Sarthak Singhal

I've just bought Fireworks CS4 and it seems completely unstable. In addition to crashing regularly the behaviour of the application is also very erratic.

I'm very disappointed at this release and expected something much tighter from Adobe.

If you are on a Mac I suggest cleaning your font caches. Whenever Fireworks CS3 got in a funk for me, that helped a lot.

Thanks Dan for the suggestion. Hope it solves some problems for Justin.

Justin,
I recommend you to post some work flows where you find the application unstable.

That seems a way we can start to isolate the issues.

Hello Sarthak,I'm sorry, but this Software is a pure dissapointment for me.

Objects align different on the screen after ungrouping, 9-scale slicing symbols behave unpredictable, lately I undid an operation and FWCS 4 sended me around 10 steps into the past, redo (of course) was impossible, so my work was lost. Not to mention the frequent crashes and the text rendering-issues which are another story (why must a 12px verdana, unaliased, be positioned outside of its text-box???).

Yes I could nail down every single bug I ran into after working 1(!) day with FW CS4, and send example files and descriptions to adobe. But I have to earn a living, not to betatest software I already payed for. This are not exceptional bugs that occur under certain circumstances. These are bugs everybody will run into under normal conditions after a real short time, and every beta-texter should have (and I'm sure has) seen them. In the boards a lot of bugs are attributed to the new text-rendering-engine. Maybe. But I also run into a bunch of bugs where no text operation is involved, so for me its kind of unlikely that the new text-rendering engine is the only cause.

Most freelancers and agencys I know already switched back to CS3.

Hi Dirk,

I would request you to post specific issues for me to investigate them.

If you wish you could send me a mail as well with all the issues faced by you.

Posting it here might help others users of Fireworks to comment on the issue.

Thanks
Sarthak

hello
am trying firefox cs4 and there is annoying bug - when u work with text block /line-height 150%/ blue border is moving

http://img408.imageshack.us/my.php?image=firefoxcs4bugjc3.png

For the benefit of people visiting my blog, I will highlight the bugs sent to me by Dirk.

1. When a bitmap is inside a 9 slice enabled symbol and the symbol is scaled in both directions, the bitmap is scaled in all both directions even when the guides are placed such that to exclude the bitmap from scaling in one direction.

2.Blend modes inside a symbol are not respected when a user comes back to the main canvas.

3. Masked vector object when converted to 9 slice disabled symbol and a glow filter is added to it, scaling it causes a change in object attributes. The current workaround for this bug is to enable 9 slice scaling in the symbol.

4. A psd file was crashing Fireworks, although I was able to open it on a mac and win without any issue.

I want to thank Dirk for highlighting the issues. Investigation will be done for all of them.

Hi Dave,

We have seen the user running into such an issue. It is under investigation.

Currently to solve it and let the blue border bound the text just double click inside the blue border.

The text might get moved around some pixels and might need some re-alignment.

Thanks

thx for reply, am sorry .. i mean fireworks, not firefox ;)

In case any of Fireworks CS4 user is facing issues with the software, I would recommend that they write down scenarios where they are facing the issues.

Talking abstractly about the stability of the application will make it even harder for us to pin point the issues and improve them.

next bug - when you selecting transparent color from optimize panel cursor turn from picker into arrow ... i want to buy fireworks but this bugs make me sad

Hi Dave,

I am not sure if I follow the bug mentioned by you. Please confirm.

When the mouse is hovered onto the transparent color box in the color picker, it changes the cursor shape to arrow.

This is the case with all the places from where color picker set pops up. It is the same as in CS3 as well.

Thanks

cursor bug:
select tab optimize, click on PNG8 format, select index transparency - click on "Add color to transparency" And now cursor is correctly change to picker and when u move with it about 50px cursor change to arrow - this is the BUG

Having the exact same problems as those mentioned here.

This is worse than the beta release I tried.

I'm running OSX10.5.5 on an Intel iMac.

