My Windows 7 doesn't like actinic, Any ideas

[Jethro]

Hi Jeff.

I had this problem back in August, I had to do a full uninstall and reinstall of the software. You will need to delete the contents of your sites folder, so make sure you have a full backup.

I have switch to windows 7 32bit to get round the problem for the moment. Which is working fine.

Good luck.

[jeffnurse]

Win 7 64 Bit

Hi Jeff.

I had this problem back in August, I had to do a full uninstall and reinstall of the software. You will need to delete the contents of your sites folder, so make sure you have a full backup.

I have switch to windows 7 32bit to get round the problem for the moment. Which is working fine.

Good luck.

Hi Jethro

Thanks for the feedback.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled a few times already without success. Changing to a low resolution worked for a while but now that seems to have stopped for some reason. Very puzzling.

How do you switch to Win 7 32 bit? Mine was preinstalled with 64 bit when I got it. Also it has 4gb RAM and isn't it the case that the 32 bit software can't use all of it?

Thanks
Jeff

[Jethro]

Hi Jeff,

I have swapped machines to one that came with 32bit. It seams to work fine with 1366x768 screen resolution.

I believe your correct about the 3GB Ram part.

[Mike Hughes]

I haven't any experience of Windows 7 but given the symptoms you're experiencing I'd ahve thought the most likely causes are:

1. Graphics Drivers.

Even though it's just Actinic that crashes this could be in response to an old or missing driver. Or even just Actinic trying to use memory that the graphics driver shouldn't be using but turns out that it is.

- It's worth checking you have the latest drivers installed.

2. Memory.

This kind of thing can be caused by faulty or not enough memory. More memory can also help because it can avoid situations where the OS or graphics system and Actinic are trying to use the same memory space. Particularly a problem with Integrated Graphics systems (most laptops). 64 bit W7 will also take up more space and use different memory allocation to 32 bit, again a pointer to memory issues.

- It's worth installing more memory
- It's also worth trying replacement memory in case you have a bad stick (although this should show up with other aplications - not just Actinic).

Personally, I'd check the drivers and install more memory. I know it's not so simple on a laptop but I would have thought 4GB is really on the low side for 64 bit Windows 7 and Actinic. Particularly with Integrated Graphics.

Mike

PS. Would a mod please correct the spelling of this thread's title - "Dosent" makes my brain hurt every time I see it. Thanks. (just for you Mike)

- Edit: Thanks. Even 'doesnt' would have been OK, but 'does not' works fine. Now perfect - Thank you.

PPS. There's a good explaination of Windows 7 and memory issues here: http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=49785 This was for V10 but it could be worth checking memory usage in V11 as well.

[ton]

Title typo aside we are 3 pages into this thread and I still can’t use any version of actinic on my new laptop which was bought especially for it. No feedback from Actinic (so much for the support package) and I’m clearly not the only one with this problem. Reverting to old versions of software or using different computers is only a temporary fix for everyone. It is somewhat reasonably to expect that if you buy a new up to date computer that new software will run on it especially as the only programme that has issues on this laptop is Actinic. I don’t know and understand much about ram/memory but extra ram or purchasing 32bit is not an option.

TON

[Benjamin Dyer]

Hey Ton,

11.0.1 was just released, can you try that and let me know how you get on please. I'll look into the support ticket when I get your feedback.

Fingers crossed.

Ben

[ton]

Nope, clangs on the first item i select and then crashes and creates a .dmp file when I try to save any changes.

TON

[NormanRouxel]

Ton:

This looks far more like a hardware problem than an Actinic one.

I've got Actinic V11 on 3 different Windows 7 64 bit systems (2 Professional, 1 Home Premium) and have worked on 37 different sites on these without any repeatable crashes.

If your problem was with Windows 7 in general, this Forum would be swamped with complaints. It's not, and the tiny number with similar issues also seem to be hardware related. Changing video resolution to fix something is far more likely to be re-arranging the hardware memory used and thus skipping dodgy RAM.

There is a slight possibly of additional rogue software (real-time backups, security software are the obvious ones to consider) messing things up but everything you've said points to a single faulty machine.

[ton]

That might very well be the case and I fully see that for many it is working without problems, but the problem being I cant go back to Dell and say oh my laptop dosent work so fix it because Actinic wont run on it and by the way every other programme that I use works fine.

I have to start somewhere with problem solving and the obvious is the programme thats crashing.

TON

[Steve G Griggs]

I would agree with Norman.
I have personally found Actinic performance varies noticeably between some machines, and seems to be related to things like quality of memeory, and keeping hardware drivers up to date.
Memory not being released when applications/processes have finished is an ongoing windows problem, all versions of windows are noticably erratic when supposedly freeing up memory when an application reduces it's need for memory.
Problems like this can also often indicate a faulty memory stick.
Memory not being released when Actinic finishes a particular process is often down to windows memory management, more so since V10 came on the scene.

[jeffnurse]

Ton:

This looks far more like a hardware problem than an Actinic one.

I've got Actinic V11 on 3 different Windows 7 64 bit systems (2 Professional, 1 Home Premium) and have worked on 37 different sites on these without any repeatable crashes.

If .

Hi Norman Thanks for your input and to Mike too.

My problem is with a new Sony Vaio 4gb RAM laptop Win 7 64 bit with both integrated and separate graphics - it crashes with both and with my site and with the default site "out of the box". This happens when I click on any product

Quite possibly it is graphic related - but having bought a new laptop specifically for working with Actinic I am reluctant to spend more on new memory just to see. Although - if that was a proven solution I would happily invest.

Are any of your Win 7 64 bit machines - laptops and if so, what graphics do they use?

With respect to Actinic's team - they have accessed my machine on two occasions and haven't found the cause either. But that doesn't help me - or others by the sound of it.

I have checked and rechecked the graphics drivers and a new one was downloaded and installed just this Monday - but with no improvement.

Thanks
Jeff

[pendragon]

This is an interesting and potentially worrying thread.

I have purchased a brand new HP Laptop with Windows 7 64-bit, 4GB RAM, Intel i5 2.40 GHz processor.

Out of the box with nothing else installed except for Norton Internet Security and as of today Actinic V11.0.1

Just started to play around with it and it has already crashed twice on me this afternoon.

[leehack]

To be fair anything with Norton on it should be treated with caution, until i was rid of that control freak rubbish, i'd personally not look at anything else causing the problem.

[NormanRouxel]

Jeff:

My Laptop is a dinky Acer Aspire Timeline AS1810TZ-4008 11.6-Inch Olympic Edition Laptop with integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD.

However that's not really relevant as it's not got any hardware faults or software conflicts.

Lee:

All my systems happily use Norton Internet Security (V18.6.0.29). Norton is no longer the resource hog it was a few years back.

I used to use ZoneAlarm Internet Security but abandoned it a some years ago after a few bad updates from ZoneLabs caused lots of trouble.

Tara:

Dell have a good technical support team. Contact them and see if they have any hardware diagnostics they can run. Or ask them if they could talk you through swapping the memory modules around or running with just one (if you have 2 installed). Many laptops have 2 memory modules, accessible under an easy to open panel. If you suspect memory problems, then running with just one then just the other may isolate a bad module.

[leehack]

Fair comment Norman if they've finally booked its ideas up. Personally for me, i am way too scarred by that software to ever use it again. I shudder at the thought. I'm a Kaspersky fan at the moment and have been for a few years now.