X5 CWYW Causing Word 2010 to Freeze

EndNote EndNote General
1

Hello all,

I’ve deleted an old post about “Invalid Class String” because the problem seems to manifest in a worse state.

When I try to change a reference, say, delete one of EndNote’s hyperlinks with the delete key while Cite While You Write is active in Word, the problem starts.  Since EndNote is running it complains with “Server Busy: cannot complete action because xxx.docx is busy.  Switch to, retry, cancel.”  At this point Word doesn’t move or respond to anything b/c it seems to be waiting for user input from a popup that doesn’t exist.  

This is with EndNote x5, Word 2010 and Windows 7 with UAC on the absolute lowest setting; I’m an administrator and the EndNote Registry seems to be set to Everyone can access.  Any help would be much appreciated as this destroys a lot of work on both programs.

Bryan 

2

 This isn’t common.  I use the same combination, and don’t have the issue.  Either there is something wrong with the installation (an older version is still lurking somewhere), the document may have a corruption (does it happen with any document, or just a specific document), you have tried to custom install way too many styles, or the moon is in the wrong phase. 

Does another computer with endnote installed freeze with the document?  Have you walked around the computer three times, chanting  – okay, just kidding. But have you unformated the document and select all (ctrl A) and then  unlinked any residual fields - (ctrl shift f9) to clean it up and then tried reformating?  (removed corrupted citations)

Have you tried contacting tech support?

3

@leanne wrote:

 This isn’t common.  I use the same combination, and don’t have the issue.  Either there is something wrong with the installation (an older version is still lurking somewhere), the document may have a corruption (does it happen with any document, or just a specific document), you have tried to custom install way too many styles, or the moon is in the wrong phase. 

 

Does another computer with endnote installed freeze with the document?  Have you walked around the computer three times, chanting  – okay, just kidding. But have you unformated the document and select all (ctrl A) and then  unlinked any residual fields - (ctrl shift f9) to clean it up and then tried reformating?  (removed corrupted citations)

 

Have you tried contacting tech support?

I am getting exactly the same problem when attempting to insert a citation using X5 and word 2010. I get the dialog box that word is busy. On cancelling or retrying the action, word then freezes indenfinitely and need to be closed. Grateful for any solutions. Thanks

4

If it helps, the error (or endnote) frequenly freezes when the reference accidentaly gets “eaten” by the Word2010 equation editor that it’s sitting directly beside; this seems to throw everything for a loop.  

(I’m guessing there’s still security issues with CWYW…)

5

I have exactly the same problem. I was just about to report it when I saw this thread. The only difference is I am using Word 2007. It looks like it is not Office or system problem but EndNOte itself!!!

I have installed EndNOte X5.0.1

What am I to do now?  I am still waiting for word 2007 response. It happens when I copy paste block of text which I believe contains EndNOte citations. It happned to me second time in two different documents. I don’t believe it is office or system issue.

6

Hi,

I also have this problem with Word 2010 and Endnote 5.0.1 (Build 5774) on Windows 7. The machine is 64bit, but I am running 32bit office.

When I try and copy and paste text with a citation reference Endnote throws a server is busy error on the paste and Word freezes and I have to reboot to use Word again. It says press Switch to… to solve it but it doesn’t work. So I press cancel and the message says caller was rejected by callee.

I tried turning off enable instant formating in the CWYW preferences but that didn’t help.

Also I can trigger the error message by cutting something with a reference and then trying to undo that action in Word.

I just started using Endnote. This is the first paper I am trying to write with it. I downloaded the software from the website and bought a student CD and used that serial number in the downloaded version. I am a student.

So as a temporary fix can I make all the citations in my word doc no longer active links (aka convert the citations to plain text)?

Thanks. God Bless.

Aaron.

7

I am not sure but I have perhaps found the way to eliminate the problem, perhaps partially only.

First of all, in EndNote X5, I turned on a function to open EndNote X5 when Word 2007 is executed. Secondly, before doing anything, I just make sure that the current files open in EndNote and in Word are  linked in terms of database in EndNote and and references in word.

If all these is done, then I think the problem may disappear. Don’t take it as a ultimate solution but I hope it will work for you as well.

