intermittent Flare 9 lockups

[KJohnsonDBTK]

Has anyone experienced intermittent lockups with Flare 9? After just a couple of days with the new version, I've had at least a dozen lockups. Once it locks up, I have to end the Flare process through the Task Manager. I haven't reported it to tech support yet because I can't narrow down what is causing it, but I'm starting to suspect that it is the mouse scroll wheel. The lock ups always occur when I'm using the scroll wheel on the mouse. But the inverse is not true - it doesn't always lock up when I'm using the scroll wheel on the mouse. Does anyone know if Flare creates any sort of UI log that tracks user activity and/or any UI specific errors? I've looked in the Flare installation directory and can't find any relevant .log or .txt files. I've also checked the Users\<login>\AppData directories for MadCap and nothing there either.
Thanks
Kathleen

[rob hollinger]

Are you scrolling in the text editor or in the XML editor?
Scrolling in the Content Explorer window or maybe the FileList?
Are the topics open in Layout(Web) or (Print) - Long or short topics?
Are there a lot of topics currently open in the document pane?

What mouse are you using? I have a MS 5000 wireless mouse and had a lot of issues with it. I found that adding Flare to the Programs that don't scroll correctly took care of the issues I was seeing. I was not seeing Flare lock up, but it scrolling through the text editor seemed to have taken on a life of its own skipping from pixels to inches and back to pixels.

Finally, what version of DotNet do you have installed? Lately I've been seeing a trend with 4.5. If you do have 4.5, can you un-install it and see if that might be the cause of the issue you are seeing?

[KJohnsonDBTK]

I've only seen the lockups when scrolling in the XML editor. I haven't seen it scrolling in the text editor, although I've only used that minimally to check out the new functionality.

I haven't had any lockups in any other pane - Content Explorer or Index or anything like that.

The topics are open in the Web Layout.

I can't recall the length exactly because I can't remember each topic that I was working on when it happened. Here is what happened yesterday that prompted me to submit to the forum. It was a brand new topic, although I had copied it from an existing topic and just deleted the existing text. I inserted an H1 (with an Index marker) and about 25 paragraphs. I then inserted a snippet, tried to scroll past the snippet and the lockup occurred. The snippet has conditions in it and now that I think back, I think there might have always been conditions present in the topics that have locked up. But that wasn't a smoking gun to me because I was able to restart Flare, insert the snippet again (I'd lost the last bit since my last save) and carry on in that topic without further issues. By the end of the day, the topic had more than doubled in size with a bunch of other snippets inserted, with no further lockups. That's why I'm having a hard time pinpointing it. Very random.

As for the number of topics open, yesterday with the new topic, there was only that new topic and the TOC open.

The mouse is an HP mouse. Generic with no model number. I don't use any special drivers with it. Just plug and play. I do have a wireless mouse (Microsoft model) on another system. I could switch that over and see if that makes a difference.

My .NET version is 4.
Thanks
Kathleen

[KJohnsonDBTK]

I found a topic that I could duplicate the lockups on. It's a very long topic (2229 lines in the text editor). The topic is a list of info/warning/error messages and associated message info (IDs, message level, what to do if you get it, etc.). It also has conditional text in the topic because some of the associated message info is not applicable to some projects. If I scroll using the scroll bar or keyboard, I can move through the topic with no problems. As soon as I try the mouse scroll wheel it locks up. I've tried several times and it happens every time. I swapped out the mouse from the other machine and tried again and the lock ups no longer occur. So apparently version 9 doesn't like this particular mouse. Odd because I've been using this mouse for years and previous Flare versions haven't had this issue.

[happyhat]

This happens to me in both the XML and Text Editor regardless of the amount of content. The difference for me is that my keyboard gets locked out. I can still use the mouse (although highlight accuracy becomes sluggish) but none of my key input shows up. I've noticed that clicking the save button seems to reduce the lock out duration (ctrl + s doesn't work of course because it's the keyboard) but it's hardly an acceptable workaround and is likely coincidental.

[doc_guy]

Make sure you both log this as a bug: https://www.madcapsoftware.com/feedback/bugs.aspx

[rob hollinger]

Yes, be sure to log bugs for these issues. Please attach that long topic to the bug when you fill it out.

