pacestar
FAQ: Problems and Bugs
Frequently Asked Questions:
  1. What should I do if I identify a bug?
  2. What is diagnostics mode? How do I use it?

Problems and Bugs:
  1. Mapped network drives are not shown in File Save/Open screen
  2. Excessive repainting and delays
  3. Crash on open or printing a diagram.
  4. Cannot load a diagram saved by the program.
  5. Cannot view the online help.
  6. The program crashes when I click on a drop-down menu button.
  7. When printing, only a blank page is produced.
  8. When printing, some objects do not show up on the printout.
  9. The product does not work with some fonts, particularly for Asian languages.
  10. When I start the software, it freezes at the point where the start-up screen is displayed.
  11. Under some circumstances using the Save feature to resave a working diagram to a shared network disk in Windows 2000 does not work.
  12. In low color display modes, lines and text don't always draw in the proper color.
  13. When underlined text is drawn, the underlines sometimes appear broken apart rather than as a continuous line.
  14. Line corners (joins) are not drawn as expected.
  15. JPG files created by PhotoShop and imported into a diagram do not seem to be compatible with the program.


A. What should I do if I identify a bug?
If you run across any function of the software that does not seem correct, from a simple side-effect to a full crash, PLEASE report it to us for investigation.
Click HERE to Report a Bug.

When reporting a bug, please include: It is most helpful to us if you can describe in detail what actions you took leading up to the problem, especially if you can cause the bug each time you try.

If we have difficulty reproducing the bug or otherwise identifying the cause, we may ask you for additional information, possibly including a diagnostics log (see below.)

B. What is diagnostics mode? How do I use it?
Diagnostics mode is a special way to run the program such that all information about what is happening to the software is logged in a file that can later be examined to learn more about the problem.

If you report a bug that we cannot reproduce or properly identify, we may ask you to capture a log file that records the problem as it happens. Creating a log file is very easy.

To create a log file, run the program in diagnostics mode by holding down the SHIFT key as you start it up. Then immediately perform the actions that create the problem. If the program is still running, exit. A log file named DIAGS.LOG should now exist located in the folder where your program is installed. (For example "c:\Program Files\Edge32" for EDGE Diagrammer). Then simply e-mail this file to us at mail@pacestar.com.

1. Mapped network drives are not shown in File Save/Open screen.
This condition seems to be caused by an incompatibility between newer Windows systems and the older Windows common controls that Pacestar products employ. Users have had success resolving the problem using the Windows built-in Program Compatibility Troubleshooter (right click on the program desktop shortcut and select Troubleshoot Compatibility).

The following article may also be helpful:
How to access mapped network drives from the elevated apps

2. Excessive repainting and delays.
In version 6.0, there have been reports that under certain conditions a situation can occur in which the toolbars or style bar redraws continuously, slowing the program to a crawl. We're continuing to investigate the cause of this, but one contributing factor seems to be a combination of a large number of icons and an icon cache that is too small.

We recommend increasing the size of the icon cache. So far this step has proven effective in resolving the problem. One article that describes how to do this appears here:
Changing the Icon Cache Size

3. Crash on open or printing a diagram.
If you experience a crash or erratic behavior when you load a particular diagram or subsequently try to print it, try loading the diagram in 'Safe Mode'.

To open a diagram in Safe Mode, use the File Open screen. Select a file to open and hold down the Control key while clicking on the Open button. The file will open safely discarding all of the data saved for a particular printer driver. You will need to reset printing and page setup settings including paper size and orientation and then resave the diagram.

Please notify us if using safe mode is necessary, or if loading in safe mode does not solve the problem. In either case, there is most likely a bug that we need to be aware of in order to fix.

4. Cannot load a diagram saved by the program.
It's possible that a diagram file can become corrupted and will no longer open in the program. Usually you will get a message like "Error Loading Diagram - Line 1. Not a diagram file."

Files can become corrupted in several ways; by a hard disk error, power spike, or improper shutdown of your computer, by a virus or software bug, or by accident.

Often when we investigate file corruption we find that it is caused by using the program in a certain way with Microsoft Word or a similar program. If you use the file inside a Word document, do not click on the Word image and then do Save As back to the original file name. This sequence is unnecessary and will corrupt the original file.

If you find that you have lost a diagram in this way, feel free to email it to us and we will be happy to attempt to recover it. This is often possible, especially if the corruption is caused by the MS Word scenario above.

Another way to recover a corrupt file if you are handy with text editing is to open the .EDG file in WordPad. If the first two lines of the file are not:
Line 1: "EDGE Diagram File"
Line 2: "Version 4.15" (depending on the version you are running)
Then delete any garbage that is there and replace it with the text above. Then save the file and it should load into the program.

5. Cannot view the online help.
Versions of our products earlier than 4.15 use the WinHelp system which is included with all compatible versions of Windows operating systems. Versions 4.15 and later require the HTML Help system which is included with Internet Explorer 4 and later. You can also download and install the HTML Help viewer (free) from Microsoft's web site: Microsoft HTML Help system.

6. The program crashes when I click on a drop-down menu button.
If you cannot change colors, styles, line thickness, or line patterns without causing a crash (error message and program terminates), it may indicate that some software is installed that is incompatible with the drop-down menu buttons. Any software that manipulates menu displays is a possible culprit. One that we know about is WindowBlinds by Stardoc. You may need to disable the other software's effect on menus or uninstall the software to use our products.

