Is it possible that the Help crashes ArcMap?

[XanderBakker]

Today I was doing some analysis using Spatial Analyst on ArcGIS 10.1. At some moment I wanted to look into the neighborhood settings of the Focal Statistics functionality. I opened the Help of the tool, scrolled down to neighborhood settings and clicked on the link "nbrCircle". This crashed my ArcMap session.

I couldn't believe this happened and thought it was not going to be reproducible, but the second time it happened again. Also using another link, like "nbrRectangle", caused my ArcMap session to crash.

When I open the Help manually (C:\Program Files\ArcGIS\Desktop10.1\help\spatial_analyst_toolbox.chm) and navigate to the Neighborhood toolset and Focal Statistics and click on the nbrCircle link it displays the topic as it should do.

Can anyone reproduce this error or is it just me?

[KevinHibma]

Which operating system are you using?

I remember a co-worker (internally) having a problem like that which we put a fix in for.
If you can consistently reproduce it, we'd need to know your system settings. The case I remember was extremely specific, making it kind of tricky to figure out what was happening.

[DanPatterson_Retired]

As a suggestion, which probably doesn't apply to beta, I never use the built-in help but the online help since it separates ArcMap from the help and it is uptodate...for future consideration...in fact esri should consider online help as the first goto, then if no web access, then the online help

[RhondaGlennon]

Xander - As Kevin mentioned, it would be good to know your operating system and any reproducible steps. By chance, are you using Windows XP? We are currently investigating an ArcMap crash that sometimes occurs when you open the help from a geoprocessing tool and then click links in the topic. So far, it seems to be only on Windows XP. If this is the same problem, we are working on a fix and will install it before the final release. Also, be sure to submit automatically any dump files that get generated (for this and any other crash you get!).

Thanks, Dan. We are considering doing this for the future.

[XanderBakker]

As a suggestion, which probably doesn't apply to beta, I never use the built-in help but the online help since it separates ArcMap from the help and it is uptodate...for future consideration...in fact esri should consider online help as the first goto, then if no web access, then the online help

Hi Dan,

Thanks for the suggestion. I will keep it in mind.

Kind regards,

[XanderBakker]

Which operating system are you using?

... If you can consistently reproduce it, we'd need to know your system settings....

Hi Kevin, Rhonda,

Here are the specs of my system:
- It is a Dell laptop Latitude E6400
- with an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU (P8600 @ 2.4 GHz) and 4GB RAM
- running Windows XP SP3
- ArcMap ArcInfo Build 2783
- Regional settings are Dutch

The steps taken which result in the crash are:
- Open the tool Focal Statistics from the ArcToolbox
- Click the Tool Help button from the tool GUI
- Scroll down in the Help to the Syntax section
- Press on any link (nbrCircle, nbrRectangle, etc) will cause ArcMap to crash

As mentioned before, when the Help is opened manually (C:\Program Files\ArcGIS\Desktop10.1\help\spatial_analyst_toolbox.chm or through ArcInfoMain.chm) the crash does not occur.

If you need more information please let me know.

Kind regards,

[RhondaGlennon]

Thanks, Xander. That sounds like the same issue. I will add your machine's specifications and steps to the bug.

[XanderBakker]

Thanks, Xander. That sounds like the same issue. I will add your machine's specifications and steps to the bug.

Thanks Rhonda and good luck.

Kind regards,

[LoralynClark]

I tried reproducing this but could not. I thought that I would include my computer specifications -  
- Lenovo ThinkPad R61
- with an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU (T7100 @ 1.8 GHz) and 3GB RAM
- running Windows 7 Service Pack 1
- ArcMap ArcInfo Build 2783

nbrCircle, nbrWeight, nbrIrregular, etc. produced no results other than to open that particular help topic.

[RhondaGlennon]

Thanks for testing. It does sound like it is most likely specific to Windows XP.