Regards

8

Product support has asked whether or not this can be reproduced in a new Word document with the sample library Thomson provides.  Has anyone tested whether this is the case?  I’ve been busy of late, but I hope to test this out eventually!

Bryan

9

I’m having the exact same problem.  Word 2010 and EndNote X5.01.  Going back to my previous version.  Can’t get any work done with my document freezing every 5 minutes.  Hope EndNote can fix this or they will lose at least one 14 year customer… me.  

10

I have a user that is having constant crashes with Endnote X5.0.1 and Word 2003 on Windows 7 64-bit. This user has both Word 2003 & Word 2007 installed (and completely switching past Word 2003 is out of the question…). But he’s finding Endnote to be completely unusable at the moment.

At least up until this week, it had been working fine. I’m not sure what happened, but now Endnote locks Word up pretty regularly and if autorecover doesn’t recover the files, the user can lose lots of work. (I have suggested saving more often, but it’s hard to change old habits.)

The user is already pretty grumpy about even having to be on X5, as his XP computer had Ofrfice 2003 and EndNote 8 and “worked great for years”. I only recently (Decemberish?) convinced him to go to EndNote X5 as he had been having lots of trouble with EndNote 8, Word 2003/7 & Windows 7 64-bit. Is there anything I can do to make EndNote X5 more stable? Is this a problem that TR is aware of and working on?

(Also, as a side-note, I managed to type my username wrong… is it possible to change it to ‘raithjr’ rather than ‘riathjr’? My name being spelled wrong isn’t a bit deal, but I couldn’t find a way to change it on my own (or delete and recreate the account on my own)).

Thanks in advance…

Edit:// As a note, My user said that the problem occurs for him when  he copies a block of text that has an Endnote citation in it and pastes it elsewhere, which is what someone else above mentioned. I’m testing with a new document now, but as I am not a user of EndNote, I might not be meeting the right conditions.

Edit2:// One thing I’ve noticed is that, with a new document, I can insert random citations from the user’s EndNote library fine. I can cut/paste the paragraphs just fine. When I try to do the same with the user’s Word file that he has been having trouble with, copying and pasting takes an extra long time. I also start seeing progress bars from EndNote which mention “assigning hyperlinks”. The user’s document has many more citations than my test file. Just now, I went to cut/paste a paragraph in a different order and Word has frozen. I see a message that says: “Server busy. This action cannot be completed because the “[file.doc] - Microsoft Word” porgram is busy. choose “Switch To” and correct the problem.” There are three options: “Switch To”, “Retry”, and “Cancel”. The first two do nothing; ‘Cancel’ brings up a box that says “c:\program files (x86)\endnote X5\Endnote… Call was rejected by callee.”

It almost seems as if the little right-click menu that Word 2003 brings up when you’ve copied text to paste it somewhere else is causing the lock-up.

Per the suggestion above, I’ve checked the “Open EndNote when starting Word” and “Close EndNote when leaving word” boxes in the EndNote preferences in Word. While I still see the “Assigning hyperlinks” progress bar that holds Word up for a second or three, I haven’t been able to make it crash yet. I don’t believe the problem is fixed, but if this can let the user work, we can handle it for now.

11

I suspect the problem has to do with Endnote not knowing which Word program it is linked with at any one time, and if trying to access the wrong one, and it either isn’t open, or can’t be opened, or is “busy” or something in that vein, things hang up.  I suggest that you go straight to tech support and see if they can work with you to solve the problem.  There are too many parameters for us other users to even start helping with.

http://www.endnote.com/support/entechform.asp  and you can either phone (my recommendation) or submit via the web. 

– on a side note, Endnote8 was a horrible version! Even I skipped that one. 

12

Hi All,

I started just saving my Word docs as plain text “via the endnote option ‘convert citations and bibliography’ in CWYW” anytime there started being lag when saving. This saves a new doc which I rename as (draft 2, or whatever the draft is I am working on). Then I open that saved plain text draft and keep on working. This solution works for me. This is not how EndNote is supposed to work, but it actually works out pretty well for me.

