21 Replies Latest reply: Jan 18, 2011 10:54 AM by brian@annamayer.com RSS

    CS 4 will not start

    Hatteras Photo Community Member

           Today CS4 decided not to start.....worked fine the other day. Bridge starts and works as normal......photoshop 64 bit and 32 bit will not start from ACR, bridge or start list. I`m using windows 7 64 bit and never had any problems till today. Any ideas ?

        • 1. Re: CS 4 will not start
          Hatteras Photo Community Member

              Next question......if I go to add and remove in windows and click remove does the CS4 un-installer have a repair option.....I don't remember if it does or not......thanks Peter

          • 2. Re: CS 4 will not start
            ssprengel Community Member

            The first thing to try is resetting your preferences by pressing and holding down ctrl-alt-shift as you double-click on the PS icon and keep them held down until you get the question about resetting the preferences.

            • 3. Re: CS 4 will not start
              Hatteras Photo Community Member

                 Thanks for the reply.....that got 32 bit started working fine now. But not 64 bit and that is what I work in....also where I have images set to open from ACR and Bridge. When I try it I just get a spinning wheel for about a second ....then nothing ??

              • 4. Re: CS 4 will not start
                Hatteras Photo Community Member

                    I can`t believe I`m the only one this has happened to. I guess it is time to re-install....not looking forward to resetting everything. Do I have to install everything ? Bridge and 32 bit Photoshop are working fine..........sometimes Adobe just pisses me off !

                • 5. Re: CS 4 will not start
                  Hatteras Photo Community Member

                     Forget it.......I did a re-install....had to do it twice....but now all is well in Adobe Land again. I am amazed no one here had any idea about this other then the standard Ctrl - Alt .......Oh Well...so much for Adobe Forums.....kind of like Adobe support in general.........Peter

                  • 6. Re: CS 4 will not start
                    dec9 Community Member

                    Whatever.

                     

                    We are just users just like you. If people had a computer messed up like yours and had the same issue I am sure someone would have given their 2 cents worth.

                    • 7. Re: CS 4 will not start
                      Noel Carboni Community Member

                      YOU manage your computer badly, corrupt your Photoshop installation, ask for help on a free forum, get some decent advice within hours asking you to do something quite valid and not too intrusive, ultimately solve the problem yourself by reinstalling (which anyone should be able to figure out on his own), then you complain publicly that the forum isn't helpful enough, in essence insulting those of us who do try to help?

                       

                      Answer me this:  What have you contributed to this forum lately that you think it owes you better service?

                       

                      Frankly, I'd have tried to help if I'd seen your post, and we'd likely have determined the need to reinstall, but for some reason your post didn't show up here.  I suspect the forum software hides information from time to time.

                       

                      -Noel

                      • 8. Re: CS 4 will not start
                        Hatteras Photo Community Member

                           Well Noel....I don`t as you put you put it "manage my computer badly". My computer is well managed and clean. Nothing on it but Photoshop....it is my photo machine and nothing else. I booted up the other day and the problem was there......no crashes....no prior problems so don`t assume my computer is managed badly. What is interesting here is the amount of help when I say something negative....compared to the amount of help when I needed it. You are right I have not contributed much to this forum because I am to busy using my Adobe product. For that I apologize.....but when you need help Adobe tech support being good is a thing of the past and now this forum seems more interested in protecting it`s image then helping frustrated users.......sorry but that is how I feel....nothing personal....just frustrated.....Peter

                        • 9. Re: CS 4 will not start
                          Noel Carboni Community Member

                          Apology accepted, frustration understood.

                           

                          Keep in mind most folks are not seeing the problem you did.  That's not to say no one ever has to reinstall Photoshop, but it's not a problem that seems to be popping up here a lot.  I've never had to do it, and I've been using Photoshop on various different machines since version 3.

                           

                          I urge you not to give up on this forum.  There's a lot of expertise here.  Those of us contributing help are also working our jobs too.  No one (as far as I know) is being paid for this.

                           

                          -Noel

                          • 10. Re: CS 4 will not start
                            Hatteras Photo Community Member

                               No problem Noel........I didn`t mean to come across a an A...hole. This has never happened to me before ether.....I don`t know where or why this happened.....but it`s running cool now....back to work....again I apologize....Peter

                            • 11. Re: CS 4 will not start
                              Tamerlin Community Member

                              I encountered the same thing today, after installing a Photoshop update.  I guess that means that I'll have to re-install my copy, which leads me to theorize that the Adobe updater hosed Photoshop.

                              • 12. Re: CS 4 will not start
                                ecashbot Community Member

                                Check your system requirements or processor memory hold. Maybe you don't have enough available space on your hard drive. Or you can simply fix registry errors so that can solve the problem. Unless you or someone have eraced some photoshop components.

                                • 13. Re: CS 4 will not start
                                  Tamerlin Community Member

                                  I have enough space -- over 70GB on one drive (the one Photoshop is

                                  installed on) and over 300 GB on the other.

                                   

                                  I know the machine meets the system requirements -- I was actually running

                                  Photoshop when the updater told me that there were updates. After that it

                                  stopped functioning. Some further testing has shown that even Blender and

                                  Messiah:Studio aren't running, so I'm starting to suspect the new Wacom

                                  driver that I installed recently. I will investigate that tonight.

