Updated Thursday, May 15 2008 @ 09:15 AM PDT
Today's Featured Article
 Late-Breakers
Documents not opening Users, in droves, continue to report an issue in which Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents cannot be opened by double-clicking their icons after the Office 2008 12.1 (SP1) update. Instead, the documents must be opened using the File > Open command in the respective application.
MacFixIt reader Steve writes:
"The 10.5.2 master image I maintain -- shows this problem after the 12.1 update. Oddly enough, the 10.4.11 master image did not show the problem (with the same set of documents). I have a folder full of documents as a test (some mac created, some older WinWord documents, some brand new WinWord documents -- both .doc and .docx). The brand-new Word docs were created with Word 2007 SP1 with all patches as of yesterday.
"All 7 will open if I select all and "open" under Word 12.0.1 (on the 10.5.2 machine). All 7 open with Word 12.1 on the 10.4.11 machine. Only 4 of them will open on the 10.5.2 machine with Word 12.1."
Another reader writes:
"I can open them by double-clicking on them and, after the application opens, going to "Open" in the File menu and selecting the document. This only happens on my G5 (which I use at home). 12.1 works fine on my MacPro desktop at my office and my MacBook Pro laptop.
"Interestingly enough, it seems to happen most on documents that were created on Windows machines. I've not had much problem opening existing documents that were created under Office 2004 or the first version of Office 2008."
The definitive fix for this issue, though tedious, is to open the problematic documents using the File > Open command then re-save the documents. They should then open properly. See our tutorial regarding an inability to open documents for more workarounds.
Some users have also reported success with rebuilding the launchservices database with a utility like OnyX.
See yesterday's coverage for more.
Crashes Users also continue to report repeated crashes in Office applications after the update. One reader writes:
"Word crashes opening documents just created before the update in Word 2008. Repeatedly. I deleted the plist without effect."
Cannot install Users also continue to report problems installing the update. One reader writes:
"I tried to install the SP1 on Tuesday and at the time you have select the location where Office is installed, the SP1 installer does not find Office ! It says something in the style of "there is on this volume no version of the software found, required for the installation of this update."
5 comments Most Recent Post: 05/15 02:48PM by jann.ronis
Late-Breakers
For various reasons, including system instabilities or specific program malfunctions, a user might decide to downgrade from the latest version of the OS to a previous version. There is no direct way to do this, as Apple does not provide the tools to undo or "rollback" to a previous version. However, there are two workarounds that should accomplish the downgrade and preserve user data and settings.
One method is detailed in our tutorial "How to reinstall Mac OS X". The other involves using Time Machine to restore to a previous version of OS X.
Unfortunately in Time Machine Apple does not provide information for each backup (such as the OS version that was present in that backup), but if you know when you installed the version of the OS that you'd like to remove, you can go to a backup that's prior to that date and restore it. Newer backups of user documents should still be available on the TM drive so you can access them from the backup drive after the restore and not lose any recent document changes or creations.
Here is a brief step-by-step process:
- With the Time Machine drive attached, startup from the Leopard DVD.
- After selecting the language, select "Restore from Time Machine Backup..." from the Utilities menu
- Select the attached Time Machine drive and then the desired backup to restore.
- Click "Start" and the restore process should commence.
- Reboot the computer when completed
- Run a permissions check on the main hard drive with Apple's Disk Utility
- Open Time Machine and restore user data folders that may contain newer files that were created or changed after the time of the backup that was restored.
Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.
1 comments Most Recent Post: 05/15 08:40PM by ajbgmex
Late-Breakers
One of the most pervasive causes of crashes in Safari involves Adobe Flash content, in part because of the widespread use of Flash in banner ads. As reported by one poster to Apple's Discussion boards, Espen S.:
"For the third time Safari has crashed while I was writing an email at Yahoo. The message that popped up after Safari disappeared stated that it probably had to do with the Flash plugin. The only update I have done, apart from Apples own, is to download and install the latest Flash player from Adobe (9.0.115.0)."
This creates a situation where Safari will seem to randomly crash in the middle of browsing as well.
The latest Flash update, the release was intended to tackle many security vulnerabilities in previous versions of Flash. However, the crashes that are occurring seem to indicate problems with this new code. Crash reports indicate security routines are to blame for the crashes. Excerpts from a typical crash report:
- Thread 7 Crashed:
- 1 ...romedia.Flash Player.plugin 0x17199b5d Flash_EnforceLocalSecurity + 98677
- 2 ...romedia.Flash Player.plugin 0x16eb2406 0x16dd6000 + 902150
- 6 libSystem.B.dylib 0x90ec6c55 _pthread_start + 321
Fix: In some cases, downgrading Flash to a different version can resolve this issue. We recommend version v47. To downgrade, follow these instructions:
- Go to this page and download "Flash Player 9."
