Image Files Crashing Flare

[GarrettDRussell]

What I have been doing is putting wire diagram images into Flare that when printed need to be 11x17 (these images were originally PDFs that I converted to JPEGs). I have created a page layout that allows for this but when I bring the images into my Flare topics and set the image size to 11 inches by 17 inches, it crashes Flare. I can reopen the project and work on it for a bit but it eventually crashes when, I assume it cannot handle the workload anymore. This only happens in the Flare projects that I use these size images.

For reference, the file size on these images varies from 35KB-475KB and there are about 15 separate images in various topics.

Is there any reason for this or any possible solution to stop the crashing? Should I not be putting images of this size into projects or am I possibly doing something wrong? My output is going to print based and not web based.

Thank you,
Garrett

[Msquared]

So far as I'm aware, this should be possible, although I'd make sure that the topics where these images are placed are using a page layout where the images can fit.

I'd try to reproduce and isolate the problem - then you can see if it's something you have done wrong and fix it, or if it's an aspect of your content that is causing the problem, once you know what that is, perhaps you can work round it and get the same results in a different way.

What happens if you do a Preview As for one of these topics, and select the target you want to include this topic in? Does it generate the output you expect, and if so, is the content as expected, or does that crash too? If this crashes, I'd continue investigating this scenario until you find the thing that triggers the crash.

When Flare crashes, how does it crash? A hang, a message, and if so, what message? And is there something consistent that you are doing at the point where it crashes or are crashes intermittent? The latter are harder to diagnose, of course. Do you have one or more of these large topics (in filesize and in page size) open in the editor when the crash happens?

[GarrettDRussell]

So when reproducing this scenario in a new project with only 1 of these 11x7 images it was causing the same crashing issues. Here is a little more information on the issue:

-I am using the correct page layout on the topics I want to use these images on.
-Every time it has froze on me it was when I was switching between the XML Editor view and the Text Editor view. Often times doing a little work on said image in either view, like changing the tag it is in or making sure the information around it is correct, then switching.
-The error that I get is the "MadCap Flare has stopped working" error with a loading bar. I'm not sure if this is a hang or not but that's the error I get before Flare closes itself.
-At the time of these crashes, I only have one topic open and it is the one with the image. I made sure all other topics were closed.
-I have been using PNGs for these files instead of JPEGs so I'm not sure if this may affect things.
-I am able to do a Preview As without Flare crashing and it does give me the output that I expect.

This is all the extra information I have at the time. I hope this is helpful, I'm not really sure if it will be. Any chance that it's the system/computer I am working on? Potentially unable to handle the workload even though it's really not that heavy of a workload?

Thanks again for any future help.

-Garrett

[Msquared]

From what you say, my gut feeling is that this is likely to be a bug (and a reproducible one at that!). I'd suggest you report it to MadCap, here: https://www.madcapsoftware.com/feedback/bugs.aspx. You don't need to have a support package to report a bug, but if you do have one, I would raise a support call instead, as even if it is a bug, they may be able to give you a workaround.

In the meantime, if the problem only appears when you switch the view from XML to text editor, after you have done some edits, you can see if you can work round it. Here are some things you could try.

Does the problem go away if, before switching the view, you save any changes you have made to the topic?

if not, does the problem go away if, before switching the view, you close the topic, then reopen it ?

Failing that, what happens if you put your big image in a snippet file, then embed the snippet in the topic, rather than embedding the image itself?

All the above will give Flare less work to do before switching the view, and one of them may just avoid the source of the bug. I know it's a pain, but if that enables you to carry on working, without the worry of losing your recent work when you trigger a crash, that's a bit of an improvement.

[GarrettDRussell]

I want to thank all of you for the suggestions provided. Unfortunately nothing has worked so far. We have decided to move forward with the project by making these images PDFs and attaching them to the end of the final PDF output document in Adobe Reader.

-Garrett