Due to problems installing and serial number issues (another massive Adobe problem) I had to un-install CS3 to get CS4 to work (this was the solution after a 3.5 hour phone call to Adobe support).

I use FW a large part of my time in this job - not having it work correctly is causing complete havoc.

Does anyone know if re-installing CS3 will create any serious problems? The rest of the CS4 package is great.

Hi Nikachu

• Multiple people have reported the sudden undo and no redo possibility. Will it be possible for you to share more information on it like the scenario/work flow being exercised when you ran into the bug. Can you check the History panel and check if that also does not help in redoing. Also ensure in the preferences the Undo steps are set to a big value with the default being set to 200 in Fireworks CS4.
• The screen going blank happens for any file even if it has less objects? Can you give a more insight to the work being done with Fireworks?
• Can you share a screenshot for this scenario? Are you working at high zoom?
• The fill of the vector object not filling it completely is quite weird to me. Are you using primitve vector shapes like rectangle, ellipse, polygon or other objects created using joins/intersect etc? When you nudge the object, does it affect the fill?
• Font and the blue bounding box around it mis-aligning is a major issue which we has observed post CS4 release and we are at the moment trying to give users some workaround before a concrete plan for it can be finalized. If you run into such a situation, the quick painful solution is to double click inside the blue box and the mis-aligned text will jump back into the box.
• The object required multiple clicks to be selected is now a known problem at our end and we re investigating it.

Sometimes installing and serial numbers can cause a pain. I generally dont mix installations amongst versions. Incase of issues I also use the same cleanup scripts as available at adobe.com. The scenario I follow is to install the complete CS3 first and then install complete CS4. Then I use whichever versions suits me better. This has not caused any problems for me till now.

http://blogs.adobe.com/sarthaksinghal/2008/11/fireworks_cs4_bug_fixes_part_2.html

Hi - thanks for the response.

Adobe told me that I couldn't install CS3 and CS4 at the same time - hence the complete uninstall/reinstall. It took about 6 hours, and I've been left with the almost unusable Fireworks CS4.

I've been using FW for 10 years and this is the first version I've had issues with - please, please, please get it fixed! If I can be any help tracking down the bugs let me know - following on from my previous post here are some screenshots and a few other issues...

Here is a screenshot of the 'blank page' when opening a Fireworks file and going to another program while it loads in the background:
http://www.icon-tact.com/devzone/fwcs4/blankscreen.png

Here is an example of the 'fill' not really filling the vector shape (this is very annoying as the only way to fix it is to draw the shape from scratch). The shape was part of a symbol, but doesn't display properly whether it is left as a symbol, broken apart, grouped or ungrouped.
http://www.icon-tact.com/devzone/fwcs4/badfill.png
http://www.icon-tact.com/devzone/fwcs4/badstrokes.png

Regarding the undo/redo issues - it's only happened a coupe of times. I've got 'undo' set to 200 steps (with 4Gb or Ram this shouldn't be a huge issue). There didn't seem to be anything I did differently when it happened, so I don't know how to recreate it.

'Double clicking' on a text box that the text has 'dropped out of' is not easy - sometime the text box is hundreds of pixels away from the text and if there are groups of objects, it's almost impossible to find the right text box. One thing I have noticed is that if you view the whole doc as a 'wireframe' (Apple+K), the text that has 'fallen out' of the textbox doesn't show up ANYWHERE on the document.
http://www.icon-tact.com/devzone/fwcs4/missingtext.png

Also - here is a host of other less important issues (but bugs none-the-less).

Radio buttons don't allow for any text - adding more than one word creates multiple lines. Stretching the 'label' to fit the text, just stretches the whole images.
http://www.icon-tact.com/devzone/fwcs4/badradio.png

Editing a symbol 'in place' and coming back out, moves the text from the position it is in within the symbol

If a grouped object has text in it, everything jumps out of place when it is ungrouped

Alt+arrow keys no longer duplicates an object - I've had to create a keyboard pref to fix this

While editing a symbol, I clicked on 'symbol properties' and my mouse cursor disappeared. I could still select and move objects but couldn't see the cursor. I had to save and relaunch FW to get it back again.

