Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 8:44 pm Post subject: Slow first-time print dialog
After installing Patch 14 to NeoOffice 1.2.5, I tried to print a four page document from Write. When I selected Print... from the File menu, the spinning kaleidoscope wheel appeared. After about a minute I did a force quit, closed a couple of other applications and tried again. I got the same result, but this time, since I needed the printout in a hurry and could not make do with the limited formatting of TextEdit, I let the computer keep going. After FOUR MINUTES, the Print dialog appeared and everything worked well. There were no performance issues in other applications while this was going on.
The strange thing is, later I tried to duplicate the problem. I get a spinning cursor for 1-5 seconds if this is the first time since starting NeoOffice that I've gone to that menu (usual behavior), then the Print dialog appears quickly, just as it is supposed to.
Is there some sort of initialization issue in the Print preferences with this patch?
System info: B/W G4 400 MHz, 512 MB RAM, 120 GB hard drive startup plus 6 GB backup (original drive that ran out of room), OS 10.3.9
Printer: HP LaserJet 2200d.
Other than that glitch, the patch seems to improve startup performance (every bit helps on this old machine). I appreciate all the good work!
Joined: Jun 20, 2006 Posts: 2051 Location: Midwest, USA
Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 5:34 am Post subject:
I presume you mean 2.2.5?
If it happens another time, it would be helpful if you could take a sample and attach the file to your post. That will help the developers figure out what is going on.
If it happens another time, it would be helpful if you could take a sample and attach the file to your post. That will help the developers figure out what is going on.
I suspect that the user has a network printer in their machine's configuration. The first time that you print on Mac OS X after booting, Mac OS X will try to connect to each printer to determine which ones show in the Mac native print dialog.
So, if one of your network printers is not accessible because it is off or does not exist or even if one of your printers needs time to wake up from sleeping, you will see NeoOffice or any other application hang for about 2 minutes per printer as 2 minutes is the default "try to connect" timeout that Mac OS X uses for each printer.
Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 8:25 am Post subject: Slow first-time print dialog: correction
Yes, I'm using version 2.2.5. Late night typo ...
Unfortunately, I could not find anything in the logs, and I was in too much of a hurry when the problem was happening to think of checking Activity Monitor (I had it all loaded up when I tried to track it down, but by then the secret DTWN routine was active (DTWN=Detect Technician, Work Normally).
Just to see if I could pick up anything new, I followed the link on sampling, then tried the link to get Shark: Firefox said 550 No such file or directory.
The file has been replaced with CHUD_4.4.4.dmg
I will post the link update on the topic you referenced.
Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 8:59 am Post subject: It's not a network printer
Hello,
I tried to duplicate the problem after a cold start-up. It worked properly. The only printer I've ever set up with the system installed on this hard drive is the HP2200d through the USB interface, although I have used a network-connected HP2500C with the original drive and an earlier version of NeoOffice without problems.
Once in a while I will get a system hang (any application) and crash, followed with
Exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (0x0001)
Codes: KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE (0x0002) at 0x00000000
(address may vary, but usually all but the last two digits are 0); more rarely I will see something like
Sometimes the system will hang for a moment, then freeze with the message "You must restart your computer."
It's possible that I have a hardware problem. This may have showed up here, but somehow the system got back to the correct process without corrupting any of the vital operations this time. I'm dubious about this explanation; if the system watchdog routine was able to pull that off, it should have posted something to a log, and there isn't anything there for that time, and it isn't likely to have happened twice in a row (repeated after force quit) and then worked normally.
Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 9:08 am Post subject: Re: It's not a network printer
MNIce wrote:
Sometimes the system will hang for a moment, then freeze with the message "You must restart your computer."
That is called a "kernel panic" and means that Mac OS X itself is crashing. As you suspected, this usually indicates that there is a hardware issue. The hardware issue may be peripheral devices like printers but many times it is memory or hard disk problems.
The following link has a good explanation of what causes kernel panics and how to troubleshoot them:
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