The keyboard stopping working we have seen and it appears to be an issue in .NET 4.5 that was recently released. If you don't have to have that version installed, please un-install it and re-install .NET 4.0. Or turn the ribbon off in the File > Options area.
What is happening is the Ribbon bar is somehow stealing focus from the keyboard. This generally happens after applying a style from the style drop down in the Ribbon.
When this happens, if you use the arrows of the keyboard, you can see the focus is stuck in the ribbon.
We are working on this issue.

[MarkMetcalfe]

Glad to find this in the forum. It has been happening to me. I am glad that I can run Flare 8 and Flare 9 on the same machine, or I'd have to go back. But I need some of the fixes and features in Flare 9. For now, I may do most of my editing in 8!

Was the bug reported? Do you want multiple "me, too" bug reports?

Mark

[rob hollinger]

If you are talking about the .Net 4.5 issue, there is no need to report it anymore.

This issue is not unique to us. At the heart of the problem is the fact that Microsoft decided to overwrite .NET 4.0 DLLs with .NET 4.5 DLLs and not support previous behavior in their Framework. This in-place replacement of the .NET Framework created backwards compatibility problems that are affecting many applications, not just Flare. And Microsoft is aware of this. We've logged with them an official support incident with the .NET 4.5 development team whose focus is to resolve these compatibility issues.

.NET 4.5 is the default Framework that comes with Windows 8. As this new operating system gains traction and as the .NET 4.5 Framework becomes more widely adopted on older Windows operating systems, these compatibility issues will become much more widespread. We're hoping that a hot fix will be produced soon to resolve the issue.

In the meantime, a workaround in Flare is to use the Tool Strip style interface instead of the Ribbons. You can toggle this behavior by going to File->Options->Interface and clicking Tool Strip in the Menu Style box. Once that is switched you should no longer have issues in the editor.

[Phlawm53]

For what it's worth I had / have essentially the same issue although I had not yet "upgraded" to .NET 4.5 when I reported it:

http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... 16&p=89954

Someone helpfully cross-referenced this thread in mine, above, so I'm returning the favor.

Cheers & hope this helps,
Riley
SFO

[MarkMetcalfe]

Just installed Flare 9.1. THANK YOU!

I was getting delays in Flare 9.0 whenever I checked out a file.
The first thing I did with Flare 9.1 was check out a couple of files and it did so very quickly.
What a relief!

I love Flare 9 and NEED its new features, so THANK YOU for ironing out some of these wrinkles!

Now, to beat on it for a while as I go back to authoring...

[joy]

I'm also experiencing a couple of lockups per day, to the point where I'm losing work (even though I'm a compulsive Ctrl-S-er). I've never had this happen before with Flare!

I updated to 9.1 yesterday and it's still happening, at random times: sometimes in the XML editor, and sometimes just doing something simple like applying a style or deleting a word.

I don't know anything about .NET but it seems to always be the culprit with Flare crashes. It looks like I have several on my Windows 7 machine, but not 4.5:

• .NET Compact Framework 2.0 SP2
  .NET Compact Framework 3.5
  .NET Framework 4 Client Profile
  .NET Framework 4 extended

[mafaulkner]

I wasn't able to use the Backspace or Delete keys or any of the keyboard shortcuts in the XML Editor, so I took the advice to switch from the Ribbon to a toolbar configuration. That didn't make any difference, so I switched back to the Ribbon. And now everything is working correctly!
It's a miracle!

[mafaulkner]

OK, everything WAS working correctly. For about a minute. And now it's reverted to my Backspace and Delete keys not working, as well as keyboard shortcuts. This is extremely tedious.

[rob hollinger]

Keyboard short cuts no longer working is due to a bug on .Net 4.5
We have a fix in the 9.1.1 update.

[servobot]

Users on my team have been experiencing false lockups, where it turns out a Flare dialog has opened behind the main Flare screen.

Doing an Alt+Tab brings the dialog to the forefront, where you can click OK (or do whatever it takes to dispatch the dialog).