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Re: Problem with Screen Environment

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg104482] Re: Problem with Screen Environment
• From: Helen Read <hpr at together.net>
• Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2009 17:54:09 -0500 (EST)
• References: <hcjjb8$jru$1@smc.vnet.net> <3df7321f-ada8-4f6e-934f-d109966b3df4@c3g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>

David Reiss wrote:
> Helen,
> 
> There is a bug that I have encountered (and duly reported) where the
> styles of all notebooks in a Mathematica session become "generic"
> essentially all cells become text-like: i.e. there is a global loss of
> style sheet information.  The problem is fixed by a restart of
> Mathematica.  It occurs rather randomly.  It **seems** to be related
> to using the Documentation Center when one has a notebook also open
> that has a private style sheet.  But it also seems to depend on the
> set of interactions with Mathematica that have taken place, and I've
> never created a strict deterministic set of actions that can replicate
> it.  I did however send in a detailed bug report.  is this the sort of
> thing that your user is experiencing?

This sounds similar to what my user is experiencing, except that in his 
case restarting Mathematica does not fix it. I don't know of any 
connection to the Documentation Center (but will investigate). It has 
happened to him a few times when he has simply left Mathematica open and 
gone to class, and is not even there using Mathematica. It will be 
messed up when he returns.

HPR


> On Nov 1, 4:11 am, Helen Read <h... at together.net> wrote:
>> I have a user in my department who has had a bizarre problem with
>> Mathematica over the last few weeks (running 7.0.1 on Windows XP). He
>> will have Mathematica open and all is well, then leave to go to class or
>> whatever. Sometimes when he returns, Input cells are missing from the
>> Format->Style menu (other cell types are there). Pre-existing Input
>> cells in existing notebooks are not recognized as such (despite
>> appearing to be an Input cell if you open with Shift-Ctrl-E) and nothing
>> evaluates. It does not seem possible to insert new input cells in either
>> existing notebooks or a new notebook. We also discovered that the Screen
>> Environment is set to Slideshow when this problem happens, and all of
>> the other options (Working, etc.) are missing from the Format->Screen
>> Environment menu.
>>
>> We have tried replacing the init.m files, etc., which did not help any.
>> Uninstalling and reinstalling Mathematica fixes the problem, but only
>> temporarily. We have uninstalled and resinstalled several times, but the
>> problem continues to recur. Today we uninstalled (again), and then
>> deleted all of the Mathematica folders (from the user's profile, the All
>> Users profile, and from Program Files), rebooted for good measure, then
>> reinstalled Mathematica, and *still* the problem returned.
>>
>> We don't know of anything that would be peculiar to this particular user
>> that would be causing this.
>>
>> We have contacted Wolfram Tech Support (and await a reply), but
>> meanwhile, has anyone else seen this or have any idea what might be
>> causing it?
>>
>> --
>> Helen Read
>> Department of Mathematics & Statistics
>> University of Vermont
> 
>