Adobe Type Manager and W2000 Search and unexpectedly quits

I had this bug about a year ago, and could not get it fixed. Now it's
back on a new machine. Dell Latitude Notebook C610, Win 2000 Service
Pack 3.
The bug: I open ATM, click the Add Fonts tab. List of folders appear
in right window. If I double click on a folder (any folder) ATM
suddenly quits.  It's as if the the "double click on folder" function
has been changed to operate as if I double click on the [X] Close
Window icon.

Second new bug: Now, when I use the Win2000 Search application, and
use the "Look in" and click on "Browse..." and a list of folders
appear.  When I click on any of the folders, or the [+] folder tree
icon this Search application suddenly, and unexpectedly quits.

I've been through deletions and cleaning out of all ATM and files,
reinstall, etc., keep only a few fonts... nothing fixes the problem.
The only fix I know is to reinstall Win 2000! Adobe tech support can't
duplicate the problem, and I've even tried the pay for bid service
with no luck. Has anyone seen this, or have this problem?  Microsoft
is hopeless to contact. And Dell has no solution.

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Request for Question Clarification by legolas-ga on 15 Nov 2002 15:25 PST

Do you have a virus scanner installed and properly updated?

---

Clarification of Question by tedrich-ga on 15 Nov 2002 18:03 PST

The computer in question is a Dell Latitude C610, Pentium III,
1000MHz, about 11 months old, with Windows 2000, Service Pack 3.

Machine has Norton Anti Virus with latest updates and weekly scans. 

Problem has appeared on previous two machines, about 14 months ago I
used, in a corporate environment, and did not migrate to other users
on my team. One machine was a Dell Latitude C??? and a Dell 220
Workstation. The Dell notebook had a hard drive problem, and had its
drive replaced, and new drive formatted. ATM was re-installed on the
new hard drive, and operated correctly.  The workstation was never
fixed, and many remedies were tried, such uninstalling ATM Delux,
removing the PSFONTS folder, and reinstalling ATM Light, a completely
different version, and it had the same problem--quits when you click
on a folder to Add Fonts!!!

---

Request for Question Clarification by legolas-ga on 15 Nov 2002 19:25 PST

Did you install SP3 or ATM first? If SP3, did you reapply SP3 after
ATM? Maybe there's a file overwritten by ATM that SP3 looks for?

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Clarification of Question by tedrich-ga on 15 Nov 2002 22:42 PST

To answer the responses thus far:

--I have Norton Win Doctor and ran it shortly after encountering the
problem. Everything checked out, with just a few shortcut errors.
--I ran Norton Disk Doctor, and it returned no problems.
--I have lots of fonts, but my Dell Workstation has more than the
notebook, and it has no problems with ATM. (I'm a high-level web
designer and developer)
--I uninstalled and reinstalled ATM several times, and deleted the
PSFONTS folder before and after, etc.
--ATM works, and I have access to all my fonts within Photoshop and my
applications... I just can't add any new ones now.
--I will now try uninstalling with Norton Clean Sweep, and report back
tomorrow.
--Thanks for the help guys... this is a tough one! I'm trying to avoid
a format and reinstall Win 2000 or XP, because I as a developer with
several important clients I really need to know what causes this
problem!

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Clarification of Question by tedrich-ga on 15 Nov 2002 23:12 PST

Further clarification.  Thanks denco-ga. I checked out the
fontfolderfix6.pdf, and passed... I have only 153 fonts (as a
designer, I really don't use that many fonts, but I have some very
contemporary ones!). I also have the latest, fonttext.dll from Service
Pack 3, and just reinstalled it. Didn't solve the problem. But, there
are several things I don't understand, e.g, the ATM folder
relationship to the font folder.

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Request for Question Clarification by vinods-ga on 18 Nov 2002 13:32 PST

Hi, 

Please reinstall windows. use a firewall and do not accept unknown
mail. keep your computer clean if you are using it work your work. you
can have another machine to play with if you like.

