XMetaL crashing doing evaluation guide exercises

[sgrayson]

I'm evaluating XMetal 6.0 (latest 30 day trial download) for adoption in my company. I've had the software crash and close three times in just 30 minutes of evaluation.

The software has crashed when creating a Topic Reference, when viewing a sample file, and when adding a file to a DITA map. I've done nothing outside the bounds of the evaluation guide.

The only non-standard installation action I did was to put the files in a different location that the app folder the installer wanted to put them in.

Any suggestions on why this behavior is occurring? So far I'm not impressed.

Steve

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[Derek Read]

There are a few known issues in 6.0 that may be contributing to your problems.

1. XMetaL has built-in dialogs (which are unaffected) such as the File > Open dialog. It also supports 'custom' dialogs that are often used to add functionality for specific schemas. The DITA functionality uses custom dialogs (known as XFT forms in XMetaL Developer) extensively and so when this issue occurs it tends to affect the DITA functionality more often and can trigger crashes. We are currently providing a new DLL to any clients that report behavior that sounds like this and plan to include this fix or a similar fix in our next release.

2. A new feature that puts red squiggles under mispelled words may have some issues in certain circumstances. This feature is on by default in 6.0.x. You can disable it in Tools > Options by unchecking “Check spelling while typing”. We're also looking at improving this feature for our next release.

3. If you are running the software on 64-bit hardware (regardless of Windows version) you might see various issues. If you have Windows 7 64-bit you may wish to try Microsoft's “Windows XP mode” which is specifically designed for running “legacy” 32-bit applications on Windows 7 64-bit. Installing and running the application on 64-bit hardware is otherwise unsupported at this time.

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[IF]

I experienced the same thing: XMetal 6.0 crashed every time I tried to edit a DITA map or a DITA topic that had an image or a cross-reference or a reusable component. The problem was resolved when Just Systems support sent me a new DLL (XFRunner.dll)

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[sgrayson]

Thank you Derek and IF. I'll request the dll from support.

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[Su-Laine Yeo]

You might also want to check out this description of issues involving McAfee Antivirus: http://forums.xmetal.com/index.php/topic,915.0.html . It is probably the most common cause of crashes for XMetaL 6.0.

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[sgrayson]

Thank you for your reply, Su-Laine.

We're running Windows 7 and McAfee VirusScan 8.7, so I'm assuming that the patch for version 6.0 from 2008 that the referenced KB article discusses has been included.

I'm waiting for customer support to provide me with the dll that might solve the issue. I hope the dll fixes things as this delay is making XMetaL look very uncompetitive in the world of XML editors.

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[Su-Laine Yeo]

The XFRunner.dll patch, which we think fixes the McAfee conflict described in this thread, is now available for download here so users don't have to contact XMetaL Support for it: http://forums.xmetal.com/index.php/topic,915.msg2883.html#msg2883

Su-Laine

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