error messages/warnings before the problem? If so,
how are you answering them and what course of action are you taking
afterwards?
- Are you using File Vault?
- Are you running any anti-virus software such as Norton AntiVirus? If
yes, what version is it and is auto-protect enabled? If yes, can you repro
the problem if auto-protect is turned off?
- If you're running on Tiger (OS 10.4.x), do the problems go away if you
prevent Spotlight from indexing the folder where you're saving to? To do
this, go to System Preferences->Spotlight->Privacy.

Thanks,
Andrew

 

[peter.gelton]

Hello Andrew,

I have encountered the same problem as decribed two times the last
days. I am running PowerPoint 2004 11.1.1. (050204) on OS X 10.4.2.
Fast save is on, the presentation include only text and one matrix,
file vault is off, password on, no external media, no warnings prior,
no anti-virus and when hitting Command-S PPT goes down without any
warning and the file is lost and can't be found. When re-starting PPT
no auto-recovery is performed (although function on, once with 10 min
and once with 3 min settings). I haven't managed to repro the problem.
One of the "crashes" occured when PPT was performing the auto save.

I have been saving to the desktop. Spotlight indexing on - now turned
it off to try if that helps.

I hope you can find a solution.

Thanks,
Peter

 

[Andrew Chiang [MSFT]]

Hello Peter,

Thank you for the information. This gives me something to go on. When you
mention "matrix", are you talking about a table or an Excel worksheet?

Also, when you mention that it "goes down without any warning", does
Microsoft Error Reporting come up (and get stuck) or do you get an error
"The application PowerPoint quit unexpectedly..." w/the choices Close,
Report..., Reopen or something else?

If you encounter the issue again, we might be able to investigate if you
either post the contents of the error report or email it to me (remove the
online part of my email address). Since you're running on Tiger, you will
likely need to use the workaround mentioned in
http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.mac.office.powerpoint/msg/69a92249f2e9c45a.
For others encountering this, error reports would be helpful.

Thanks,
Andrew

 

[peter.gelton]

Hello Andrew,

I appreciate your quick feed-back.

Yesterday a new PPT-crash occured - highly interesting while I left the
computer for roughly 5 minutes. PPT was open (PPT was the active
program on-screen as well) with an other presentation open, and when
coming back PPT was down and the file was gone. No one had touched the
computer. No error messages what so ever, no try to re-create the file
when re-starting PPT. Auto-Save in PPT was on with a 3 min intervall.
The file was located on the desktop.

The matrix in the first presentation was a PPT table, 2x15.

I receive no warning what so ever. PPT just quits and nothing more.
Furthermore, when re-starting PPT, no message or attempts to re-create
the file are made. The scary thing is that the file is totally lost. I
currently work around by every 5th minute save under new version
number.

I will try to gather more info and when the next crash occur mail you
the last saved version of the presentation and hopefully include the
error report.

Thanks,
Peter

 

[Andrew Chiang [MSFT]]

Hello Peter,

One other thing that you might want to try (if you haven't already) is to
have Disk Utility verify or repair the volumes where you're saving. You'll
need to boot from the Tiger CD/DVD to run it on your startup volume or
another Tiger partition (or OS 10.3.9
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301269). Do NOT use anything
earlier than 10.3.9 or 3rd party utilities not updated for Tiger.

The topic "Testing and repairing a disk or volume" in Disk Utility's help
goes into some detail on this.

I'd be curious to know if it reports any problems.

Andrew

 

[Tuomo Oksakivi]

I don't have any solutions for you but I'd like to gather some more
information about your environment so that we can investigate. Some of the
suggestions might help.

We have encountered this very same and very annoying problem.

PowerPoint documents occationally just vaniches when (auto)saving them.
Sometimes command-S causes document to be deleted. PowerPoint is happy
and running after it has destroyed the document.

I'd like to know:
- the exact version number of PowerPoint

11.0, 11.1 and 11.2

- the exact version of Tiger you're running on

Occures also on Panther 10.3.9 so this is not tied to Tiger.

- Is Allow Fast Saves in Preferences->Save checked or unchecked?
Unchecked

- a rough idea of what's in the presentation when you hit the issue

Text and jpg pictures.

- Can you repro the problem w/an empty or one slide presentation?

It occures randomly. No logic so far.

- How are you saving? File->Save? Save button in the toolbar? Command-S?

Command-S or autosave

- Are you saving to your local hard drive, external Firewire or USB drive,
some removable media, or a network volume?

Local drive

- Are you hitting any error messages/warnings before the problem?
No

- Are you using File Vault?
No

- Are you running any anti-virus software such as Norton AntiVirus?

No

 

[Andrew Chiang [MSFT]]

Hello Tuomo,

Thank you very much for your information.

When you mention JPEGs, how are you inserting them? Are you using
drag/drop, one of the slide layouts w/a picture placeholder [and then double
clicking], Insert Picture->From File menu (either via menu item or the
formatting palette), using the clip gallery, picture toolbar's From File
option, copy and paste or some other method? If you're using a method where
you get a dialog w/the 3 checkboxes (link to file, save with document and
treat picture layers as separate objects), which checkboxes are checked?

Are the JPEGs ones that ship w/Mac OS, Office or from somewhere else like
directly from a digital camera (make and model of camera would be good info)
or saved from an image editing app? Have you applied any changes to them in
PowerPoint after insert such as changing brightness, color, cropping,
resizing, etc.?

Before the crashes occur, are any placeholders or graphics showing up as red
Xs anywhere in the presentation?