BTW it was happening in new docs or old docs whenever there was too many references from multiple sources. There would start to be a lag and then eventually would freeze up (as per initial post).

Thanks. God Bless.

Aaron.

13

I eventually heard back from TR support on this issue. Their response (in essence): Don’t copy/paste formatted citations. When working with your document, work on it in the unformatted manner, then format when you want to see it at the end.

As a side-note to that, since changing my user’s settings to “Open EndNote when Word Opens” as well as “Close EndNote when Word Closes”, I haven’t heard from him. I highly recommend anyone with EndNote crashing set these settings to see if the stability of the software improves for them as well.

14

On top od these, have you tried to work with separate documents and then merge them in one? I am working to finish my Thesis now, which is in separate documents. I’ve just tried to insert all of them in one master document. Well, I don’t recommend it. In my case, this is a 100% crash every time.

15

ZikO wrote:

 

 I am working to finish my Thesis now, which is in separate documents. I’ve just tried to insert all of them in one master document. Well, I don’t recommend it. In my case, this is a 100% crash every time.

 

To clarify your process and the crash occurrence, were the citations already formatted in each document before combining them into the master doc?  Or did you unformat the citations for each separate document first; merged the documents into one; then formatted the citations in the master doc?

If you did the former and experienced a crash, have you tried the latter?

16

This is becoming a nightmare - I’m working on a very large document (for my dissertation) and I periodically have the exact same problem described by the OP. I’m also running the latest version of EndNote X5 with Word 2010 on a Windows 7 machine. This afternoon, EndNote has suddenly decided to start crashing on me and now I can’t work on my document without that happening.

After reading this thread, I’ve noticed a few things:

  1. I had opened up a second Word document and used the Equation Editor - the problem seemed to start in my original document shortly after that.

  2. The problem now occurs every time after I cut a sentence that contains a formatted citation and then try to paste it in a different location. The crash occurs when I try to paste the sentence. At that point, I receive and error message in Word that states,

“The action cannot be completed because the “XXXX.docx” program is busy. Choose “Switch To” and correct the problem.” 

  1. Clicking “Switch To” then results in an even more useless message - this one appears to be generated by EndNote, “Call was rejected by callee.”

The only way to shut down Word is by using the Task Manager. Also, after shutting down EndNote, I sometimes have to go into Task Manager and use “End Process” in Task Manager too.

I’ve used EndNote for several years and this is now getting very frustrating. Any ideas?

17

This is definitely a bug in the program. By following the directions provided above, change the user settings (Tools > CWYW > Format Bibliography then go to the “Instant Formatting” tab, click on “Turn Off”). After that, shut down EndNote, reopen it, then follow the same procedure except that I now click on “Turn On”). EndNote will then work with MS Word for quite some time before everything freezes up again.

Hope this help but this is definitely a bug that I can replicate on my computer.

18

@jlamarca wrote:

… I’m also running the latest version of EndNote X5 with Word 2010 on a Windows 7 machine… 

 

 

Are you running X5 with the issued patch which upgrades the program to X5.0.1? (Read info and download at EndNote support site: http://www.endnote.com/support/ENX501_WinMac_updater.asp)

Also suggest notifying Tech Support: http://www.endnote.com/support/entechform.asp

19

I am also getting this problem.

Win XP 32 bit

Endnote X5.01

Word 2010

Crashing word docs when trying to copy/paste sections of text with formatted citations in them. I have also started using unformatted citations for editing but am about to start compiling my thesis from multiple docs and am very nervous.

IMO it is completly unacceptable for TR to shrug their shoulders about this highly replicable bug that is affecting multiple types of systems. Sort it out TR, and while your at it deal with the ridiculous inability to use the back function in word when citations are moved.

I note that Mendelay are about to produce a new version that does exactly this so I may have to move there. Large companies like TR think they don’t need to provide support as their site licences will just keep renewing. They need to wake up to the fact that there are alternatives to their buggy and non-intuative program that is still stuck in about 1995.

20

Have you guys tried the option “Open EndNote when Word opens?” That seems to have fixed the problem for my user, though “fixed” and “not hearing from him in a while” aren’t always 100% synonymous…