Fireworks lacking the spark!

Same here, just installed the trial. Initially was happy with the cleaner UI, then started designing some mockups, grouped elements, and experienced odd positioning problems. e.g. Whenever I group/ungroup elements, the text would reposition themselves and get clipped. Several crashes, internal errors and lost files later I've gone back to CS3. It didn't help that the software would phone home, insist on auto updating, blindside me to participate in some survey. Overall I've lost about 3 hours of productivity just trying out Fireworks CS4. One plus point, you now have the option NOT to install Adobe Bridge.

I am seeing similar problems and am using the production release of CS4. It is not limited to the trial. I generally see 2-4 crashes a day, and the text problems as well. I don't have CS3 (used the CS3 trial which got me hooked and then bought CS4), so am stuck. I have calculated at least 10-12 hours lost productivity a week in crashes and lost work (most crashes occur when I save).

However, whilst I'm very disappointed in the product's quality, it is impossible to achieve the results I need with any other tool, even Photoshop. I hope that these issues are getting the attention of Adobe. Its a shame that a good product company has missed the target on quality with this one.

From reading posts around the net, I've noted that many of these problems appeared during beta - so beta testers found many issues with crashing, the text engine, etc., and Adobe chose to release apparently without fixing them.

In answer to your question, I hope that it doesn't take many. But based on what I've seen, there doesn't appear to be progress on fixing the issues.

Yeah, clearly Fireworks CS4 wasn't ready to be released with the rest of the Creative Suite. I'm sure business pressure made them ship it anyway.

I've had the same issues in both the beta and the production version with only one exception (in the beta, I had to click an object twice to select it on the canvas... strange). Crashing, hanging, slow performance, etc. are in my face every time I open the app, and I'm on a MacBook Pro, OS X 10.5.5 with 2.33GHz Core 2 with 3GB of RAM.

Fireworks CS4 definitely isn't ready for prime time. Hopefully Adobe will communicate something and give us an ETA for some fixes.

Yes, I've seen similar issues when using the symbol editor. For example, if I click select the text in the editor, then start typing, nothing happens. I must select again and then type.

I've had a few hard hangs where my system is completely locked up. Cannot get to the menus, etc. to even force the app to close.

I generally run VMWare Fusion to use Windows apps too. Many times I am just running Fireworks, shutting down all applications, including Fusion and I don't see any performance improvements.

My system is Mac Pro 2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core, 4GB Ram, OS x 10.5.5, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB.

It looks like one of Adobe's engineers is listening. I commented on his Fireworks CS4 blog. Feel free to feed him your bug reports. It sounds like he needs as much data as possible, up to and including the actual .PNG used.

http://blogs.adobe.com/sarthaksinghal/2008/11/fireworks_cs4_release_issues.html

Let's hope it gets better soon. :)

Great to know. I will be sure to post any ongoing issues to Sarthak's blog with files if necessary.

The blogger listed above stated that Adobe does not pay attention to sites like this. Obviously, or they would have put out a patch, a statement, anything. Oh well, the blind march to software upgrade (ie. failure) continues.

I have also found that on Mac at least the FW UI is frustratingly slow and balky.

I started a thread on adobe forums, you can see it here:
http://groups.google.com/group/macrom...

I've also posted to the blog site of the FW developer mentioned in another comment.

Hi Josh - We have identified the issues thanks to crash/bug reports and will be releasing an updater for Adobe Fireworks CS4 within the month. I personally am sorry and it hurts me, in fact all of us on the team to see you have issues with Fireworks.

Hi all,

The Fireworks engineering team is working hard to fix the issue. Trust me! we are working internally to fix the issues.

My blog address has changed to http://http://blogs.adobe.com/sarthak

I listen to the comments people post on my blog. But it gets difficult to aggregrate issues from multiple forums which exist on the web today.

I will try to collate them and have them processed internally.

Hooray! I'm so thrilled to hear this!

Thanks, Alan and Sarthak. Keep us posted on the availability of the update.

Yea well still buggy as hell!!!

The CS4 update definitely improved quality. However this means the product quality went from utterly unacceptable to just disappointingly unacceptable.

I use the tool, but as little as possible, and in constant fear of frustration.

Dear Adobe,

I am disappointed with the update which promised to fix many of the issues with Fireworks. Honestly how do you bug check and stress test this software? Seems to have a VERY different standard then the rest of your software which is quite disappointing.

Not sure what else to say. If you really want to fix this software let us know and we will spend time sending you comprehensive feedback but I am honestly tired of all the bug reports and extensive emails I take time to report and send...with no payoff in solid software.

I couldn't agree more. I have relied on Fireworks for years and I'm not ready to give up on it yet--but I have found the product to be so slow and unstable that I dread having to use it for anything.

That probably means it's time for me to move on but I keep hoping that a fix is right around the corner. I kinda feel like I've been "dumped" in a relationship with Adobe.

@hardhat, Tim, josh, jeff. n all,

As Clifton mentioned above, I am one of the engineering member on Adobe Fireworks team.

The updater tried to address some stability issues apart from the bigger text jumping issues.

I am ears for all the stability related issues you want to highlight and make us aware to be worked upon. I will need to work closer with you guys so that I can work on a case by case basis and solve them all finally.

You can leave a comment at any of the posts on my blog at http://blog.adobe.com/sarthak so that I can get your mail IDs and then we can proceed forward.

Hello,

I have some issues here 'bout FW CS4.

1. I get empty files of css, html when i expost my created work as CSS and HTML. After exporting only i get the empty css, html files and empty /images directory.

2. Sometime i apply verctor mask and i get this error, "Cound not complete, FW internal error"

3. Text engine is buggy.

4. Sometime i get error when i open file atleast 4 MB :(

5. Takes 60% performance of my CPU on

Dual Core 1.80
4GB RAM
512 MB Geforce 8500

and am using Windows 7 32bit with 1,280x1,024 resolution. I only use 1 program FW CS4 and sometime i see am unable to move my cursor on FW and after few seconds my FW CS4 not responding.

Please help me, some of my files are corrupted by FW CS4 which i made in FW CS3 :((

Please help...

Was anybody able to get through to Sarthak's blog at http://blog.adobe.com/sarthak ? Looks like a dead URL.

In the interim, the update hasn't fixed anything for me. FW still crashes more than half the time I try to start it (it will usually start on the second attempt, after the crash) and it consumes *massive* amount of system resources on a regular basis.

I have to do 4 hours work daily in FW CS4 but FW bugs waste my hours to restart any hang on.. ISometime i create my designs 2 or 3 times cos some of things i lost by FW :((

My problems persist and Adobe doesn't appear to care one bit.

Adobe, if you're listening, throw us a bone with a beta-copy of CS5 or some patches so that we can see if the problems have been resolved. I just want this fixed and I want to feel like Adobe still cares about the web-professionals that put you on the map.