7. When printing, only a blank page is produced.
We occasionally get this report from new users who are not yet accustomed to our layout model (which is probably a good indication that our documentation, operation, or both needs to be improved in this area).

If your diagram looks fine on the screen but you get only a blank page when you print, you have probably positioned your objects on the wrong part of the page. To view your objects in the diagram choose "Zoom" and "All Objects" from the menu. You will see your entire diagram as well as the current page boundaries. The white rectangle represents the portion of your diagram that is on the page. Any part of your diagram that is not over the white rectangle will not be printed. You can move all of your objects by choosing "Select All" from the "Edit" menu and dragging the objects over the page with your mouse.

8. When printing, some objects do not show up on the printout.
One cause of objects being lost when printing was a bug that was identified and fixed in build number 1760 or later of all products. The affect occurred intermittently when printing diagrams containing imported graphics (clip art). Objects drawn following the graphic are occasionally clipped off and text is drawn either too small or not at all. If upgrading to the newest version does not solve the problem please contact us.

There is a property of objects (under the behaviors tab) that can disable an object from being printed or exported. Be sure this property is set correctly for the objects that do not print.

Objects in your diagram may also not print due to a printer driver limitation. When printing a very large diagram (many objects) to an HP printer, you may encounter a driver limit on the number of graphic objects. HP acknowledges that some of their drivers possess such a limit. In NT, 2000, and XP one workaround for this problem is to set a print driver option. In Print Set-up, Under Print Processor, WinPrint choose "Always full raw data."
When printing is unsatisfactory there are several possible work-arounds that may help until the problem can be reported and fixed. One is to print from MS Word (or similar program). Simply Select All and copy your diagram, then Paste it into a MS Word document and print the Word document. Another workaround is to export first to a file (such as BMP or JPG) and then print the file.

9. The product does not work with some fonts, particularly for Asian languages.
This is an incompatibility. Our programs do not yet support MBCS (multibyte character fonts) or Unicode. This means that it is not yet capable of working with many Asian language fonts such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Russian. We are working to fix this as soon as possible.

10. When I start the software, it freezes at the point where the start-up screen is displayed.
This problem is usually caused by a Windows error being reported during the start-up process. Because the program's start-up screen covers the center of the screen, you cannot see the error that Windows is reporting, and until you press the OK button or hit the space bar you cannot continue.

To continue, acknowledge the error by pressing the space bar. If it happens each time you run, try holding down the control key as the program is starting (before it displays the start-up screen.) This will prevent the display of the start-up screen, allowing you to see the Windows error message and fix the problem.

A common cause of this problem was a bug in version 3.5 and earlier which occurred when running as a non-administrator on Windows 2000 when the software was installed by an administrator. It is fixed in V4.0 for all operating systems.

11. Under some circumstances using the Save feature to resave a working diagram to a shared network disk in Windows 2000 does not work.
We believe this problem may be caused by file access permissions in Windows 2000 or NT rather than a bug. It is possible to perceive that you have full rights to a folder but do not. Note that DENY permissions overrule all other ALLOW permissions. So if you appear to have full rights to a file or folder, but you also belong to ANY OTHER GROUP that has deny permissions on it, you will be denied, causing exactly the symptoms reported. To access permissions details, in the folder's Properties/Security, click the Advanced button. In the advanced view of the permissions, all permissions entries are listed, including those inherited from parent objects. This should allow you to spot where the permissions problem came from. Ask your system administrator for help if necessary.

If this does not help, then the workaround is either to save the files locally (not across the network) or to use SaveAs and save to a different file name each time.

12. In low color display modes, lines and text don't always draw in the proper color.
Connectors, text, and figure borders (anything drawn with lines), have to be drawn in a color that is solid on the output device. In the case of a black and white printer, the only solid colors are black and white. On a 16 color video display, there are 16 different solid colors. Windows can create other colors on the screen for fills by dithering (adding patterns of multiple colors) but it cannot do so for lines or text. Therefore, it you choose a dithered color like blue-green and try to use that color as a connector color, the connector will actually be drawn in the nearest solid color (blue or green on the display, black on a black and white printer.) The workaround is to either use a solid color, or use a display device/printer that can display more colors.

13. When underlined text is drawn, the underlines sometimes appear broken apart rather than as a continuous line.
When copying objects to metafiles or cutting and pasting into other programs, underlined words will occasionally display breaks or gaps in the underline between some characters. This is a natural consequence of the way the program positions and formats text to keep it aligned properly with the figures. You can minimize the effect by avoiding scaling the image after the paste, or by setting the "Export full text lines to WMF/EMF" option in Tools Options.

14. Line corners (joins) are not drawn as expected.
Connector lines can have different corner types (also known as joins). These can be rounded, mitered, or beveled. There are a few cases where even after you set a corner type, the line will still be drawn rounded regardless of the type you choose. This is a know deficiency of patterned lines (dashed and dotted). Mitered and beveled corners may not print correctly on your printer either if your printer doesn't support line joins.

15. JPG files created by PhotoShop and imported into a diagram do not seem to be compatible with the program.
When using PhotoShop to create a JPG graphic for importing into a diagram, use the "Save for Web" option.