- When you open the package, open the "9r47 Folder". There, select flashplayer9r47_ub_mac.dmg.zip (flashplayer9r47_max.zip is for PPC only) for machine. This installs Flash 9.0.47.
- Reset Safari (clear out all cache and cookie information)
In other cases, you may ned to remove Flip4Mac (Microsoft WMV components for QT). Some users have reported that removing Flip4Mac quicktime components have stopped the Flash-related crashes.
Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.
4 comments Most Recent Post: 05/15 11:48AM by Hawaiian Starman
Late-Breakers
Applications won't launch Some users are unable to launch any Microsoft Office 2008 applications after applying the SP1 (12.1) update. In some cases, the setup assistant repeatedly launches in place of the intended application.
One reader writes:
"After installing SP1 for Microsoft Office, I can no longer launch any of the applications. Every time I try to launch Word, etc. - the Setup Assistant runs. I go through the assistant, close it and try to launch the app again and the setup assistant starts up again. I have restarted the computer. No effect - I get stuck in a setup assistant loop. Is anyone else seeing this?"
Fix: If you are experiencing this problem, delete the following files:
- ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008/Microsoft Office 2008 Settings.plist
- /Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Office/OfficePID.plist
then launch the problematic application(s) and enter your Office 2008 serial number.
Double-clicking documents doesn't open them Other users have reported an issue in which double-clicking documents to trigger an Office application launch no longer works.
One reader writes:
"Is it just me, or has the SP1 update for Office 2008 broken the ability
to open an Office application and load a document by double-clicking on
a document? Since this morning's update, double-clicking on either Word
or Excel files launches the corresponding application, but fails to load
the document. Rebooting or rebuilding the Launch Services database have
no effect, nor does repairing the permissions."
MacFixIt reader Louis Hecht reports a similar issue:
"I just downloaded and installed...everything seems to work well except when MSWord is executed by choosing an existing document, does not open the (intended) document, but instead opens a new document."
Fix: If you're experiencing similar issues, try updating prebinding by launching the Terminal (located in /Applications/Utilities) and entering the following command:
- sudo update_prebinding -debug -root / -force
You'll be required to enter an administrator password.
Applications will not update Some users have reported a problem in which the 12.1 update fails to apply to some Office applications. In these cases, your best bet is to delete the entire Office 2008 folder from /Applications, reinstall from the original media and re-attempt the update.
Keychain issues We've received some reports of keychain issues after the 12.1 update. One reader writes:
"I installed successfully (can you imagine?) Office 2008 SP1. Immediately, Entourage 2008 began to require that I allow incoming.isp.net access to keychain so that my accounts can access my email accounts. I clicked on “Always Allow” but have to do this every time the program or my selection attempts send/receive."
If you are experiencing a similar issue, please let ue know.
18 comments Most Recent Post: 05/15 11:35AM by mario3
Late-Breakers
Near the end of yesterday's press release announcing Microsoft Office 2008 SP1 (12.1) is a statement indicating that Visual Basic will be returning to the suite with its next major revision.
Erik Schwiebert, Software Design Lead at Microsoft Corporation in the Macintosh Business Unit, explains in a blog post that the release will be "some time before 2012":
"So, if you have a dire need for Visual Basic, you can continue to run Mac Office 2004 (it will even run side-by-side with Office 2008) and we’re publicly committing to VB as good (maybe even better, if things go well) in the next version. My team is responsible for that reintegration, and I’ve been meeting frequently with a number of people as we’ve planned exactly what we’re doing and how we're bringing VB back."
Microsoft Office 2008 does not include Visual Basic capabilities in any form. There is no execution of newly or previously compiled macros, and the macros cannot be edited in Office 2008. Company representatives, including Schwiebert, have defended this tack in a series of blog postings.
As such, Office 2004 with the addition of an official converter for Open XML documents is currently the most cross-platform compatible version of Office in existence. Users are able to run an Office 2007 for Windows document with Visual Basic macros through the Mac OS X translator and then open the document in Office 2004 for Mac OS X and retain the macros.
Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.
4 comments Most Recent Post: 05/15 06:39AM by jvbeaupre
Late-Breakers
After a brief maintenance hiatus, the MacFixIt forums are back and better than ever. Among the enhancements:
- Preview Post uses AJAX instead of loading a new page.
- You can choose to receive email notification of all replies to any topic that you've added to your Watch Lists, even if the replies aren't to your posts. (In fact, you needn't even have posted in the thread at all.)
- Quick and easy access to your profile, preferences, watch lists, and post list via My Stuff in the Forums navigation bar on any page.
- Choice of "Topics Created" or "All Posts" when viewing your own or someone else's post list.
- More parameter choices on the Search page, including the return of "All Forums."
6 comments Most Recent Post: 05/15 05:30PM by MacOO7
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