Word hangs on "save as" using search box

[rtr...@officeformac.com]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard)
Processor: Intel

Forgive me if this has already been posted but I could not find a topic that covered this issue.

Ever since I installed 10.6.0 (and with 10.6.1) I have had absolutely reliable "hangs" when do a "save" (on a new document) or "save as" on an already saved document when I use the search box in the save dialog window to search for a particular folder to save the file into.

This does not seem to occur in Excel or Powerpoint nor on Word 2004. I am running the latest version of office 2009 (12.2.1). It occurs on a pristine MacBook Air and in a new user created to test if that was an issue. Disk permissions repaired, Cocktail run, Diskwarrior run with no effect.

To test if you get the same issue, create a new folder on your desktop called "Test". Open word, type a few letters, click in the search box in the top right, type "test", double click the "test" folder in the main window to open it, click on "save".

The dialog window closes, word says it is saving (along the bottom) and it looks like all is ok but a few seconds later the spinning pizza wheel of death appears and you have to force quit word.

Using a new "normal" template, saving as ".doc" or ".docx" makes no difference.

Interestingly saving word attachments in mail to a particular folder using the same method reliably hangs mail as well. Opening an attachment in word and then doing a "save as" and the same search method also hangs word.

I wonder if people could try and see if they can reproduce this behaviour?

[John McGhie]

Ahhh.... Yes... It *IS* totally reliable, isn't it... Thanks a bunch, I just
had to force-quit Word :-)

No, we haven't had a bug report on that yet, that I remember. But we do now
:-)

Cheers

On 17/10/09 3:27 PM, in article 59b7e...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw,
"rtr...@officeformac.com" <rtr...@officeformac.com> wrote:

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters 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
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:jo...@mcghie.name

[CyberTaz]

Hi John;

FWIW: I just tried to repro using 2008 (12.2.1) in Tiger (10.4.11) & the
problem does not occur.

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

On 10/17/09 5:08 AM, in article C6FFD4CF.3179%jo...@mcghie.name, "John

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi

I was able to reproduce the problem using Word with the 12.1.1 update
installed in Snow Leopard.

-Jim

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP
Co-author of Office 2008 for Mac All-in-One For Dummies
http://tinyurl.com/Office-2008-for-Dummies

[John McGhie]

Bob:

Cool!

This is a Snow-Leopard-only spot, then? Would you update my bug please :-)

Cheers

On 18/10/09 12:37 AM, in article
C6FF40C6.5555E%onlygen...@com.cast.net, "Bob Jones"

[rtr...@officeformac.com]

You have all been kind enough to confirm the bug for me and hopefully a fix can be found.

I wonder if you could also confirm a similar (?related) bug in mail when saving attachments.

Email yourself a word document, and when you receive it, select "save all" from next to the attachment. The usual save dialog box appears, search for the "test" folder as before and save it into that folder.

As with "word", it seems to save and then mail "hangs".

This does not seem to occur with all attachments (word always, pdf's v. common, jpg ?not at all).

[John McGhie]

Not me, I don't even have Mail configured on this computer � maybe someone
else?

On 18/10/09 2:20 PM, in article 59b7e...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw,
"rtr...@officeformac.com" <rtr...@officeformac.com> wrote:

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum

[Jeff_C...@officeformac.com]

I've also reproduced (and have been highly annoyed by) the problem in Snow Leopard with Word 2008. Typing text in the search box and then saving the file results in the spinning beach ball of death.

I received the following support information (fix?) from Microsoft today:

================

This is like the Print Preferences causing this issue. Follow the steps below:

-Quit all Microsoft Office Programs.

-Open Macintosh Hard Drive.

-Open Users.

-Open Home (House).

-Open Library.

-Open Preferences (view "as List").

-Move to Trash all "com.apple.print.*".

-Close to Desktop.

