Bluetooth remote freezing with PowerPoint on MacBook Pro while idling

Just updating on this issue as I use PowerPoint professionally and this is an important issue for the likes of me and all those affected. After more than 48 hours of testing under all idling conditions I can again report that the issue of freezing on my MacBook Air has now ceased. The improvement ocurred after I did a clean install of Mountain Lion after clearing my hard drive - and then re-installed Office for Mac 2011 which runs now on version 14.3.1. This seems to me to be - as others have said - an issue relating to a recent Office update although I would not exclude Mountain Lion as being a culprit as well. Mountain Lion has already caused a series of errors in PowerPoint on my Air - the worst being a distortion on my slides when using transitions. This problem has never been resolved and is well documented in the forums. I will continue to monitor my Air's performance and report any changes...which hopefully will not occur!

That is great.... but I was hoping I could not do all of those things..... I am not prepared to another install and clean my hard drive..... I buy macs because I don't have to do all of that stuff.....ouch... thanks for the information.

I don't think its related to the OS my macs have run completely trouble free for years. I think it is an update to office maybe the one that was issued when office 2013 was released. I have done a complete uninstall of office 2011 removing all associated files and reinstalled without updating. I have run the PP presentation that froze this morning for 3 hours without any problems. Office will be history before I wipe my HDD (I'll have to see if hooking up to a projector makes any difference).

Ok. I am so glad to see this. About two weeks ago, while making a presentation, my NEW Macbook Pro running 10.7.5, with 2011 Microsoft office, froze during a presentation to our department. Neither my remote (Targus) nor the keys worked. I had to exit show, then restart the presentation. First time in years such a thing had happened. This past week, while giving a lecture to a group of physicians as a quest lecturer, after insisting I use my computer, IT FROZE AGAIN. This is crazy and super frustrating. I have an appointment tomorrow evening with the Genious Bar. I am hopeful this will soon be fixed. Prior to about two weeks ago, I loved this machine!

HELP

I agree with the folks who view this as a problem with the most recent PowerPoint 2011 update to 14.3.1. I am disappointed, this is the first time in many years that PPT has been glitchy on my Macbook Pro. I am a teacher who uses PowerPoint every day and started experiencing the freezing problem a few weeks ago. Combined with freezing when using the remote, PPT sometimes will not allow keyboard strikes to advance slides either and I am religated to using double mouse clicks directly on the slide in presenter view. This happens even if I have never connected my remote.

Hopefully if enough people chime in on this we can weigh heavily enough to enact change. For the moment I am contemplating buying Keynote, as I'm not ready to reinstall everything on my machine. Frustrating day for those who depend on Presentations for thier work.

I think its worth uninstalling office 2011 as in this support article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2398768

then reinstall without updating so far I haven't had a repeat of the freezing but I haven't had chance to check with a projector. I don't think you need to uninstall anything else.

I can now report after a major keynote today that all is 100% with my MacBook Air. I wiped the haird drive, clean-installed OSX and then loaded Office 2011 and am now running 14.3.1.. So logically, Office for Mac CAN run the latest version with all the updates so long as OSX is re-installed from sratch! There ae other serious glitches with PowerPoint and OSX - a blot on an otherwise super device (my Air)!

I am relieved to find this thread. Like the rest of you, I started having this problem in February, after hundreds of presentations and years of no difficulty. I changed the battery in my remote, bought a new remote, spent hours trying to replicate the problem in a controlled environment (home versus in front of an audience), tried to take notes during presentations (what time? what slide? what angle have I been holding the clicker? whattone of voice was I using?) Finally, I found you.

I have an Air, running 10.8.2, Office 14.3.1. I would STRONGLY prefer to not to erase my hard drive and start over. I will erase Office and re-install with no updates. Since I have not been able to reliably replicate the problem at home, I won't have results until my next presentation, which is Friday March 1.

I suppose if this works, I won't ever be able to update Office again. Unless they identify that they have fixed this problem specifically, which I don't expect.