Backspace doesn't work in Leopard's 'Help' menu when typing.

I have experienced soooo many problems since upgrading. Just now the program crashed and has corrupted the file (that I had saved numerous times!) When I went to re-open the file it was named as '00000002'. I tried to open it but it said that an internal error had occurred. I have just lost 3 hours work! Will someone please fix these problems! It seems to me that this software shouldn't have been released, the people who decided it was ready for the market should be liable for all the hours and money lost by the people using it. Among many other things when the start up box comes up as you launch the program, when you click on a recent Item to open it, fireworks crashes every time. I avoid using it now, but why have it there if its not functioning?

I will now spend my Friday night trying to re-do the work that I have lost - not impressed

Hi Marieke,

I am sorry for the issues witnessed by you. I also acknowledge the presence of such issues in CS4 version. These issues are being seen by multiple users but the exact steps for the issue has been hard for us to nail down.

The file '00000002' being referred by you is the temporary file which is generated before saving the contents on the actual Fireworks png file. If you had been saving the file regularly, the file should have some objects instead of loosing all the objects. I understand the frustration that you are facing with loosing so much of work.

Can you let us know of all the issues that are being faced by you? From the earlier comment post I have found 2 issues.
1. Crash while saving the file
2. Recent Items document is causing another crash

It will be really nice if you could send me the clear steps which are causing all the issues for you in Fireworks CS4 version.By steps I mean the objects you were working on while the error/crash/issue was encountered.

Thanks

Thanks for pointing out the selection bug... this is a huge pain having to click twice.

Also, when I Export (applekey-shift-x) one file with multiple files open, sometimes it opens the export window with a different file, instead of the one I am working. I have to click on the file I"m working in and try it a couple of times before it lets me export the file I want.

Hi Tim,

The selection bug is a huge problem which I have also faced on occasions and just breaks the design work flow.

The export issue being reported by you is another issue which seems to have the same roots.

Thanks for emphasizing on the bug.

I have been using Fireworks CS4 and it is a

BIG DISAPPOINTMENT!

This new release has so many bugs and I can't beleive it was released.

Adobe better get on the ball!

I have been using Fireworks since Version 2 and never encountered this many bugs. Fireworks is a great application and Adobe should give it the attention it deserves!

It seems that Macromedia took more care with their products.

WAKE UP ADOBE!

Hi Jeff,

I know there are quite a few bugs in the application.

Fireworks is slowly gaining its due and I am hopeful that in the times to come it will be a much talked about application from Adobe.

For the issues you have been facing can you enlist some of them so that we can investigate further into its causes?

I'm running the CS4 Master Collection (student version) on a Mac and can't seem to even get Fireworks to open on my Mac (OSX 10.5)... It boots the yellow splash screen, but whereas it would usually say "Initializing" or something of the sort. Instead, no text appears in the splash box and the application hangs for a minute, before quitting itself. The standard Mac error report box is shown, then a separate Adobe one pops up. I've reported the error each time (which is EVERY time) I've tried to boot the program.

Could it be a custom font?

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?forumid=14&catid=193&threadid=1402325&enterthread=y

Seems like they're having a similar issue.

If that IS the case, I'll be seriously annoyed given I have several hundred custom fonts on my system... :(

- David

P.S. Sarthak... You're doing a smashing job monitoring the comments and I hate to be a bore. If you *could* possibly e-mail me when a response is posted, I'd be greatful!

Hi David,

It seems like the same issue which you are referring to. I feel that on a Mac machine it should be easier to resolve.

Just open the Apple FontBook app and try to find all the corrupted fonts through it. You can even disable some of them to verify.

Once the fonts have been disabled or uninstalled, launching Fireworks should work now.

Let us know if it worked for you.

Thanks