FreeHand dead in 10.5.3

Question

FreeHand dead in 10.5.3

I just updated Leopard to 10.5.3 and suddenly I can not work in Macromedia FreeHand anymore. I did the upgrade last friday, I am not shure did I use FreeHand since then (I suppose not), but today morning when I wanted to work with FreeHand it did not start. It just sits there in the dock and jumps, but does not start, nothing happens. I can work in other apps while its jumping there, but I can only stop it with a forced termination (alt-cmd-esc).

I alread deleted the preferences and application support files for freehand, did a new install of Freehand and a new (again) combo install of 10.5.3 with Permission repair of the volume. I also tried to start Freehand after safe-mode startup and after deleting the fonts in user/library/fonts. Nothing helps.

Who else uses Freehand with Leopard 10.5.3.???

Thomas

Intel iMac 24" and MacPro, Leopard 10.5.3, Mac OS X (10.5.3)

Posted on Jun 2, 2008 4:58 AM

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Answer 1

sasa43

Level 1

50 points

Jun 2, 2008 5:31 AM in response to Thomas Huerlimann

I do.
My Freehand works fine under 10.5.3.
Try to repair permissions and clear cashes before any aggressive moves.

Thanks!

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Answer 2

Jun 3, 2008 4:26 AM in response to sasa43

I did permission repair and clear cashes. I also applied this fix
http://www.adobe.com/go/tn_18933

Without success so far.
I had to go back to 10.5.2 because I need FreeHand working.

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Answer 3

orangekay

Level 5

4,085 points

Jun 3, 2008 5:41 AM in response to Thomas Huerlimann

Freehand is dead, period.

http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2007/05/freehandno***.html

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Answer 4

Jun 3, 2008 6:11 AM in response to orangekay

Look, orangekay, we all know that Freehand was bought by Adobe to be buried, thats the only way they could make inferior Illustrator to win over FreeHand. But this doesn't change that there are still many people out there who are using Freehand and like me have thousends of FH files archived over the last twenty years. So your comment is really expendable here.

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Answer 5

a brody

Level 10

85,314 points

Jun 3, 2008 6:14 AM in response to Thomas Huerlimann

It could be a font issue. Check the user tips regarding font issues here:

http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=599

Be sure to check tips not just for the past 90 days, but when prompted all tips, and look for ones which pertain to Mac OS X 10.5, Leopard.

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Answer 6

sasa43

Level 1

50 points

Jun 3, 2008 6:15 AM in response to orangekay

We know that Freehand reached its end when adobe bought it, but this is not the problem.
The problem that there are a lot of freehanders out there, and I am one of them,
Prefer using it more than Illustrator, using since version 3.0 when it was Aldus and in black and white only.

For the original post: did you try to reinstall the application before downgrade to 10.5.2?

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Answer 7

Jun 3, 2008 6:36 AM in response to sasa43

Sasa, yes I did several reinstalls, including deleting first the preference and app. support files.

I also tried it without user fonts installed, so this should have worked if it was a fonts problem.

At least we know now from people who use it with 10.5.3 so it must be possible...

Thomas

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Answer 8

orangekay

Level 5

4,085 points

Jun 3, 2008 10:34 AM in response to Thomas Huerlimann

Would you say it's more or less expendable than Freehand itself?

I'm sure you think that your noble resistance to change is somehow going to prevent future OS updates from breaking unsupported software that never really found its niche, but it probably won't. Claris Emailer 1.3 was the only email client I ever liked and I hate all the others on the market intensely, but that doesn't mean it's going to run on a modern system. If you need to run antiquated software that will never be updated then don't update your OS. That's what print shops do.

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Answer 9

Jun 3, 2008 11:02 AM in response to orangekay

orangekay, you are being an @ss! Freehand is still a very good and still more intuitive application than the monopoly's application illustrator even though I think it's better than it was wen it was betterknwn as irratator. As for the original question. Buy another computer(used) a G4 perhaps running tiger and keep Freehand going?

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Answer 10

Jun 3, 2008 11:58 AM in response to a brody

Thats a good suggestion, but I used it without any user font installed, without success.

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Answer 11

Jun 11, 2008 10:29 AM in response to Thomas Huerlimann

OK! I installed everything new, Leopard 10.5, then the 10.5.3 combo update and finally Freehand with the 11.02 build 92 update and IT IS WORKING!

Later I carefully installed all my things in Library and the moste important Apps and did a check of Freehand running after each app I installed.

So I dont know what the problem was, but its definitely running in 10.5.3.

Thank you all!

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Answer 12

rennerg

Level 1

0 points

Jun 11, 2008 7:33 PM in response to orangekay

No, I'm sorry, but the question was, "How can I fix Freehand?", not "Please, lecture me about how I'm not being a good consumer because I'm using software that hasn't been updated in ~6 years."

That being said, I was able to install the Mac OSX 10.5.3 Combo update without reinstalling all the software on my MacBook. Once I did that, Freehand started up normally and asked for activation information which I entered and now it all seems to be working fine. So I'm not sure if it's necessary to do a full wipe of your machine.

The reports of Freehand's demise are once again greatly exaggerated.

Thanks again for the thread.

G

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