Vista - freezing

I just started using WLM a few days ago and thought it was pretty close to
perfect for my needs but I ran into a problem I've not seen reported thus
far.

Every now and then, when I click on a file attachment, the program just
freezes and I cannot do anything in any open windows. When I open task
manager and select Windows Live Mail to be closed, the prompt is that the
program is waiting for input from me. I've looked at everything I can think
of to see if there's some prompt somewhere but find nothing.

In my experimenting, I've uninstalled and reinstalled, making sure I have
the most recent version. Remembering a problem with another program which
was solved by simply running it as the administrator, I tried that and,
initially, thought it solved the problem as the freezing seemed to stop but
this morning, it was back.

There's no virus intervention as the files I've tried to open aren't
infected either truly or by mistake and there doesn't seem to be any common
denominator in terms of any specific attachment types causing it. Sometimes
it may be a picture, another it might be a Power Point file, and another it
might be a Windows Media file.

So, I've read everything back for several days to see if this is a known
bug or if someone has reported similar problems but see nothing.

Has anyone had or heard of this problem and/or how to fix it or, perhaps, is
it a known bug which--hopefully--will be corrected in the next release?

Thanks,
Tim

When that happens, try holding down the ALT key and tapping the TAB key.
That should cycle through any open tasks or dialogs.

Is the problem with a POP3, IMAP or HTTP account?

How large are the attachments?

If after restating you select the same message, do you have the same
problem?

--

Mike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm



"Tim Mathews" <NOSPAMtsmohio@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:3C20716C-68D5-4A96-9882-89C3A3F4F0BD@xxxxxx

Take a look down on the task bar. Occasionally a confirmation dialog pops
up *behind* the current window, but if you look at the task bar you might
see an orange button which will bring it to the front.

SteveT

Michael Santovec wrote:The problem has happened on both pop and http and as I only have one
imap and haven't yet got a message with an attachment, I can't say if it
will happen in that. There are no dialogue windows open anywhere.

Attachment size doesn't seem to have any effect as there have been
relatively smallish, perhaps 100kb and might be pictures, text, Windows
Media or Power Point so there doesn't seem to be any connection to a
particular type of attachment.

Sometimes, if I've restarted the system and reloaded WLM, the problem
will be solved and others, it still locks up.

I'll make a point to try to get it to hang again and see if alt-tab
shows my any dialog box but if open, they don't show up anywhere on the
desktop or anywhere else I can think of--including the task manager.

I'll report back if I come up with anything...thanks for the suggestion.

Steve Thackery wrote:This is the frustrating part...there's nothing in the task bar to
indicate that anything is going on and there's no indication when I
start task manager that anything but the single occurrence of WLM.

TS Mathews wrote:I just opened it and got it to hang on a powerpoint attachment which it
had earlier opened. When it hung and I tried alt-tab, it showed only
the desktop with Internet Explorer and Windows Live mail open; each with
one occurrence and nothing else open or running. Again, it's as though
somehow the program "thinks" it's opened a dialog box for me but hasn't
done it.

"TS Mathews" <NOSPAMtsmohio@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:joy%j.421$i74.139@xxxxxx

Which program are you thinking of? What dialog box?
Looks like it could be PowerPoint which is hanging not WLMail.
E.g. see what happens if you disassociate the attachment's
extension with that program? Then I would expect a dialog box...

Alternatively, in addition to Alt-Tab for diagnostics from the Taskbar
I would try minimizing all windows, e.g. press Win-D.
If the WLMail task will not Minimize right-click on its Taskbar
button to see what it will do. In particular since you are expecting
a dialog box (though I'm not sure why) perhaps you should
try using a Move command if you see one there? ; )

A better diagnostic than the Taskbar or even Task Manager
for this would be Process Explorer (e.g. to see any relationship
between the launching task and a (perhaps incipient) launched
task). FWIW I don't have PowerPoint but as a simulation of
that technique I opened a .png attachment. Using only
Task Manager you can use its Go To Process command
on the resulting Windows Picture and Fax viewer application
entry to see that (somehow) a rundll32.exe program got started
but by using Process Explorer you can see that in fact
that was started by WLMail.exe. There should be a similar
relationship between wlmail.exe and whatever program
is being launched for opening your PowerPoint attachment.


HTH

Robert Aldwinckle
---

Robert Aldwinckle wrote:No, the attached file has nothing to do with it. Powerpoint, Excel,
pictures, videos, it makes no difference.

I cannot right click on the WLM taskbar as as with everything else
within WLM, it's frozen.

The task manager has nothing in it except what programs I may have
running and it's not some sort of conflict between apps as in a part of
my testing, I've run WLM by itself to make sure it wasn't something else
I had open and running.

Haven't tried looking for process server. I'll do that now...assuming
I can get it to hang up. If not, I'll just keep trying until the next
hang and see what I can come up with.

Thanks for the ideas...the good news is, I'm no longer tearing my hair
out. The bad news is, it's not because the problem's solved...I've just
run out of hair ;-)

"TS Mathews" <NOSPAMtsmohio@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:O4B%j.450$i74.120@xxxxxxWhen I worked for Microsoft we were told never to use "freeze" or "hang" in
a bug report, because it could have negative connotations towards the
professionalism of the program in question. We were told to always use
"stops responding to user input". Now it really bugs me the number of times
Windows or a Windows program "stops responding to user input". What you may
have, is a dialog box asking for permission to continue or instructions,
which has another window in front of it. Sometimes Alt-Tab can get you to
the problem window.

Good luck,

Earle

TS Mathews wrote:Nothing different. There is nothing different running under Process
server when WLM has hung as opposed to when it hasn't.

I've tried everything I can think of but nothing indicates any other
program is running. It's not a fluke related to an upgrade starting to
run at the wrong moment, same thing for a virus check. As no one else
reports anything like this, I'm beginning to think the only possibility
is that it's some other program installed on my particular setup so, I
guess I'll just have to stop them one at a time and run WLM several
times to try to get the hang to take place and, maybe, eventually, I'll
discover which one it is. The more I think about it, I might just
reformat and start fresh to make sure it works correctly as the first
thing installed and then start adding things one at a time until it
hangs. Obviously, this is gonna take some time so I'll not likely find
the problem for a few days if I ever do. Assuming success, I'll be sure
to post the offending program here.

Again, thanks to all for the suggestions.