It’s locking up on me recently especially when I’m in the notes or task list - either directly via an individual’s page or through the Life Summary. I then need to go to Task Manager to shut it down and re-open.
It happened five times already today and it was happing all day yesterday. I’m on a PC, RM 11 and my files are not in the cloud they are on my hard drive.
Guessing it’s on myside but I can’t figure out the issue - RAM memory limit seems okay around 63%
@RRF – haven’t had the problem-- can you tell us what you were doing before it happened–maybe we could duplicate it–does it happen in a very short period of time–say abt 8 clicks or quite a while --like every 30 minutes…
I have 64 - Nothing special I was in a Fact and went to write a note and it froze - also froze when I tried to update or write a note or task accessing it through Life Summary it froze - but not all the time.
At first, I gave it 15-30 minutes thinking it needs to work itself through - Now I wait at least a minute or so before I reboot.
I noticed it most when I was looking at Life Summary and selected notes to add or update something and then it freezes same with task through Life Summary.
It has also happened to me when I’m in the normal individual view. I select the note on an event and once I’m in the note it freezes up .
Yes, different people. They have not been in the same group.
One interesting event. I’m an Online Repository Assistant (“ORA”) user and it did freeze on me in the middle of ORA updating a citation. It froze when it was trying to update the “Research Note” section of my citation. It made it to that section and froze. When I rebooted and reran ORA it was fine.
I’m pretty sure this is not from ORA - but full and fair disclosure.
Not sure if this matters but I’m in RM anywhere from 5-8 hours a day - So far it has not happened to me today, but I have not been writing too many notes just using Tree share and web hints.
Thanks for looking into this! I truly appreciate it!
Reason i was asking abt how long between freeze up and if you were getting an error messages is because I thought you MIGHT have run into the list manager error-- basically the error shows up somewhere between 670- abt 1000 clicks-- doesn’t matter what you are working on BUT you usually get a message like this…
Suggest you run all the database tools BUT suspect that’s not the problem–
note after you read info below-- I wonder if you switched to 32 bit ( you can run both on your computer) if you would have the same problem-- Sorry abt this being so long BUT think it answers your question…
I asked A I abt ORA freezing when it was trying to update the “Research Note” section of your citation and after reading the reply asked A I–So basically this would also be the reason why Rootsmagic freezes up when when you are in the notes or task list - either directly via an individual’s page or through the Life Summary.
A I’s reply
Yes — exactly. ORA didn’t cause the freeze — it just provided text that exposed the weakness.
Why RootsMagic Freezes in Notes, Tasks, and Life Summary
All three of these areas use RootsMagic’s rich‑text editor, which is the slowest, heaviest, and most crash‑prone component in the entire program.
These sections share the same weaknesses:
They load huge amounts of text at once
• Person Notes
• Fact Notes
• Task Descriptions
• Research Notes
• Life Summary (which aggregates multiple notes)
RootsMagic tries to render all of this in a single editor pane.
If the text is long, complex, or contains special characters, the editor stalls.
The editor is single‑threaded
RootsMagic does everything on the main UI thread.
So when the editor chokes:
• The entire program freezes
• The window stops responding
• You get the spinning cursor
• Sometimes it recovers, sometimes it doesn’t
This is why it feels random — but it’s not random at all.
Unicode and formatting slow it down
Even if you paste “plain text,” the clipboard often carries hidden metadata:
• Unicode accents
• Non‑breaking spaces
• HTML‑like sequences
• Invisible formatting
• Line‑break variations
RootsMagic’s editor tries to interpret all of it and sometimes just… gives up.
Life Summary is especially fragile
Life Summary is basically:
If even one note contains:
• A long ORA output
• A complex citation
• A pasted obituary
• A long transcription
• Unicode characters
…the entire Life Summary pane can freeze.
How to Reduce or Prevent These Freezes
Here are the most effective strategies:
Strip formatting by pasting into Notepad first
This removes hidden metadata that RootsMagic struggles with.
Break long notes into smaller chunks
Paste one paragraph or section at a time.
Turn off spell check in RootsMagic
Spell check dramatically slows down large text fields.
Avoid opening Life Summary for people with huge notes
It’s the most fragile view in the program.
Keep Research Notes and Person Notes under ~10–15 KB per paste
RootsMagic handles smaller inserts far better.
Hello! My RM11 just froze up as I was creating a family chart. Also, when I went to push the Publish button it was out of sight. Yikes. My RM11 is up to date and I am on a newer type
HP tower with no other problems occurring.
So with a newer HP tower, I am assuming you have Windows 11 and I assume the very latest version of Windows 11-- is your RM 11 a 32 or 64 bit?
Doesn’t really matter much EXCEPT that the 64 bit version does have issues that the 32 bit does NOT have.
Are you using Dual Monitors? Are you running RM while synching to a cloud service?
Basically when this happens, others have said that they waited a few minutes and it cleared itself…
If it doesn’t straighten itself out then use the Task Manager to close it-- I would then reopen RM 11 and run the database tools and try creating the family chart again–
I don’t know what kind of chart you are trying to make BUT you MIGHT eliminate notes and / or reduce the number of generations…
if it happens again , I would contact support and let them help you
Hello Nancy,
Thank you so much for your detailed response. I have Windows 11 and a single monitor.
It is 64 bit. I was working on a simple Ancestry Chart for someone in my database.
I will follow your instructions, and did use Task Manager.
Thank you so much!
On the screen shot that Mad Dog sent that shows Home, Publish etc-- there is an arrow at the very top above home–click on that and yours will expand out like Mad Dogs instead of just showing the icons
Either it’s me or RM but something is wrong - I need help/suggestions this is becoming annoying - Started to keep a log and I’m not saving files to the cloud - saving to hard drive:
March 26, 2026 - 5:26 a.m. - Was beginning to write in Edit Note for an event and it froze once I was in the notes- rebooted via Task Manager - PC RM 11.0.4 64bit
March 26, 2026 - 5:32 a.m. - Tried to go back into the same Edit Note (above e.g. Residence) to create a Edit Note on the event and it froze again - rebooted via Task Manager - PC RM 11.0.4 64bit
March 31, 2026 - 6:57 a.m. - Writing in Edit Note for a task and it froze - rebooted via Task Manager - PC RM 11.1.1 64bit
March 31, 2026 - 7:29 a.m. - Writing in Edit Note in the Health section - and it froze - rebooted via Task Manager- PC RM 11.1.1 64bit
March 31, 2026 - 7:58 a.m. - Tree Share froze - updating an individual and TS got to 100% and froze - waited until 8:05 a.m. nothing then rebooted via Task Manager- PC RM 11.1.1 64bit
March 31, 2026 - 8:06 a.m. - Rebooted PC to see if that would help
March 31, 2026 - 8:11 a.m. - Tree Share froze - updating an individual and TS got to 100% and froze - waited until 8:15 a.m. nothing then rebooted via Task Manager- PC RM 11.1.1 64bit
How to Reduce or Prevent These Freezes