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PDF Drivers

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    PDF Drivers

    I purchased and installed Alpha Five v5.0 around the first of September. The first time I ran the program, it started loading, then stopped and gave me a list of errors:
    "PDF Driver failed to load with error. The specified port is unknown." Then, under that line, the same thing with the HTML, RTF and Text drivers. You hit OK and the program continues loading and seems to work, with the exception of the PDF, etc features.
    To keep the story short, I called Alpha help line, was told to try the lastest patch. I did. Still does not load. Called help again. This time Gedi at the help line said he would send a script to run. I sent the results, but long time later no response.

    I tried an reinstall, latest patch, still no good. Then an un-intall, then re-install and then the latest patch. Still no good.

    I have a Gateway laptop running Windows ME. Stand-alone, NO network. Am on AOL. Have NOT tried another computer.
    Don't seem to have any problem with other programs.

    I noticed lots of other people are having trouble with this also.

    Any help in getting this feature to work would be appreciated.

    James


    #2
    RE: PDF Drivers

    What OS are you using?
    Aaron Brown
    Alpha Software Development Team

    Comment


      #3
      RE: PDF Drivers

      I'm having the exact same problem and running windows XP.

      Selwyn sent me some scripts to run and report the outcomes. I did that, but Selwyn is out of town.

      So, hopefully, this will be fixed soon as it seems Alpha is "on it" and there is a growing number of us having this problem.

      Please feel free to ask my any further questions that will identify similarities so we can track down this problem.

      Tom

      Comment


        #4
        RE: PDF Drivers

        Hi, James. Yes, you have run into a *big* problem with Alpha Five version 5. I, along with many others, have exactly the same problem. With me it occurs with Windows XP. Obviously it is not confined to this OS though. I have exactly the same symptoms as you describe, the PDF driver won't load at A5v5 startup and then I cannot output any report in PDF format. For me this is a MAJOR problem because I am totally dependent on the PDF format for all my reporting. I am *extremely* disappointed that AlphaSoftware will NOT acknowledge that this is a problem that they need to fix. A simple: "Hey, yes. We know we have a problem here and will fix it as soon a we are able" would suffice. But no, nothing. I have tried to follow this problem up with the PDF driver supplier, Amyuni. But they have their head in the sand too. 8-(

        Comment


          #5
          RE: PDF Drivers

          To All:
          I had somewhat the opposite problem.
          I have the full version of Adobe Distiller installed on my computer.
          By using this I can print any report in Alpha5v4, Excel, Word or any other application to a PDF.
          When I installed the latest version of Alpha5v5, Adobe distiller stopped working.The PDF in Alpha5v5 worked fine.

          I uninstalled Adobe Distiller-ran regedit and removed all references to Adobe distiller from the registery and then re installed Adobe Distiller. Applied the patch for Windows XP and all is well again.
          It seem like there might be a conflict between the real adobe driver and the Alpha PDF driver.
          Charlie Crimmel

          Comment


            #6
            RE: PDF Drivers

            I believe we have acknowledged this problem many times. The problem is, we have never had a reliable way of reproducing it.

            We are working on it, but until we have more details on what could be causing the problem, we can't fix it.
            Aaron Brown
            Alpha Software Development Team

            Comment


              #7
              RE: PDF Drivers

              Just to confirm that this is not a universal problem... I have had no problems at all with the PDF functionality with A5 & XP PRO. The PDF drivers installed properly, load every time and work exactly as they should. There must be "something" unique among those systems that are experiencing the PDF problems. Good luck. I'm sure it's frustrating... but could be tricky to diagnose. The folks sharing that problem might try getting together offline and compare systems, hardware, installed software and general settings.

              Kevin Anderson

              Comment


                #8
                RE: PDF Drivers

                I had simmilar problems with both A5 V4.5 and 5.0. The solution seems to be to set the compatability mode for the Alpha 5 aplication to Windows 2000.

