ID CS5 Not Responding upon Packaging

Question

Hello,
For some time now, (Since my upgrade from CS4 to CS5) when I attempt to package a design file it often crashes ID. (Not Responding) I'm running a 27" iMac, Intel Core 2 Duo, OS X 10.6.7 with 8 GB ram.
It will generally allow me to go as far as selecting what to package. Fonts, Images, etc. I found if I deselected the fonts for packaging, it will usually collect with no problems.
I figured it was some font issue hanging ID. Of course I have repaired permissions and ran disk first aid just incase it was a machine problem. All clear. I also ran FontDoctor which found no errors.
Here's where things get strange - If I leave open the Force Quit Appications window and then package a larger catalog file, even with fonts unchecked, the Force Quit Appications window will show InDesign alternating between not responding and responding. If I allow this to go on long enough, it will generally output the collected file...or crash entirely. ID looks quite unstable on my machine during this process.
If ID hangs long enough, a report is generated, which I dutifully send along to Adobe. Has anyone heard of this strange and annoying issue. For the record, it never happened to be on any previous version of ID. Only CS 5, and yes, I ran CS 4 on this same machine - no packaging issues.
Thanks for any advice.

Answer 1

The hang reports are not the same as normal crash reports. They are analagous to running Sample Process in the Activity Monitor, but they are a more vague indicator, telling you statistically all the things ID was doing in the period of time sampled, but leaving the human to guess at which was problematic, which may not equate. Whereas when there is a crash, generally it's clear exactly which routine was at fault, though of course sometimes it's not obvious why.
I'm not sure why you don't see the crash logs as well. But fear not, I'm sure you'll have the opportunity to see them again unless the problem is solved.
[Did IDML help?]
Anyhow, your hang does show some interesting stuff:
12 ??? (in Package and Preflight + 75603) [0x1b438753]
12 GetPlugIn + 501288 (in EPS Page Item) [0x1fbc4a68]
12 GetPlugIn + 498540 (in EPS Page Item) [0x1fbc3fac]
12 GetPlugIn + 492320 (in EPS Page Item) [0x1fbc2760]
12 GetPlugIn + 471325 (in EPS Page Item) [0x1fbbd55d]
12 GetPlugIn + 470420 (in EPS Page Item) [0x1fbbd1d4]
12 GetPlugIn + 469126 (in EPS Page Item) [0x1fbbccc6]
12 GetPlugIn + 462185 (in EPS Page Item) [0x1fbbb1a9]
12 GetPlugIn + 436935 (in EPS Page Item) [0x1fbb4f07]
12 GetPlugIn + 435096 (in EPS Page Item) [0x1fbb47d8]
12 GetPlugIn + 434452 (in EPS Page Item) [0x1fbb4554]
12 GetPlugIn + 130391 (in Photoshop Import Filter) [0x1f951287]
12 GetPlugIn + 119078 (in Photoshop Import Filter) [0x1f94e656]
12 PSLSimplifyPath + 54 (in AdobePSL) [0x1dadbe4c]
12 PSLGetPathBounds + 211 (in AdobePSL) [0x1dadbdd3]
12 PSLInsertGuide + 459803 (in AdobePSL) [0x1db9b2d3]
12 PSLInsertGuide + 474382 (in AdobePSL) [0x1db9ebc6]
12 PSLInsertGuide + 471272 (in AdobePSL) [0x1db9dfa0]
11 PSLInsertGuide + 1673386 (in AdobePSL) [0x1dcc3762]
6 PSLInsertGuide + 1672961 (in AdobePSL) [0x1dcc35b9]
6 PSLInsertGuide + 1625774 (in AdobePSL) [0x1dcb7d66]
6 PSLInsertGuide + 1656360 (in AdobePSL) [0x1dcbf4e0]
3 PSLInsertGuide + 1656017 (in AdobePSL) [0x1dcbf389]
2 PSLInsertGuide + 1655243 (in AdobePSL) [0x1dcbf083]
1 PSLInsertGuide + 1654470 (in AdobePSL) [0x1dcbed7e]
1 PSLInsertGuide + 1649375 (in AdobePSL) [0x1dcbd997]
1 PSLInsertGuide + 1627209 (in AdobePSL) [0x1dcb8301]
1 PSLInsertGuide + 1612003 (in AdobePSL) [0x1dcb479b]
1 malloc + 50 (in libSystem.B.dylib) [0x95dd6218]
1 malloc_zone_malloc + 81 (in libSystem.B.dylib) [0x95dd8148]
1 szone_malloc_should_clear + 263 (in libSystem.B.dylib) [0x95dd82a1]
1 tiny_malloc_from_free_list + 1020 (in libSystem.B.dylib) [0x95dd9469]
That is, the packaging code called the EPS Page Item code, which called the Photoshop Import Filter, which called the AdobePSL library, which ultimately asked the system to allocate memory.
This suggests that the problem relates to some particular EPS file you have in your document (not a font). So I would try process of elimination with such files (divide and conquer). Save As to a tempory workign file. Delete half your images or half your pages. See if the problem is solved. Lather rinse repeat. Of course, if the problem is not 100% reproducible, this is a big pain. Still, it's the way to track it down.
I suspect that AdobePSL is the Adobe Photoshop Library, though that's inconsistent with the finger-pointing at an EPS file. I wouldn't expect PSL to handle them at all, and would expect PSL to be used for PSD files primarily. But still speculating.
Anyhow, there's quite a lot of stuff going on in PSLInsertGuide. I have no idea what that function does, but it seems weird to me that EPS files would have guides at all (PostScript has no such concept!), though of course postscript files (and Photoshop EPS files, and Photoshop PSD files) might very well. If you figure out what file it is, determining if there's something strange with guides in it might be helpful.
As for your screenshot...it's tough to know what's necessarily relevant. The complaints about scripting additions are presumably because you have a non-Intel version of some Quark scripting addition installed. You can certainly try removing it, but I'd be surprised if it helped.
malloc() failing is fascinating, especially correlating as it does with your hang report. malloc() is the routine C programs call to allocate memory dynamically. Anywhere from a few bytes to much much more. If malloc() fails badly enough to log to the console, I would have expected it to crash the program hard, rather than just sitting there spinning between 11:37:42 and 11:39:40. There's no accounting for taste.
malloc() is calling mmap(), a routine which controls the relationship between virtual memory pages and...other things. It's apparently doing so with a size of 802 megabytes, which is the sort of thing that's not expected to work and probably indicates a bug. And it gets back error code 12, which is:
$ grep 12 /usr/include/sys/errno.h
#define ENOMEM   12           /* Cannot allocate memory */
Not a shocker.
Anyhow, there's some food for thought.