I do not have any trouble signing in to OfficeLive, but when the page showing documents that have been shared with me comes up it ALWAYS freezes and I am unable to access the documents.  Not only does the web page freeze, but all of my navigation buttons freeze.  I can't even close the page without doing Control-Alt-Delete to get the Task Manager to pop up so I can close it manually.  I have tried many times to access Office lIve and the same thing always happens.  I have never been able to access the documents.  I can see them, and I assume that it looks correct, but nothing works.  I have restarted my computer, I have installed the plug ins, and I am using Office 2003 and IE7.

Has anyone had a similar problem?  Any tips about what I can try to use this program?

Thanks!

I have the same problem. I also posted to the thread "Signing in to Office Live Workspace" yesterday." Go to that thread and you'll find a few other people there with the same problem, but I haven't seen any solution to it.

After several more days I am adding the following to this thread and the "Signing in...." thread:

After reading Chris' post I decided to try OLW with IE (6) again, but also removing some of the buttons in my Yahoo and Google toolbars. I have been able to use the OLW since doing that. I removed the Games, Mail alert and Spy blocker buttons.

I downloaded the Mozilla Firefox browser and now I can use it to access my Office Live Workspace without the browser freezing up.

Hi hshinn - sorry to hear about this, unfortunately we aren't able to repro this problem from our end, so need your help to get some additional data to investigate it further. Can you please follow up with me at nagarajp at microsoft dot com?

 Thanks.

Check out http://officeliveworkspacecommunity.com/forums/p/981/2912.aspx#2912 for my requests to other users that come across this issue. From that thread:

I wanted to double check with you that you also cleared the temporary internet files. If you haven't, please do so and try agin. If it is still failing after that, send the the following information:

• I was curious do you see any yellow triangle icons in the bottom left of IE when this happens? If so, double click the icon and send the error to me.
• Do you have any toolbars installed?
• Finally, while sending the error message from bullet #1 would be helpful, the best is to capture a trace of what is happening between Office Live Workspace and your computer. The easiest way to do this is to install a program called Fiddler from http://www.fiddlertool.com/fiddler/. After installation, capture (start) a trace, reproduce the problem, and send the trace to me via private message.

Chris

In my case, the freezing was occuring as the folders were loading - the workspace pages partially populated. No script errors but the status area was reporting that 2 more items were being loaded and all IE sessions were disrupted. I tried clearing temporary files and history and now not even the workspace screen loads. The status bar crawls for a few moments, then nothing - I am left on the screen I launched from and the status area reports "Done".

Corporate policy does not allow the installation of software such as Fiddler I'm afraid. If there is any other native trace infomation I can send I'm happy to do so.

IE 6.0.29
Windows XP Pro SP2

Thanks.

Further info on my freeze problem. The browser is once again partially populating (closing and re-opening IE cleared up the other problem). When the browser freezes, the status bar reads:

(2 items remaining) Downloading data http://render.officelive.com/css/OL/Product_cr.css?v=750...

This issue was intermittent, but now is occurring nearly 100% of the time, so I am unable to use the product. I will stay tuned in case there is a solution offered.

Thanks.

mvanpraet, we looked into that URL you sent and can't reproduce the issue on our end; it may be an issue with your corporate firewall, proxy, or network. Can any other computers at your business access Office Live Workspace?

 Chris

I have had similar problems for several days.  I cannot be positive if it started before I installed the newest Office Live Add-In, but it has definitely existed since that time.  I was working without any issues prior (on an earlier Office Live Add-In), and am a home user behind firewall hardware that has not been changed in any way.

I am running Windows XP Pro SP2, Office 2003 SP3, and IE 6 SP2 (6.0.2900.2180)

The sign in process works without a problem.  OLW loads, sometimes with a full screen, sometimes with just toolbars and nothing in the main pane.  It then immediately hangs and becomes unresponsive.

Interestingly enough, during this time, other Windows Explorer windows may also hang.  For example, if I try to double-click on an Excel doc in a folder on my desktop, that Explorer window ceases to respond, and the document does not open.  While it is hung, I can open the exact same document from within Excel using File-Open without issue.

IE becomes responsive after 10 minutes (timed).  [At the same time, the Excel document I tried to open from Windows Explorer will open immediately.]  I am also getting the same "2 items remaining" error posted above, but with the number 753 at the end.  I know I got this yesterday, but I do NOT believe it has been happening since the start of these freezing problems.

Halting the download (hitting ESC) will immediately bring me to my OLW, which is fully functional and responsive for a LIMITED TIME.  I am able to view documents within OLW and open documents in their native application for approximately one minute.  IE then hangs again.

After waiting another 10 minutes (timed), IE again responds, this time with a fully loaded screen with another download error in the status bar:
(2 items remaining) Downloading picture http://render.officelive.com/images/OL/Merchandising/en/us/OLWorkspace/Workspace/Editor

Again, it is usable for one minute before hanging again.  Rinse, and repeat.

OLW works fine in Mozilla Firefox (2.0.0.14).  Deleting IE temporary files hasn't improved the situation.   There are no Javascript errors.  I can run the trace program you suggested.  Is it recommended to run that on a clean boot with no other apps?

They seem to experience the same symptoms as my computer. I should note that the problem is intermittent - there are times when I am able to access Workspace. This would lead me not to suspect internal issues necessarily. I will try to take my laptop home and retry from a non-firewalled wireless connection - just to see if it's computer configuration related.  Thanks.

See https://officeliveworkspacecommunity.com/forums/t/616.aspx - a user uninstalled some toolbars and got OLW working again. As for tracing, a clean boot with only IE and Fiddler open is the best way to do it - thanks!

Similar issue occurred when connected at home without a corporate firewall. I have no non-standard add-in toolbars installed. Any idea ideas?

Thanks.

Do you have any toolbars installed (see my previous post). If not, you can try engaging support to see if they have any ideas http://workspace.officelive.com/Support/?lc=1033&cloc=en-US.

Chris

Experienced the same.  Sorry, but I don't think making users disable/uninstall toolbars is an appropriate answer to the apparent problem.  Why punish users by forcing them to disable/uninstall toolbars that they are using daily?  (most people are going to be using a google or yahoo toolbar)  Would like to know the underlying cause of these issues.  I think you have a useful program in Office Live, but, to gain more popularity and users, it should be apparent that it's wise to ensure it will work for any user....or at least give the user a warning that they have to disable/uninstall something in order to use the product.  Thanks.  :)

Thanks for the valuable feedback emt. We don't require users to disable/uninstall anything to use our product. In fact a very important goal for us is to find ways to make our product available to the widest range of users without any lengthy requirements. I simply suggested uninstalling toolbars as one step in troubleshooting why some users can't load OLW. We recevied confirmation from a user that her toolbars were the culprit - after uninstalling them her OLW access worked again. Because of that, I wanted to suggest it to other users. If that kind of resolution were to work for others, we would investigate it to understand why that action resolves the issue.

 Thanks again,

Chris