                Comment


                  #9
                  RE: PDF Drivers

                  OK, let me paraphrase what you seem to be saying. Because Alpha Software cannot reproduce the problem they can't fix it. Right? Here's an analogy or two. Someone runs into the back of my car and damages the bodywork. I take it into the repair shop. The man there says, well it's not a common problem and, I'm sorry, until you can reproduce this problem we are not going to fix it for you. Hmmm. And another. An aircraft has an intermittent problem with its undercarriage not deploying. The pilot reports the problem. The engineering people say, well we've tried to reproduce the problem but we can't so we cannot fix it. So to the pilot they say, well wait until the aircraft crashes and burns and people on board are killed and then we'll know we have a problem that needs to be fixed. Sorry if I appear flippant but I'm trying to make a point.
                  The people who are affected by the PDF driver problem have done as much as they can to identify the cause of the problem. We have tried re-installation of A5v5, that doesn't work. We will do anything else reasonable to try and achieve a resolution to this problem. However, we can do only so much. To Alpha Software I say - please take ownership of this problem. Please tel us, your customers, that you are committed to getting it fixed.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    RE: PDF Drivers

                    I am not using Adobe Distiller but I am using pdfFactory.

                    Any have any compatibility issues with pdfFactory and XP and Alpha?

                    I am using Acrobat Reader. Anyone had any issues with this and XP and Alpha?

                    I'd sure like to be able to boot A5V5 with having to waite for the pdf error message.

                    Thanks

                    Tom

                    Comment


                      #11
                      RE: PDF Drivers

                      Thomas:
                      As I stated earlier, I am running Acrobat Distiller.
                      My problems seem to have been solved by reinstalling Acrobat.

                      I also have Acrobat Reader installed

                      Both versions must have the latest patch from adobe to run correctly with XP.
                      If not the addins for excel and word will crash the programs.

                      I do not get any errors when booting V5

                      charlie crimmel

                      Comment


                        #12
                        RE: PDF Drivers

                        PDF Factory, Alpha and XP on mine. No problems.
                        For those not using PDF Factory, your missing a sweet little package. It's by the makers of Fineprint, which also rocks, and has been mentioned on this board previously.
                        -Kevin

                        Comment


                          #13
                          RE: PDF Drivers

                          Brett,

                          Your analogies are off. If you bring your car to a shop and tell them it runs rough once in a while, but it runs fine while it is there, they probably are not going to be able to fix it. They can check some stuff that could potentially cause the problem, but if it doesn't act up while your car is there, they may not be able to fix it. If your car is smashed, the body shop can clearly see the defect and fix it.

                          We are committed to providing the best software that we can, which means resolving issues such as yours. The difficulty is that it we cannot see the defect for ourselves, it is almost impossible for us to fix.

                          We understand your frustration and want to resolve the PDF problems. We're not trying to avoid the issue and hope it goes away. As soon as we can reliably reproduce the problem, something we have not yet been able to do, we will fix it and release a patch.

                          -Lenny

                          Lenny Forziati
                          Vice President, Internet Products and Technical Services
                          Alpha Software Corporation

                          Comment


                            #14
                            RE: PDF Drivers

                            Other questions:

                            What other software starts up when you start your machine?

                            What other printer drivers do you have installed on your machine?

                            Did you disable your anti-virus software when installing and reinstalling the software?

                            What kind video drivers does your machine use? How is your machine set for video acceleration?

                            All of these things (and more) have combined in unholy combinations in the past to cause problems of various types for certain individuals.

                            How about trying to prevent as many other pieces of software as possible from starting up when your machine runs, remove other printer drivers, slow down video acceleration, and reinstalling A5v5 and seeing if that makes a difference. If it does, add bits and pieces back in until you find what causes the conflict.

                            A pain? You bet. But imagine someone else trying to sort out potential conflicts when they can't do these things to your machine to find the problem (or eliminate those things that aren't a problem).

                            Comment


                              #15
                              RE: PDF Drivers

                              I'll second that Kevin.

                              I've had both packages installed for a couple of years and they've never caused any problems.

                              I'm using XP Pro and A5v5.

                              --Bob

                              Comment

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