Microsoft Error, crash with XMetaL 6.0

[pmasal]

I am using XMetaL 6.0 EE for Documentum Webtop, Internet Explorer 6 (I know, just a *bit* down-level, but required by our corporate IT organization). I can typically perform a few operations with XMetaL 6 before it crashes with the following error:

"XMetal 6.0 has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience. If you were in the middle of something, the information you were working on might be lost."

Please tell Microsoft about this problem with XMetaL 6.0..."

Does anyone at JustSystems know what might be the issue? Is IE6 being used under the covers, and might not be supported?

Many thanks.
Paul Masalsky
EMC

[gcrews]

You might check http://forums.xmetal.com/index.php/topic,915.msg2883.html#msg2883

[dcramer]

My impression after recently upgrading to XMetaL 6.0 (I have full XMetaL+XMetaL Developer, but other users just XMetaL Essentials) is that 6.0 is more likely to crash than 4.6 was. We don't use Documentum Webtop. Most users are on Windows XP. I'm on Windows 7. All use recent versions of IE. Nobody uses McAfee (we use Symantec AV).

I've asked users to keep logs of when crashes happen and what they were doing when it did to see if I can establish a pattern.

My current theory is that it crashes on auto-save if the document is invalid. That seems to be what happen to me this morning, but it's hard to be sure about whether an auto-save was involved. I do know that this morning the doc was invalid at the time. No macros appear to have been involved (I was just typing text).

David

[Su-Laine Yeo]

The system requirements for XMetaL Author say "Internet Explorer 6.00.2600.0000 or later", so IE is probably not the problem in this case.

Is the problem affecting all machines that are running this version of XMetaL, or is it just one machine?
Have you tried restarting XMetaL with the Ctrl key held down?

Su-Laine

[pmasal]

Thanks to everyone for their kind and helpful replies. I hope the issue isn't with McAfee ScriptScan, as I cannot alter our McAfee settings (centrally controlled by IT). After further testing today, I found that the crash always occurs at checkin to Documentum webtop, and only after relations have been added (such as xrefs, conrefs, reusable components, links, image refs, etc.).

I have attached the debug logs for the crash (see the three jpgs). I think this might be a webtop error, though, so I'm asking our IT team to look into it. I doubt it's our Documentum XML apps, because those are unchanged from previous releases (we just moved to DCTM 6.5 SP2 with XMetaL 6.0 and left the apps unchanged.

Thanks as always for any further help you can provide. I will let you know if we figure things out here.

Paul Masalsky
EMC

[pmasal]

We're trying to use XMetaL 6.0.1.030 with DCTM Webtop 6.5 SP3. I understand it might be qualified only with DCTM 6.5 SP1. Could this be part of the problem?
Paul

[Derek Read]

XMetaL Author Enterprise 6.0.1.030 (with XMetaL Author Enterprise for Documentum Webtop 2.1.0.084 installed) supports Webtop versions 6.5 SP1 and 6.5 SP2, and has "provisional" support for Webtop 6.5 SP3. You can check on both of these numbers in the XMetaL Help menu, they both start with "About..."

Webtop tends to change in ways that are not always backward compatible between versions (including minor versions) and this tends to break our integration. This is why with this release we ship 3 different folders for the DCTM server side portion of the software (a different version for each of Webtop 6.5 SP1, SP2 and SP3). There is only one client side installer.

We ran all of our tests against Webtop 6.5 SP1 and SP2 and are not aware of any real issues (certainly none like that which you are seeing).

However, due to the timing of the Webtop 6.5 SP3 release (from Documentum) we only had time to do preliminary testing on it. We did not see any major problems, however, testing was not completed so it is possible that changes will be needed to fully support Webtop 6.5 SP3. This is what the "provisional" wording in the PDF in the admin guide (XME Webtop Administrators Guide.pdf) is referring to when it says: "Webtop 6.5 SP3 (Provisional Support)". So, there is a possibility you have uncovered something bad that we will need to address before we can say we fully support Webtop 6.5 SP3.

So, it may be best to concentrate on getting either 6.5 SP1 or SP2 working (unless you have specific need for SP3) as we consider those versions fully tested. Then if the crash keeps happening it is more likely to be for some other reason. In most cases it should then be possible to reproduce such an issue without connecting to Webtop.

