Mac users - what version R U using? [Archive]

plooyen

15-09-2009, 01:40 PM

I am currently using 1.2.13903, and am tempted to install 1.2.13973, after experiencing a couple of glitches with pages going missing. However, I have read of some users experiencing more problems with the more recent version.

If you are using the latest on a Mac (OS 10.5), is it stable for you?

I am running some training later this month and I cannot afford to have crashes

cheers

Paul Looyen

LisaD

15-09-2009, 03:23 PM

I'm using 1.2.13973 and Mac 10.5.6. No problems :p but be aware that I have not installed drivers as most of my work is flipchart development and not use with an Activboard.

Lisa

Daryls

15-09-2009, 03:25 PM

So you havent seen any of the disappearing content or crashes then Lisa?

Daryl

LisaD

15-09-2009, 03:28 PM

Nope. Crazy :p. Can it be something with the driver? As I explained, I have not been updating drivers for several months now.

Lisa

Daryls

15-09-2009, 03:41 PM

I wouldnt think so to be honest, can you just dig out your driver version though just in case they ask what it is, i've passed the info through to development.

Daryl

LisaD

15-09-2009, 03:50 PM

Not sure if I'm looking in the right place. In my Mac System Preferences under "Other" there is something that says Activboard. Clicking on it says Preference Pane 2.3 Build 151.

Probably ancient. Does that help?

LIsa

Daryls

15-09-2009, 03:54 PM

Sounds ancient to me :-)

Thanks for that Lisa.

Daryl

GeoKBehnke

15-09-2009, 04:03 PM

Like Lisa, I usually use Inspire off line without any devices attached - I have NEVER had the lost content.

The teachers do use Boards, Expressions and Slates - they are the ones seeing the problems with lost content (blank pages replacing good pages, missing answers from templates when the question wizard shows the answers correctly). They have seen problems with both the old drivers (5.1.25) and the 5.2.7 driver. I cannot find a pattern. I have witnessed two teachers using the same flipchart with Expressions questions and a Board - one teacher went through things just fine, the other got the blank page replacement for a good page - same 1.2.13973 & 5.2.7 on OSX 10.5.8.

As I sit here, a teacher is trying to fix the Question wizard has the answers, but the flipchart page does not show the answer. While trying to save her updates, the previous saved version was not overwritten, but instead Inspire crashed and the save flipchart was deleted from her desktop - she lost all her corrections.

Confidence is dropping.
george

markroberts

15-09-2009, 04:35 PM

Hi George,

I am a developer on the Inspire team.

Could you please ask the teachers if either of them has run the disk utility 'repair permissions' since updating to 10.5.8?

Any info you could give us here is very valuable,

Thanks,

Mark

GeoKBehnke

15-09-2009, 05:06 PM

Mark,
Thanks for getting back to me.

The teachers don't routinely run permissions repair. I am going around now and running the repair on all the machine where people are having problems - it takes admin permissions to run the repair and we don't give the teachers that permissions. It also takes about 20 minutes on a 320GB hard drive.

The teacher I was watching last hour did NOT have the repair permissions done - yet.

The problem is that teacher are busy teaching and just don't have time to help us debug/isolate.

I can get the problem flipchart if you want it.
thanks,
george

Daryls

15-09-2009, 05:10 PM

If you could post the problem flipchart that would be great George, then I can try it on a few machines here as well.

Daryl

GeoKBehnke

15-09-2009, 05:30 PM

Here is the flipchart - to duplicate the problem:

1. Go to page 2
2. under Edit-> edit question on current page
3. notice the question is there in the wizard
4. answers are shown by the wizard, but not in the answer template on the page

While trying to move the questions out of the template and into the page as is, the corruption/crash of Inspire occurs.

thank for your help!!!
george

plooyen

16-09-2009, 02:12 AM

I really started something here ;-)
I did repair my permissions, and will let you know if I get a repeat of the problem. Also ensure my driver was the latest version.

Made a backup of my flipcharts in case I get problems again.

Going by the number of posts on the issue (disappearing pages), there must be an underlying software problem

Daryls

16-09-2009, 10:42 AM

plooyen

16-09-2009, 11:06 AM

no I did not ( if you mean I repaired permission immediately before the install). I have subsequently repaired permissions (yesterday in fact)

Paul Looyen

mrupe

16-09-2009, 02:43 PM

George is right. Working at home, developing flipcharts on my laptop with Mac OS 10.4.11, I have no crashes. No other programs are crashing, and my system has been stable. So "rebuilding permissions" and such musings are not the answer. Perhaps Lisa and others could connect to a board/driver somewhere and try their system for more than a few minutes. My system is fine "at home" also. We need Promethean to resolve the Mac issue. It's costing users hours of time to rebuild their lost charts, preferences, etc.

At work, using the same computer with 5.2.7 driver and earlier driver, 3-5 major crashes a day. I would not upgrade to 1.2 until Permethean finds a solution. My rep said the Mac crashes were a topic during recent meetings. Denying the Mac problem is not helping.