Another suggestion: please keep a separate partition (maybe better to
be a win32 rather than an NTFS) and keep all your programs and data in
separate partitions.  Doesn't hurt to isolate the Windows into a
separate partition rather than use it for programs and the OS.

If partitions do't work for you, keep separate hard disks for data and
program/OS.

This is not an 'answer' to your question, but sure this will make
things managable for you in future.

warm regards
vinods-ga

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Request for Question Clarification by feilong-ga on 19 Nov 2002 01:42 PST

You should have started with the obvious thing - to check if the Adobe
Type Manager version you are using is compatible with Win2K. Have you
tried installing the latest version of ATM? The latest version I know
is 4.1.

Ok, just to make a clean check on this since you may have tried other
programs and made several changes to your computer as suggested by the
previous clarifications and comments, you have no choice but to try
this one.

Reformat and reinstall Win2000 and make sure everything is set to its
normal settings including all the programs, antivirus programs, or
whatever you want to install. Get the latest version of ATM, simply
install it, and see if the problem is solved.

Please verify if this solved your problem.

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Request for Question Clarification by theta-ga on 19 Nov 2002 09:42 PST

First of all, you should to examine whther you need to have Adobe Type
Manager installed on your Win2K or not. If you have ATM just to be
able to use Type 1 fonts, then there is no need, since Win2K/XP can
install and use Type1 fonts out of the box, without need of any other
software.
However if you need to use multiple master fonts, or use ATM for font
management, then you need ATM 4.1 or ATM Lite.

=======================================================
 
  Some more info on your version of ATM would be nice. According to
Adobe, only Adobe Type Manager Deluxe 4.1 is designed to work with
Win2K. Older versions, although they may run, are not recommended.ATM
4.0 has been known to cause problems under Win2K.
So the first thing to do, if you have an older version, is to upgrade
to the latest version. For more info, check out the Adobe Website
       - Adobe Type Manager Deluxe 4.1 for Windows
         ( http://www.adobe.com/products/atm/mainwin.html )

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

 The error might be caused by a corrupt font folder. The simplest way
to fix this, is to use the TweakUI applet from MicroSoft. Download
this applet(64KB) from :
     - Microsoft NT Downloads - TweakUi 1.33
( www.microsoft.com/ntworkstation/downloads/PowerToys/Networking/NTTweakUI.asp
)

 After installing the applet (instructions given on the download
page), Goto Control Panel > Tweak UI.
 Click on the Repair tab and select 'Repair font Folder' from the
list. Click repair.
 Reboot and see if it helped.

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

  Another thing to check out, is the Win2K event log.To view the log,
follow these steps:
   - Click Start, select Programs, Administrative Tools, Event Viewer.
   - The Event Viewer window displays.
In the window, Errors are market with a red icon, warnings with a
yellow icon and information with a blue icon. You can double click on
an item to get a more complete report.
        - Checking the Event Viewer (Windows 2000)
          ( ezbackup.cornell.edu/techsup-v4.2/cu/faq/w2k/FAQ-W2K-5.html
)
After the error occurs (i.e. the window closes) go and check the event
viewer to see if any new related warnings or errors have been
displayed.This should help you figure out a cause. If not, just post
the errors/warnings here, and we will do our best to help.