[Su-Laine Yeo]

Paul,

I suggest ruling out this issue first: http://forums.xmetal.com/index.php/topic,983.0.html as it's relatively quick to do so.

Another thing to look out for, as gcrews suggested, is McAfee ScriptScan.

[pmasal]

Su-Laine and Derek, thank you for the great help as always.
I tried running Su-Laine's fix at http://forums.xmetal.com/index.php/topic,983.0.html, but it asks for XMetaL Author Enterprise.msi, which I don't have. I was just sent one install exe for XMetaL 6.0 EE and one for the webtop connector.
Any idea of how I can get the msi?
Thanks.
Paul

[gcrews]

It’s probably best to reinstall Xmetal completely. Alternatively you can re run the exe before uninstalling Xmetal and it will probably give the option to repair. Additionally when you run the setup exe you actually extract the files and MSI. Check the section “Silent installer” in the readme (http://www.xmetal.com/_trials/install-readme.html)

[pmasal]

Many thanks for the help. After applying Su-Laine's fix for the Writing Tools\10.0 subdirectory, I get the attached error when trying to uninstall completely and start from scratch. I'm in a bit of a pickle now... can I repair this so I can uninstall successfully?
Paul

[Derek Read]

The unregistering of this file (or any others in this folder) is not a huge deal, I assume the uninstall did still finish? What I would suggest in this case is (assuming the uninstall removed the product from the Add or Remove Programs list on Control Panel):

1) Delete these folders:
  C:\Program Files\Common Files\XMetaL Shared\
  C:\Program Files\Corel\Shared\XMetaL\
  C:\Program Files\XMetaL 6.0\

2) Reinstall.

[pmasal]

Since removing all directory contents and re-installing XMetaL 6.0, I have not experienced any of the crashes that were happening previously. We have also scaled back to DCTM Webtop 6.5 SP2, which could also be a factor. Thank you for all your help.

However I am having one additional problem. Whenever I try to insert an existing reusable component from our DCTM repository, I get the following message:

Error: The referenced element may contain content from domains that are not allowed in the referencing element.

The RC has a top-level element of <section>, which is allowable (and displayed as valid in the Element List) at the insertion point. The same problem occurs with other RCs (such as <p>-level ones) at valid insertion points.

Has anyone experienced this before?
Paul

[Su-Laine Yeo]

Hi Paul,

The error message you're seeing is probably related to how your topics are specialized. It is possible to use conrefs between different specializations, however XMetaL performs checks to ensure that the referenced content will be valid in its referencing location. We have a macro which loosens up the rules that XMetaL uses in these checks: http://forums.xmetal.com/index.php/topic,439.0.html . You might want to give that a try.

Su-Laine

[pmasal]

Thanks Su-Laine. This appears to have solved the issue.
We used a similar macro in our DCTM 5.3 SP5 environment. I should have inquired about using it with 6.0.
Thanks again.
Paul

[nlpharrison]

Hi,

I am currently getting this Microsoft error with XMetal 6.0;

I tried following the suggestions that seemed to work for the original posters of the thread; uninstalling - removing it along with the suggested supplementary folders (Program Files/XMetal 6.0, Program Files/Corel/.., Programs Files/Common Files/XMetal Shared/*, <user>/AppData/Softquad, <user>/Local Settings/Temp/Xmetal/..).   But after doing all this, then rebooting, then reinstalling, the first time I open XMetal and try to create a new document, it opens the new document and then I get this error and it crashes.  I've gone thru the uninstall/reinstall process 3 times, but can't get rid of the problem.  I even used the uninstall utility you'd sent me earlier (xmclean.exe) after the last uninstall; still no joy...

Is there a new version (later than 6.0.1.39) that fixes this problem?  6.0.1 was working for me for about 5 days  before this started happening

Regards,
Nancy

[Su-Laine Yeo]

Hi Nancy,

You have the latest version of XMetaL Author Enterprise. Have you tried installing the XFRunner.dll patch described here: http://forums.xmetal.com/index.php/topic,915.0.html ?

If that doesn't work, let me know and we will arrange a WebEx session. It would probably be easier to troubleshoot this problem if we can see what's going on.

Best,
Su-Laine