Preference files seem to be lost. My tool pallet reverts to default after the crash. After a crash, Actiinspire opens as if for the very first time (with a dialogue box asking how you want the appearance to be)

I recently moved everything to Mac OS 10.5 (latest 1.2, 5.2.7 driver but no tablet driver) (I'm obviously desparate for a solution/work around). Seems a bit more stable. Only one crash yesterday with 10.5 while using the sytem the entire school day. use involved expression use and lots of interaction with board.

GeoKBehnke

16-09-2009, 03:53 PM

I have some more information for the developers.

Attached is one Flipchart which was used in Math over 4 days. Each day, one teacher crashed Inspire once - another teacher used the same Flipchart and did not crash (the crash report for each day is attached also). Both used Expressions to poll the students on each question, then did some annotations explaining how to get the right answer. The only question not pre-setup with the wizard was the first question each day which used ExpressPoll to ask "What is your name?".

It is interesting to note the teacher with the OLDER imaged computer is the one who does NOT crash - the computer imaged with newer non-Promethean plug-ins & etc does fail. Both are running OSX 10.5.8 and Inspire 1.2.13973 with 5.2.7 drivers. The Hub and expressions are also updated to the latest firmware.

Both teachers basically did a "page forward" then a "start/stop flipchart vote" followed by looking at the results of the vote and annotating how to get the right answer. One teacher had the Browser window open, the other did not have the Browser window open (the non-open Browser user crashed).

I repaired permissions on the failing computer on 9/11/09 after the second crash, so the crashes on 9/14 & 9/15 were after the repaired permissions.

Hope this helps - let me know if you need any more information.
thanks,
george

Daryls

16-09-2009, 03:57 PM

George is right. Working at home, developing flipcharts on my laptop with Mac OS 10.4.11, I have no crashes. No other programs are crashing, and my system has been stable. So "rebuilding permissions" and such musings are not the answer. .

Rebuilding permissions may not be the answer, but it may be the cause of some issues due to the aformentioned 10.5.8 OS update, which is why I have been checking who has been rebuilding them.

At work, using the same computer with 5.2.7 driver and earlier driver, 3-5 major crashes a day. I would not upgrade to 1.2 until Permethean finds a solution. My rep said the Mac crashes were a topic during recent meetings. Denying the Mac problem is not helping. .

I dont think you will find a denial from anyone on this forum, we are working to narrow down the problem and get it fixed, there are several issues causing problems, some affect all platforms, some are easy to track down, others are very random, this is why I keep asking for flipcharts that people have problems with and ask if they have repaired permissions etc.

I should point out I have created several hundred pages in the past 2 days on a macbook using OS 10.5.8 and the 1.2 release software, in that time I had one crash, which was down to a different bug.

So the problem doesnt affect every mac running 10.5.8, but finding the right combination of software/hardware that does cause the problem to appear does unfortunately take time, the more constructive input we get from users experiencing the problem then the quicker we can get things fixed and get a patch out to users to stop the crashes.

Daryl

Daryls

16-09-2009, 04:03 PM

I have some more information for the developers.

Hope this helps - let me know if you need any more information.
thanks,
george

Thanks for the effort in getting that info for us George, i've made sure its passed to the right guys.

Daryl

markroberts

16-09-2009, 04:24 PM

Hi George,

I think a copy of any flipcharts that crash would certainly be helpful for us,
Thanks again for all your help on these issues,

Mark

GeoKBehnke

16-09-2009, 04:30 PM

Here is another flipchart which caused teacher problems. I sat in the back of his room and watched Inspire crash at least 3 times in one 45 minute class period. This flipchart is only the last one he used (he moved pretty gracefully to a different flipchart as each failure occurred).

In all cases, he was at the board doing simple annotations, in a couple colors, erasing, undoing. Each page was rather full of annotation before he Paged Forward to the next page. No Browser window open.

In the attached flipchart, he annotated (3 or 4 colors, eraser, undo) a lot over page 5 (5+ minutes) and a little over page 6, then as he paged forward to page 7 a message came up saying the page was corrupted and a blank page was inserted (for all the rest of the pages). It is also interesting to note the flipchart attached, displays differently on my machine than it did on the teacher's machine (outlines and depth/layer seems different).

Again, he is running OSX 10.5.8, drivers 5.2.7, Inspire 1.2.13973. Only the ActivBoard was attached.
Permissions were not repaired recently.

Let me know if you need more.
george

Daryls

16-09-2009, 05:01 PM

The different look may be down to font substitution issues as well, the chart contains Curlz MT and Garamond fonts which arent on my system here which is throwing off some of the text placement etc.

Anyway i'll carry on trying to reproduce it here and see what happens.

Daryl

GeoKBehnke

16-09-2009, 05:48 PM

More information - the Teacher taught the same Algebra class the next hour. He even used the previously attached flipchart (I admire his persistence!). This time when he got to page 6, the grid background and the notepad in the bottom layer each became a big red X. We tried to do a "save as", but it would not save the flipchart. The attached crash report at 10:16 today, might be related to this problem.