================

This seemed to work with Entourage, but I had similar problems with Word. I initially did an upgrade install of Snow Leopard, and I noticed all kinds of crashing problems like this associated with saving files in Word and Entourage. I'm in the middle of a full reinstall of Snow Leopard, Office 2008 and everything.

Curiosity killed the cat when it came to upgrading to Snow Leopard for me. Hopefully a clean install with work out with less glitches.

Jeff

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi,

Deleting the com,apple.print.... preference files did not fix the
problem on my computer. I deleted the several preference files,
restarted, and then printed a PDF from TextEdit before trying again in Word.

[John McGhie]

Hi Jeff:

Please tell us if it does fix it: mine was a clean install of Snow Leopard,
and I have the bug :-(

Cheers

On 19/10/09 3:15 AM, in article 59b7e...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw,
"Jeff_C...@officeformac.com" <Jeff_C...@officeformac.com> wrote:

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum

[Jeff_C...@officeformac.com]

>Deleting the com,apple.print....
>preference files did not fix the
>problem on my computer.

Yikes.

I'm still in the middle of the full reinstall of Snow Leopard and Office 2008. Initially, I did an upgrade install, so this time I decided to erase the partition completely and do a clean reinstall. I'll keep you posted on whether this cleans up the problem for me.

Jeff

[CyberTaz]

I've now confirmed the problem in 10.6.1 here on another Mac, but it doesn't
happen in Mail on that same system. I'm also curious about the print prefs
fix since the system I'm having the problem on was born with 10.5, has only
the same drivers as those on my 10.4.11 system & has never been physically
connected to a printer.

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

On 10/18/09 8:53 PM, in article C70203B4.3213%jo...@mcghie.name, "John

[Jeff_C...@officeformac.com]

I've now done a clean install of Snow Leopard, updated it to 10.6.1, installed Office 2008 with all the trimmings, updated it to the latest version 12.2.0, and followed the crash test program in rtraill's first post. I'm now working with a brand-spanking new .docm template file.

The first file save works. No crashes. The file saves fine. Also, I can save to PDF from the Print menu in Word. The Adobe PDF printer is not yet installed, apparently - it doesn't show up in the menu.

I've got nothing else installed yet except Office 2008, Adobe CS3 and a Canon printer driver. I installed Rosetta just in case as an option when I installed Snow Leopard.

HOWEVER... when I reopen the file that I saved, and do the steps mentioned above, I do indeed get the spinning beach ball of death.

Time to complain to the Microsoft BU. Feedback form, here we come.

Jeff

[Jeff_C...@officeformac.com]

Not only have I filled out a request on the faceless "feedback form", I have gone so far as to file a support incident with Microsoft. (Only one more incident left. I also asked them why I had to use up a support incident just to cover for Microsoft's problem - and this is almost certainly Microsoft's problem, because I am testing this problem on a clean install of both Snow Leopard and Office 2008!)

Ah, the joys of upgrading to Snow Leopard. And Microsoft told us it was safe.

<http://www.officeformac.com/blog/Ready-for-Snow-Leopard>

Gosh, that snow leopard on the package looks cool. Silly me for being a cat lover.

Jeff

[CyberTaz]

Not in defense of MS because I honestly don't know who is "at fault", but
keep in mind that Spotlight is an Apple OS X feature. Apparently there were
no conflicts with 2008 in Tiger or Leopard. That suggests to me that a
change may have taken place in SL's implementation of Spotlight. It wouldn't
be the first time Apple has switched horses too late in the race for some
developers to adjust ;-)

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

On 10/19/09 9:12 AM, in article 59b7e...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw,

[Jim Gordon MVP]

At least you can be sure that this problem will get attention and will
most likely be cured in a future update. Crashes and hangs get the most
attention.

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Before I forget, be sure to report the problem to Apple, as well. It
could be a Spotlight problem and not an Office problem. If you dig
around Apple's developer web site you'll find a complete bug reporting
system that's free to use. http://developer.apple.com/

[Jeff_C...@officeformac.com]

>Not in defense of MS because I honestly
>don't know who is "at fault", but
>keep in mind that Spotlight is an Apple
>OS X feature. Apparently there were
>no conflicts with 2008 in Tiger or Leopard.

