Stability problems with Mellel 2.7.3

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macula
Knows everything, can also explain
Posts: 60
Joined: Sun Oct 11, 2009 7:27 am

Stability problems with Mellel 2.7.3

Post by macula »

I am running Mellel 2.7.3 (build 2) under MacOS 10.6.2 on a 4GB Macbook with lots of free disk space. No software or hardware component of the system behaves erratically, and in fact the system is rock-solid overall.

Every now and then, however, Mellel begins to have problems with the user input devices: Whatever I press on the keyboard translates into garbage on the screen. Even the backspace or the space bar produce random strings of characters (they look like control characters). When this happen, I am also unable to select text with the mouse. It also becomes impossible to delete those random characters because, as I said, the backspace key is also 'hijacked.' The only solution is to save the document immediately, close the document (or quit Mellel) and reopen.

This happens at a frequency of approximately 4-5 episodes per day.

The documents I work on are very simple, approximately 20 pages long each, with no graphics whatsoever. Just plain text and a couple of tables.

During the episodes, the keyboard and mouse work fine with all other software on the machine. Therefore, the problem seems to be on the Mellel side.

This is really baffling. Could it be TextExpander that causes this? I really cannot think of any possible culprits right now. My first thought that this has to do with the wireless mouse and keyboard (Apple bluetooth), but as I said, only Mellel suffers from the episodes, so this scenario seems to me unlikely.

This is a reliability problem—quite rare for Mellel, which is rightly renowned for its stability—so I am understandably concerned.

Thank you.
donb
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Re: Stability problems with Mellel 2.7.3

Post by donb »

I have never run into any problem of this sort with Mellel. I use the same computer setup as you, except mine is an iMac rather than a Macbook.
It sounds like something has got screwed up with your Mellel installation. I suggest removing the Mellel program entirely from your computer (preferably using one of the application deleting shareware programs that finds and also deletes all the little extra files that are automatically placed in various spots in your System whenever you install a program. Once you have trashed and deleted Mellel, reinstall it -- preferably via a new download from the Redlers site. This ought to solve the problem.

Don Broadribb
Eyal Redler
Co-founder
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Re: Stability problems with Mellel 2.7.3

Post by Eyal Redler »

It sounds as if something is causing Mellel to leak memory very rapidly when you run it for a long time, it could a bug with Mellel but we didn't receive any similar reports so it is more likely some problem with a third party software. Can you try to disable all exotic software and see if this helps?
Another, longer, shot is font problems, try clearing the font cache using a utility like OnyX. Also make sure to run a disk utility disk check.
Eyal Redler
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macula
Knows everything, can also explain
Posts: 60
Joined: Sun Oct 11, 2009 7:27 am

Re: Stability problems with Mellel 2.7.3

Post by macula »

Thanks, Eyal.

This hasn't happened again in two days of use, and I cannot reproduce it. If it starts happening again I'll try to figure out the pattern and report back to you.
Assuming it isn't Mellel, my two suspects are TextExpander (has been quitting by itself quite often) and Adobe Acrobat Pro (not the most stable of software). Anyway, as I said, I will keep you posted if this happens again.

Thanks.
daiyi
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Re: Stability problems with Mellel 2.7.3

Post by daiyi »

donb wrote: I suggest removing the Mellel program entirely from your computer (preferably using one of the application deleting shareware programs that finds and also deletes all the little extra files that are automatically placed in various spots in your System whenever you install a program.

Don Broadribb
Make sure to move the Mellel folder under ~Home/Application Support/Mellel to a flash drive, which you should then remove, or elsewhere off your hard drive before running any such applications that Don recommends. This folder contains your Mellel backup files, style sets, and templates. I'm not sure of application deleting programs would also trash this folder, but it would be a shame to lose some of the important and personalized files contained therein.

Hope your Mellel is working fine without having to resort to such measures.
daiyi
Knows everything, can prove it
Posts: 170
Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2005 10:48 am

Re: Stability problems with Mellel 2.7.3

Post by daiyi »

donb wrote: I suggest removing the Mellel program entirely from your computer (preferably using one of the application deleting shareware programs that finds and also deletes all the little extra files that are automatically placed in various spots in your System whenever you install a program.

Don Broadribb
Make sure to move the Mellel folder under ~Home/Application Support/Mellel to a flash drive, which you should then remove, or elsewhere off your hard drive before running any such applications that Don recommends. This folder contains your Mellel backup files, style sets, and templates. I'm not sure of application deleting programs would also trash this folder, but it would be a shame to lose some of the important and personalized files contained therein.

Hope your Mellel is working fine without having to resort to such measures.
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