I know clearing the hard drive is a hassle, I had mine all done by my Apple service centre. Not only has re-installing solved the problem (it seems), it also was a chance for me to make a complete back-up and also clean the cache and literally 'service' the MacBook Air (3 years old). If you can get a service centre to do this for you in a day or two, it's well worth it rather than to struggle and wait until you next present. They can also back up your data and re-install it fully. Actually, my Air feels like a new machine...very speedy and zippy..and my hour-long keynote today was flawless - long may it last! Having said all of this, other softwear bugs still remain, but at least there is a rather laborious solution to this issue!

I have just given a presentation for an hour and a half tonight with no problems and I ran it for ages before the meeting. Seems like reinstalling office 2011 after a complete uninstall works.

There is the problem though of not being able to update office.

I don't think you should have to reinstall your operating system because of a rogue update. As someone said I had enough of that running Windows.

I and a friend are having this problem as well. It happens across multiple presentations and has even occurred in testing by creating a totally fresh presentation using the PPT built in templates. We initially thought it was ONLY on a retina MacBook Pro 15, with 10.8.2 and 14.3.1. The arrow keys stop working and so does a Master Cue or other external USB/Bluetooth 'clicker' devices as well. This doesn't happen with Keynote and the machines are all offline during use, so DropBox is greyed-out and not attempting to sync, and it doesn't appear to be any new preferences thing, as that hasn't updated and doesn't affect Keynote. (Also, you can STILL successfully use the mouse to click on the on-screen back and next arrows when in presenter view, even though the ESC and arrows, etc., cease to function.)

This also happens on several MacBook Airs of various iterations as well. (two flavors of Core i7 and a Core2 Duo)

The funny thing is I noticed it at the same time as I started seeing the transition 'tearing' at the bottom 1/6th or the screen in show mode running to a projector. That seems to be exclusive to the 15" retina MacBook Pro. (likely due to the NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M, because that doesn't currently appear to be an issue on the current MacBook Airs with the Intel 4000 gfx card alone.)

These issues continue to happen after full reboots with PPT as the ONLY app running. I've even done a PMU reset or SMC reset on the machines figuring it was a USB bus issue or something like that.

I wanted to add my 2 cents so I could get subscribed to this topic!

Thanks,

joe

Joe, I have suffered with the 'transition tearing' issue for the last six months at least - ever since upgrading to Mountain Lion. It is well documented on the forums and is present on my 2010 MacBook Air with NVIDIA. This matter has very dissappointingly never been addressed by either Apple or Microsoft. All I can add is that you are not alone on either of these issues, and I now regard the Apple/Microsoft issues as making the lovely Macs as unrelialbe as any other PC!

Many are reporting that the problem can be solved by clearing the hard drive (YIKES!) or uninstalling and re-installing Office 2011 without the updates.

Two points: First: It is unacceptable that Microsoft has a product called MS Office for Mac that is causing major problems for Mac users, including many who have been loyal to PP for many years. Too many people are spending too many hours troubleshooting Microsoft's problem.

Second: My simple workaround is to open a PP file in Keynote, which works flawlessly with my remote. The people on this thread must be keen on PP, but I am wondering if I am missing something. Is PP superior to Keynote? Is there some advantage to putting up with MS? Why not just switch to Keynote for presentations, as countless others have done already? Any comments from those of you who make presentations on a regular basis, as I do, would be appreciated.

Agreed...there is scant regard for users. And figuring out who is to blame - either Apple or Microsoft - can be tough! Mountain Lion created all sorts of issues which were never resolved by Microsoft! As a professional speaker, the simple reason I do not use Keynote is that I use PC's (and therefore PowerPoint) for 80% of my presentations (loaded from my Mac). Converting from Keynote to a PC at each of my events would be a hassle and potentially troublesome wiith formatting etc. In an ideal wortld, both PowerPoint and Keynote would be ubiquitous and completely seamless too!