Actually, Bob, I am not so concerned with who is at fault. I can also understand that this may well be caused by a change in Spotlight functionality or implementation.

What does concern me is that the Mac BU allowed one of their representatives to make the bold statement that Office 2008 is ready for Snow Leopard (http://www.officeformac.com/blog/Ready-for-Snow-Leopard), It may well be _close_
to ready, but you've got to admit, this is a pretty easy thing to spot.

Of course, I never expected that Office 2008 would be fault-free under Snow Leopard, but I think that Microsoft does need to do some more product testing before they boldly state that "Office 2008 for Mac is Snow Leopard tested and ready!"

The blame game or lack thereof aside, at least we have a common knowledge of the issue, it's been reported, and hopefully we can expect some kind of fix, if not from Microsoft then at least some adjustments on the part of Apple, as Jim mentioned above.

Jeff

[Jeff_C...@officeformac.com]

>If you dig around Apple's developer
>web site you'll find a complete bug

>reporting system that's free to use. >http://developer.apple.com/ <http://developer.apple.com/>

I checked that site, but apparently this
is a paid membership basis. You can opt for
an "online membership", which seems to be
free, but the support tickets may
require payment, as stated on this page:

<http://developer.apple.com/products/membership.html>

Another page also states that "The Apple Bug Reporter can be used by all ADC members and Registered iPhone Developers to submit their reports." So you have to be a member and possibly even a paid member (?) to file a bug report there.

<https://bugreport.apple.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/RadarWeb.woa>

As it says, "ADC Membership is required to use this tool". Hmm... doesn't Apple make it easier than this to submit bug reports that we know they are following up on and taking seriously? Or am I barking up the wrong tree here?

Jeff

[rtr...@officeformac.com]

I think this might be the place to lodge "bugs"

<http://www.apple.com/feedback/>

when you select "Mac OS X" for example, one of the feedback types is a "bug report".

[John McGhie]

Yeah, well I guess all bugs are easy to spot if you know where to look.

While I can sympathise with anyone who wants software to be more extensively
tested before release, we need to accept that that would raise the price of
the software by a very large amount (close to double it...) It would also
delay the on-sale date by several months. It would be reasonable to guess
that Office 2010 code is very close to complete by now. They would expect
to spend the next 12 months in testing and debugging.

I am sure this bug was not spotted because this is actually a little-used
feature. We did not know about it in here until a user reported it, and
we're heavy users of Word.

The window you see this search box in is actually a Finder window: it's not
part of Word at all, so I guess MS decided they could leave it to Apple to
test this one :-)

But your point is you wish software were more thoroughly tested. Yeah, we
all do, but we don't want to pay more for that. Especially: *I* don't :-)

Cheers

On 20/10/09 3:00 PM, in article 59b7e...@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw,
"Jeff_C...@officeformac.com" <Jeff_C...@officeformac.com> wrote:

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi Jeff,

Try here:
http://developer.apple.com/BugReporter/

You don't have to have a paid membership - a free one will do just as well.

[Strike]

I am also able to 100% reproduce the "save as" problem, both with Word 2008
and it also occurs with Mail when I try to "save as" attachments.

It may or may not be Microsoft's fault, but it would be great if MS BU could
find the root problem for us.

"rtr...@officeformac.com" wrote:

> .
>

[Jeff Chapman]

Hello,

On 2009.11.11 7:40, in article 59b7e...@webcrossing.JaKIaxP2ac0,
"rtr...@officeformac.com" <rtr...@officeformac.com> wrote:

> The problem seems to have been cured with the 10.6.2 update.
>
> The related hang on saving word (and some others) attachments using the same
> search mechanism in mail also seems to have been cured.

This is great to hear - will try it out tonight.

Jeff