Dear all,
I’m having persistent issues with the very basic processes and functions of Studio that make working with it impossible, and I would appreciate it if anybody could shed some more light on as to what to do to avoid those nagging problems.
I had several of the most notorious issues with Studio even while using the trial version (such as “Object reference not set.... “,etc., just so you get an idea), but somehow I managed to resolve most of them using advice already posted on proz.com or an unofficial Studio support group on yahoo, or alternatively using my own intuition. I've bought and installed the paid version now, but I'm experiencing some of the same nagging issues as with the trial version and nothing helps. This is despite the fact that I uninstalled the trial version before downloading the paid version, hoping that after getting rid of every trace of Studio in my PC I would be able to start anew and avoid all those problems. I believe I uninstalled the trial version thoroughly - through "add or remove programs" and I even ran the ‘cc clean’ to clean my registries and get rid of all remaining superfluous files.
So the problems I can’t get rid of are:
- whenever I try to create a new sdlxliff file for translation (it pretty much makes no difference whether it's through 'Open Document' or 'New Project'), I receive the following error "An error has occurred whilst using the translation provider XXXX: The translation memory data file engine returned an error: The database file is locked / database is locked." error. What's more, it takes around 10 minutes for the 'error window' to actually appear, and I can do nothing but wait. Then the only thing I can do is add the respective TMs manually via Project Settings and hope that the error window won't re-appear. This works only at times and more often than not the error window does re-appear and I have to start from scratch again and do nothing but hope again.
- creating a file for translation using the ‘New Project’ pathway is pretty much impossible because the last three of a total of five steps in the 'Prepare Without Project TM' sequence simply stop at 95 percent and the process never gets completed. Pressing 'cancel' helps at times, but even in the ideal scenario it takes at least 10-15 minutes for the operation to be actually aborted. Then a project can indeed be created as it should, i.e. within seconds, but this only applies to small doc files. Working with doc files of more than a few pages is impossible, as not even aborting the process of creating a new project ever seems to end (I once waited for some 45 minutes but to no avail). I suspect it’s because the pre-translation takes ages to complete. However, as there’s no way to customise my sequence of tasks and leave pre-translation out of the tasks in the Freelance version (unless I want to use ‘Prepare’ – i.e. using project TMs, which I definitely don’t), I can only use the 'Prepare Without Project TM' sequence.
I’m also wondering why is it that even after I uninstalled the trial version, the 'your trial expired' window appeared upon the completion of my installation of the paid version and I had to activate Studio using that window? Isn't that at the core of all the problems? If it would help, I’m ready to return my licence, uninstall Studio and installing it anew, but I’m at my wits end as to how to do it so as to make sure that the 'your trial expired' window does not re-appear and I can activate Studio through a completely new activation window?
I’ve double-checked and obviously I do have the latest Studio build now – as opposed to the build I had with the trial version. Whilst I do use the currently rather outdated Windows XP, I bought my desktop in 2006 and it was a top-notch product back then, and actually even Studio's trial version worked okay on it for the first few days, so my PC is not the problem here.
I’m sorry if my message is a tad too long, but I would really appreciate if anybody from SDL or any helpful fellow Studio user could give me some advice here. I’m entitled to working with a fully operational product for my money.
Thank you
Tomas