Reply To: XMetaL Fails to Start

[Derek Read]

This is a known issue in 5.1 that does not affect 5.5 or versions previous to 5.1.

The issue is that when XMetaL Author Enterprise launches it checks for other instances of the xmetal51.exe running and if it finds one passes any request to open a file over to it. Then it closes itself and lets the first copy of the EXE take over. To do this it asks every running application to respond (standard Windows stuff) saying what it is, however, the xmetal51.exe will wait forever in cases where a 3rd party application doesn't respond (it is busy or is simply not coded to do so). When this occurs the xmetal51.exe will appear hung in the Task Manager and the UI will not load because it is waiting for a response that will never arrive.

This only affects some users and may occur randomly because most applications are written to respond to these types of requests. If your other applications always respond then you will never see the problem (it has only been reported to us by a few clients). However, this behavior is incorrect and has been fixed.

XMetaL Author Enterprise 5.5 (and 5.0 and earlier) times out when a response is not immediate and will continue with the launch process.

Upgrading to 5.5 is the best solution for this problem. If you are unable to do that for whatever reason XMetaL Support can provide you with a patched version you can use until you are able to upgrade to 5.5. Contact XMetaL Support through the standard channels.

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