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

 If nothing else worked, its time to try some debugging. Download the
following free apps :
   - RegMon ( http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/regmon.shtml )
   - FileMon ( http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/filemon.shtml
)
After you have these utilities set up, make sure that no part of ATM
is running. Once you are sure that no components of ATM are loaded
into memory, start up RegMon and FileMon.
  RegMon captures all registry accesses and Filemon captures all file
accesses by programs loaded in memory. The first time you start up
these utilities and start Event capture, they will show you a huge
list of file and registry accesses that are taking place on your
computer.This will be due to the large number of services running
under Win2K. Since we are only interested in ATM, add all the other
processes shown to the Filter list. To do this, Use the Filter dialog
on the toolbar. One by one, add the unwanted processes to the exclude
box, until an event capture shows nothing. Make sure that you do not
add any ATM proccesses to the Exclude list.
 Once the utils have been set up, 
      - start ATM.
      - Enable event capture in Filemon and regmon
      - Now try to add fonts to ATM and replicate the problem
      - When the window closes up, stop capturing .
Now go over the event list in both the apps. The problem is most
likely caused by events whose results are indicated as 'ERROR' or 'NOT
FOUND'. Regmon/Filemon allow you to save this event log. If you could
post it up somewhere on the net for viewing, perhaps it would give us
a better insight into the problem. Post both the logs for Filwmon and
Regmon, once after using ATM and once after Windows Search.

==========================================
I hope one of the above options will be of help.
Best of Luck!
:)

Good Day legolas,


This is a long shot based on the piece of information you provided
which states that this is a new machine you are working on, but the
solution should be easy to try and might be worth the try:

It sounds to be like there is something wrong with the file structure,
or your software has trouble reading the HD. To narrow the problem,
maybe try going to the same folders using other software, and see if
the same thing happens? If there is a serious directory structure
problem, any software will crash the same way.  Also, try maybe
copying the file onto a diskette, and open it from there.  This way
you are opening it from a new location in case there is something
unusuall with the sector on the HD (again, I realize this is unlikely
since you had the same thing happen on more than one machine, but
doing these two things might give us a few more clues).

Also, I would suggest that perhaps you post some more details on your
computer.  CPU type and speed, mother board info, service packs
installed, etc. will probably prove helpfull to any researcher trying
to help you.

Please try the above two things, and post the results here. Let us
know if you saw anything different (even if the end result is the
same), and maybe a light will come on for someone reading this. :)


Regards,
slawek-ga

This computer, Dell Latitude has operated perfectly for almost a year.
I have Norton Anti-virus with all the latest virus updates, and did a
scan a few days ago after the symptoms appeared.

I can access, and use my file system with other applications with no
problems. It's only ATM and Windows Search that I have the
"unexpectedly quit" problem.  I suspect it goes pretty deep in the
registry, etc.

Ted

Let's analyze the problem; you (re)install W2K and
all is OK and then at a certain point when you open
ATM and get a list of folders, crash; you then use
W2K search and get a list of folders, crash...

So, I am going to guess that you accumulate lots
of fonts, and create lots of folders in one of
your directories (probably the root directory)
until the directory gets corrupted.  At that point,
it is going not going to be as simple as deleting
files, etc. to clear the problem.

So, maybe try (you don't say you are using it...)
Norton's Disk Doctor (or equivalent utility) to
test your disk/file structure.


Check: http://www.letterheadfonts.com/faq/fontfolderfix6.pdf

for tips on clearing a corrupted fonts folder as well.


How many fonts do you have installed and how many folders
are in the directory you start your search in (probably
the root of your C:\ drive...)?

I'd seriously doubt it was the file system. He is running Windows 2000
Pro which uses NTFS and a journalling filesystem to guarantee a
consitent filesystem. You're thinking that it is Windows 98... Unless
of course he *isn't* using NTFS: which brings me to a good
question--are you using NTFS?

I have thought on this a bit more, and legolas is probably
correct in doubting that this is a file system issue.  So,
we are back to what ATM and Search (and only them?) might
have in common.

I think that ATM does a search process to see if any new
fonts have been added since it was last run, so this might
be related to a common process, such as search.dll or
explorer.exe, being corrupted or bumping against some
folder layers, etc. limit.

It sounds like ATM is possibly introducing the problem, as
it seems that it starts exhibiting the problem and then
Search starts having a similar problem at a later point?

What happens if you do a right click (instead of the left
click) inside the applications?  Does a right click then
Open end up with the same result?