More info would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Andrew

 

[Tuomo Oksakivi]

When you mention JPEGs, how are you inserting them?

Drag/drop or copy/paste.

Are the JPEGs ones that ship w/Mac OS, Office or from somewhere else

Somewhere else. From different sources. They should be OK as any other
program does not complain about them.

Before the crashes occur, are any placeholders or graphics showing up as red
Xs anywhere in the presentation?

No.

 

[Andrew Chiang [MSFT]]

Hello Tuomo,

If you could be more specific about where the JPEGs came from or are saved
by that would be great. If you happen to have some JPEGs that you believe
makes the problem occur more frequently, can you please post them or email
them to me?

It's possible that what created/wrote them makes these files unique in some
way. For instance, cameras and applications can add/edit stuff like EXIF
headers. The document covering the JPEG standard is 186 pages long. See
http://www.w3.org/Graphics/JPEG/itu-t81.pdf and
http://www.jpeg.org/jpeg/index.html if you're curious.

Thanks,
Andrew

 

[Andrew Chiang [MSFT]]

One more thing, for anyone experiencing the problems described in this
thread. It wouldn't hurt to run the Apple Hardware Test that came w/your
Mac. Run an extended test in looping mode overnight (if supported on your
version of AHT, see http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300415)
or a couple times if looping isn't supported. If you're not sure how to run
AHT, see http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/aht.html for pointers. The should be
instructions on the CD as well.

Also, it wouldn't hurt to use Disk Utility to verify and repair all your
volumes, esp. the one where PowerPoint files are being saved. See
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214 for instructions. If
you're running Tiger, *DO NOT* use Disk Utility unless you're booted into OS
10.3.9 or later. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301266 and
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301269 have some warnings
about this.

I'd be curious to know if anyone experiencing the crashes has a hardware or
disk issue.

 

[Tuomo Oksakivi]

I'd be curious to know if anyone experiencing the crashes has a hardware or
disk issue.

We did run AHT (not overnight) and Disk Utility. Neither of them did not
find anything. Neither did Norton (execpt custom flags and dates).

Anyway usually if Mac has failing memory it freezes or crashes at
random. Here only PowerPoint documents are vanishing.

 

[RKOK]

HELP!


This has just happened to me.

Four days work gone. I know I should have backed up the file, but as
was saving it very regularly I did not expect to lose everything!

PLease please please can some one tell me how to locate the lost file
it must be somewhere on the hard disk ??? I don´t have time to star
from scratch.

Rober

 

[RKOK]

I recovered the file - we used DATA RESCUE X from Prosoft engineerin
Inc

 

[Hannes]

This is a really big problem. I work as an IT designer and we've had a
number of these incidents within a short period of time. I've tried but
can't replicate the issue. It seems totally random. And there's no way
to explain this kind of software behaviour to a normal user.

We are using Mac OS X 10.3.9 and 10.4.2 and the latest version of MS
Office. System language is finnish.

 

[Kimi]

Anything new in this topic? Any real solutions? I've seen all these
problems described here.

Last time was worst, my customer was just opening a PP presentation
he'd recieved by e-mail and saved to desktop, opening from there. The
sucker opened and without any warning, disappeared! He was not even
editing the file, just viewing it! Luckily the original was still in
his mail...

One time there was an error window waiting for (ok), but I managed to
make a copy of the file in finder before hitting ok. PP crashed and the
file was vanished, only the copy I made, was left.

OS is Tiger 10.4.3 and Office version is 11.2.4. But this problem was
occuring before the latest updates.

For a part time solution, I installed older Office X and told my
customer to use this older PP. I also changed PP-X as a default program
to open all PowerPoint files.

So any help or better yet, a real solution, preferably from MicroSoft,
would be appreciated

 

[Andrew Chiang [MSFT]]

Hello,

If you wouldn't mind emailing me the file, it might help in our
investigation. Please remove the
"online." portion from the email address that you see. Also helpful would
be some details as to the history of the file (what version of PowerPoint it
was created on and what versions [PC and Mac] have touched it).

For anyone else encountering this issue, if you still have the file, the
above would be helpful.

One more thing, can you clarify the version of Office you're using? There's
no 11.2.4 release.

Thanks,
Andrew

 

[mvsvilsbaek]

Hello,

If you wouldn't mind emailing me the file, it might help in our
investigation. Please remove the
"online." portion from the email address that you see. Also helpful would
be some details as to the history of the file (what version of PowerPoint it
was created on and what versions [PC and Mac] have touched it).

For anyone else encountering this issue, if you still have the file, the
above would be helpful.

One more thing, can you clarify the version of Office you're using? There's
no 11.2.4 release.

Thanks,
Andrew
--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Anything new in this topic? Any real solutions? I've seen all these
problems described here.

Last time was worst, my customer was just opening a PP presentation
he'd recieved by e-mail and saved to desktop, opening from there. The
sucker opened and without any warning, disappeared! He was not even
editing the file, just viewing it! Luckily the original was still in
his mail...

One time there was an error window waiting for (ok), but I managed to
make a copy of the file in finder before hitting ok. PP crashed and the
file was vanished, only the copy I made, was left.

OS is Tiger 10.4.3 and Office version is 11.2.4. But this problem was
occuring before the latest updates.

For a part time solution, I installed older Office X and told my
customer to use this older PP. I also changed PP-X as a default program
to open all PowerPoint files.

So any help or better yet, a real solution, preferably from MicroSoft,
would be appreciated