Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Family Tree Maker 2009 version 18.0.0.305 - Final release errors


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So, now that Family Tree Maker 2009 is a final release, I installed the version that is going public...18.0.0.305. There are a lot of fixes in there but I still noticed a few problems, right off the bat. I sent them a little note, a copy of which I am including below. Let me know if you all are having the same problems.

"I am still seeing several errors in 18.0.0.305.

When I go into the "people" screen, "person" tab and add an event...let's say a birth. I start typing the location and the first letter or two will bring up choices from existing places. When I select the correct location of that event from the drop down, it will create a new "place" even though I am selecting an existing place. You end up with a duplicate place (that is exactly the same) over and over again. (See screen shot). It will do this over and over again, every time. You can end up with unlimited duplicates.

There are also lots of problems with in-program books. In one example, I am trying to add photo albums for various people but run into four main problems...
  1. If you add enough albums, the names of the album in the left column and the person that the album is about will not match. It is like there is a lag in naming albums and creating them. I will have moved on, adding the fourth or fifth album and it is naming that fourth or fifth album after the person who my second or third album was about. Sometimes it will name album after album after the same person, despite the subject being different for each.
  2. After awhile, albums just cease to generate a preview. They are there on the left side but you cannot look at the item in the main preview screen. The "generating" status bar runs its cycle but nothing is actually generated.
  3. You cannot actually change the report title in the right column. It will always default back when the report is regenerated. You can save the report but that does not change anything in your book.
  4. After creating several albums and trying to generate them various time, I will start to get memory errors. Its like the program is getting bogged down and not clearing out old memory. It never fully crashes but gives warning after warning. My computer is fairly new and does not have problems with memory except with FTM in the book section.
One other pet peeve with the program. In an Ahnentafel Report, it will make the statement that a couple had "X" amount of children. It should be stated like the Simple Ahnentafel Report, "children of ___ and ___ were..." The more general approach acknowledges there could be children that you missed, such as those who died in infancy that you do not know about for certain.

Sorry for the large list but these are a few things I have noticed as of late."


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3 comments:

Unknown said...

Related to the problem of creating duplicate places... try checking the "Check place authority when entering place names" setting in Tools > Options.

Anonymous said...

I appreciate your comments. You and the other comments that I have seen have told me enough. With FTM 16, 2006 model, I probably have the best for me. I have had Ancestry.com for several years so I use it all the time. I don't
find much help in there searches however. That needs a lot of improvement and maybe 2008/2009 gave it some. I don't have the RAM memory (abt 500 MB) to run 2008 or 2009 I don't believe from what I have heard. I have avoided
upgrading my computer because of Vista. I don't know how much longer it will take Microsoft to catch on. Any thoughts on that? I am sure they are gradually working out the kinks, but the clash with Vista the FTM program bothers me as I read from users that crashes occur.

Kevin Lett said...

I think a lot of the problems between FTM and Vista have to do with the administrator function. There are certain things Vista will not allow you to do, unless you are logged in as an administrator. It is easy to do, you just right click the FTM icon and select run as administrator from the list. For example, you cannot download program updates unless you are running FTM as an admin. Even I forget to run as admin sometimes and get frustrated when I should have run it that way.