Attached are 4 crash reports from today from the teacher I have been mentioning.

BTW - the font substitution explanation makes sense - thanks Daryl.

It seems the crashes here are related to annotations over non-blank pages. Teachers doing MANY annotations over blank pages seem to have no problem.

Also, the Activboard firmware is at V3.66 build 1 - I know there is a newer version, but I am hesitant to upgrade firmware while other problems are happening.

thanks,
george

Daryls

16-09-2009, 06:02 PM

I went all the way through the algebra one doing annotations and voting on certain pages but didnt get the issues showing up, i'll concentrate on throwing annotations at it and see if that helps.

Daryl

GeoKBehnke

16-09-2009, 08:16 PM

Daryl,
I spoke to more teachers and have found the "There was an error loading the page, it has been replaced by a blank page" can happen with a blank page as well as with a pre-prepared page.

Given this, I have recreated the problem which creates the error message.

Here's what I did....
1. Plugged in a slate (much easier to do annotations).
2. Opened Inspire
3. started writing the numbers 1~18 in different colors of ink
4. while watching the number of objects in the Object Browser, I got to Pen85, tried to go to next page, no problems
5. page back to page 1
6. continued writing the numbers 1~18 (each line in a single color).
7. when got to Pen155 (in addition to the Pen1-85 from before), tried to page advance to page 2

Got the "There was an error loading the page, it has been replaced by a blank page" "OK" window.

This was about 8 lines of numbers. I'll experiment with simplifying the test case. It is also interesting that while doing these annotations, the recognition of writing "skips" every so often, then continues normally.

If I learn more, I'll get back to you.
george

LisaD

16-09-2009, 11:15 PM

Just wanted to report that I am now experiencing crashes, too. This didn't happen until this afternoon but is repeated over and over again. Using the latest version of ActivInspire for Mac and OS 10.5.6. Not connected to any board or voting devices. Haven't changed anything.

When I get a crash, there is an option to send the report to Apple. Does this help you at all? If not, I can copy the crash text to the forum.

Like others, I want to give the development team anything they need to get the fixes in place as soon as possible.

LIsa

atruger

16-09-2009, 11:55 PM

OK...so now I am terrified! My tech is a disaster. We have lost our local tech and been outsourced to a company that doesn't know anything about a) mac b) our district and c) ActivInspire :eek:

I am setting up for a full day training on October 3rd and I need to know what we need to install that is going to run the smoothest on 10.5.8 Mac, I have NO room for error! I get one shot and if I beg and get these machines imaged and then they all keep crashing, I will lose the ability to use ActivInspire at all. ????????

Please advise me wisely

~Anne T

Daryls

17-09-2009, 10:50 AM

LisaD

17-09-2009, 11:31 AM

Ok, will do!

(The next time it crashes!)

Lisa

Daryls

17-09-2009, 01:55 PM

Daryl,
I spoke to more teachers and have found the "There was an error loading the page, it has been replaced by a blank page" can happen with a blank page as well as with a pre-prepared page.

This was about 8 lines of numbers. I'll experiment with simplifying the test case. It is also interesting that while doing these annotations, the recognition of writing "skips" every so often, then continues normally.

If I learn more, I'll get back to you.
george

Thanks George, I can recreate it here now as well.

Daryl

GeoKBehnke

17-09-2009, 02:30 PM

Lisa,
You don't have to wait for another crash. OSX saves these reports for every crash.
To find it, open the "Console" application (application->utilities->console).

In the upper left of the console window is a "show/hide log list" icon - make sure Log list is shown.

Under the LOG FILES, there are lines for "~/Library/Logs" and "/Library/Logs" - one of them should have a "CrashReporter" line. Click on the "CrashReporter" carrot and you'll see the list of all your recent crash reports. Attached is a screen shot for an Inspire Crash from my MacBook-Pro on 9/16/2009 at 13:18:05.

Once you select the desired crash, you can to a "File->Save a Copy As" to a file (the suffix is .log, but if you change suffix to .txt it can be opened by most anything).

Let me know how this works for you.
george

LisaD

17-09-2009, 03:03 PM

Ok, here are the last 5 crash reports. If there is anyway I can provide further assistance, just let me know!

Lisa

Daryls

17-09-2009, 03:15 PM

Thanks Lisa

Daryl

jrubio1

29-09-2009, 05:25 PM

It appears a number of our mac users here in SF are now starting to experience the same problems - crashing and disappearing content/work lost.

While in the middle of working, they get an error loading page message, page goes blank and they often lose their work. One user said as she moved from 10.4.11 to 10.5.8 that it seems to have helped but she is still experiencing the problem.

Daryl - can you tell me, have you made any progress?

I will get crash logs for you.

Our teachers are getting very frustrated

Thank you
Dr. John Rubio
415-238-2904