giving up, asking for refund

[Soquili]

This is a very persistant problem. Normally using Add/Remove Programs and doing an install clears up any problem with Xara applications.

There have been a few times that for some reason or another a member had to resort to running a registry cleaner after an uninstall.

Without having physical access or remote access to your system that is about the only suggestion I can offer at this time. Have you tried a registry cleaner app?

[marse]

Without having physical access or remote access to your system that is about the only suggestion I can offer at this time. Have you tried a registry cleaner app?

Registry cleaners scare the crap out of me. I doubt I'd use one. Any clean uninstall usually involves physically deleting files, doesn't it? I remember Symantec telling me that I needed to do that on one of their insane products.

Where the hell is Red Boiling Springs. Sounds positively...hellacious.

marse

[Soquili]

I agree about using registry cleaning apps. All of them I have tested have issues about removing needed registry entries at one time or another.

It is usually easier to manually go through the registry and remove entries. Going through the list provided by a reg clean app and decide which to allow it to remove takes about the same amount of time.

Red Boiling Springs is in Tennessee. Near the Kentucky border, about 75 miles north east of Nashville.

[steve.ledger]

Pardon me if I missed this, I've read through your posts and not seen any mention of it, but does the same thing happen using any font other than Penultimate Regular.ttf?

You say that you regularly clone your HDD to prevent disk failure?
I assume you mean you fit a brand new Hard Disk and restore XP etc from an image you've originally created? Or do you create a new image everytime before you clone onto a new drive?

Either way, this process has been known to corrupt files, it's not bullet proof especially with NTFS. So there's a chance your font folder is playing up or that particular font is corrupt enough to cause X3D to crash on export.

You could try repairing the font folder with Microsofts TweakUI powertoy or this other freeware utility.

Another area to look at is the HDD itself. Apps crashing on export can be a sympton of not having access to write to the drive or registry. There could be many reasons for this including of course viruses/spyware/malware.

Finally, if possible, I would suggest you install the software on another PC and follow the same processes that you have so far. This way you can at least isolate the problem to the one PC or perhaps the font after all.

Unless someone from Xara recognises the error as a known one, it's going to be a case of a process of elimination I'd suspect.

[marse]

Pardon me if I missed this, I've read through your posts and not seen any mention of it, but does the same thing happen using any font other than Penultimate Regular.ttf?

I've tried exporting using the "default" image that Xara throws up when you first boot. Same result.

You say that you regularly clone your HDD to prevent disk failure?
I assume you mean you fit a brand new Hard Disk and restore XP etc from an image you've originally created? Or do you create a new image everytime before you clone onto a new drive?

I use Acronis to clone my drive and then replace the one in the box with the clone. Nothing else seemed to have been affected. Two weeks and counting.

Another area to look at is the HDD itself. Apps crashing on export can be a sympton of not having access to write to the drive or registry. There could be many reasons for this including of course viruses/spyware/malware.
Again, thanks for the suggestion but I'm a writer and a web designer (and a teacher) - I use various and sundry apps including Photoshop, Image Ready, Word Perfect, Word, Go Live, SwishMax, Flash and on and on - only Xara pukes. Period.

Finally, if possible, I would suggest you install the software on another PC and follow the same processes that you have so far. This way you can at least isolate the problem to the one PC or perhaps the font after all.

Maybe. Won't help me much though - all my other PCs are Win2k I really don't think it's a font issue but I might agree that it's specific to this PC - I just tech support to help me parse the problem.

Unless someone from Xara recognises the error as a known one, it's going to be a case of a process of elimination I'd suspect.

They'd have to contact me first. Something, other than a cursory response asking for more information (which I provided), they've yet to do again.

Thanks for your suggestions.

marse

[handrawn]

if, as now seems apparent, this has never worked, have you tried re-downloading it in case it was corrupted? - trying it on another machine would at least test that out too

[marse]

if, as now seems apparent, this has never worked, have you tried re-downloading it in case it was corrupted? - trying it on another machine would at least test that out too

I actually purchased the CDs because I bought the entire suite that Xara offers. Maybe you're right - I'll try another machine.

What do I have to lose?

Thanks,
marse

[simsmj]

Egg, your X3D file crashes my Xara3D, too, because it is actually a gif image!

Mike

[Egg Bramhill]

That's very strange Mike. I just tested it and it crashed X3D for me as well. It was just a simple file with text. I never converted it to a gif, so why this happened I'm at a loss. I've deleted the original attachment and added a new one. Can you test it for me please?

[simsmj]

Hi, Egg, yes that one works fine, maybe the other was due to a senior moment

I get them all the time, have done for, oh, about five decades?

Mike