                                  • 14. Re: CS 4 will not start
                                    Hatteras Photo Community Member

                                         Very interesting.......I remember  seeing a update notification and wondering that is odd, I thought they weren`t updating cs4 anymore. It was after that when photoshop stopped working. It definitely wasn`t a space or speed issue I have 400 gigs of free space on C drive and only Photoshop and Win 7 sit on this drive....all storage is on multiple other drives.

                                        What is even more interesting is I had to re-install twice because on the 1st try after installing the updater crashed and corrupted files and I had to re-install and update again......second time all worked fine though.

                                    • 15. Re: CS 4 will not start
                                      brian@annamayer.com Community Member

                                      I just had the same thing happen to me.  No idea if I'll be able to resolve it w/o reinstalling, but I'll spell it out in case someone else has a any tips or for future reference.

                                       

                                      Machine is Windows 7 64 running CS4.

                                      I have not recently made any updates or changes, and PS has been working great. Today photoshop won't start. I first noticed when trying to open by clicking on a file.  Just like the OP; a momentary spinning circle then nothing.  I tried opening it from the start menu. Nothing.  I opened the process tab of the windows task manager to see if there was a bad process and noticed three instances of photoshop.exe running at 116k.  I tried to "end process" on them, but they would not end.  I rebooted the computer.  All the same issues.  Rebooted again.  This time I tried to navigate to the program folder to see if I could open it without a shortcut.  I couldn't even open the folder. [c:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS4 (64 bit)].  It just timed out.  I tried doing the ctl-alt-shft when clicking the Start Menu icon, but that got me no farther.  Considering the fact that I couldn't even open the folder, could this be a Windows issue?

                                       

                                      Any insight?

                                      • 16. Re: CS 4 will not start
                                        Noel Carboni Community Member

                                        What error do you get when you try to open the Photoshop program folder?  Have the permissions been changed?

                                         

                                        Have you installed anything on purpose since it worked?

                                         

                                        It is possible you have gotten malware or something that interferes with the normal operation of processes on your computer.

                                         

                                        The problem is, as normally configured by default, Internet Explorer will run ActiveX controls it finds on any old web site, and there are a lot of malware writers out there who get a kick out of installing their software on your computer.

                                         

                                        I would suggest a careful review of everything that's running on your system by running Task Manager and reviewing the process list, and also by running a freeware app called AutoRuns that can be found on the Microsoft site here:  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902

                                         

                                        It may seem a daunting task to research everything that's running on your computer, but it is doable.  If you had a party at your house, wouldn't you want to be sure that you know every single person who comes in the door?

                                         

                                        It is also possible you have hardware problems...  Check your Windows System Event Log for errors.

                                         

                                        -Noel

                                        • 17. Re: CS 4 will not start
                                          brian@annamayer.com Community Member

                                          Thanks for chiming in.

                                           

                                          Q: What error do you get when you try to open the Photoshop program folder?  Have the permissions been changed?

                                          A: Semphora timeout. aka. nada

                                           

                                          Q: Have you installed anything on purpose since it worked?

                                          A: I use PS everyday, I don't recall the last thing installed.

                                           

                                          Q: It is possible you have gotten malware or something that interferes with the normal operation of processes on your computer?

                                          A: I suppose anything's possible, however I'm a pretty conscientious user who takes all the needed precautions.  Everything else is running fine and BitDefender hasn't found anything.  And I use FF No IE for me.

                                           

                                          Q: Review running apps

                                          A: Haven't done. Can do, but I belive that relates to the above.

                                           

                                           

                                          Q: It is also possible you have hardware problems...  Check your Windows System Event Log for errors.

                                          A:  I checked the log and it is error-free.

                                           

                                          Thanks again for helping.

                                          • 18. Re: CS 4 will not start
                                            Noel Carboni Community Member
                                            function(){return A.apply(null,[this].concat($A(arguments)))}

                                            brian@annamayer.com wrote:


                                            Q: What error do you get when you try to open the Photoshop program folder?  Have the permissions been changed?

                                            A: Semphora timeout. aka. nada


                                            Concentrate on this.

                                             

                                            There is NO WAY a failure to be able to open a folder in Explorer can be normal.  And it's almost certain that if you're seeing an error on the screen that it's being put into one of the logs somewhere.

                                             

                                            It's possible you have had some disk corruption.  Do NOT try to reinstall anything until you get to the bottom of the error above.  It is a serious problem when you can't access parts of your disk.  You might want to run a CHKDSK on the drive to determine whether the file system is intact.

                                             

                                            Can you capture your screen showing the above error, and post the image here?

                                             

                                            -Noel

                                            • 19. Re: CS 4 will not start
                                              dec9 Community Member

                                              There are always errors in Windows 7 event viewer that are listed. The majority are start and stop times. You just need to drill through the list and find the PS hit.

                                               

                                              Also look in MSconfig, startup tab and ensure there is a check mark in Adobe CS4 Service Manager. If this is not checked or even listed the DRM will not allow the software to start.

                                               

                                              Go to start and type in services. Click on services. Look for 2 each FLEXnet Licensing Service. One is 32 bit and the other 64 bit. Ensure both are set to manual. If set to manual set them to Auto. Turn on Photoshop. What happens?

                                               

                                              If I remember correctly you wrote that you have 3 seperate Photoshop.exe running in task manager? Start Windows 7 in the safe mode. Are the 3 still listed? Photoshop should not run in the safe mode.

                                               

                                              Make a new new short cut for PS CS4 32 bit and 64 bit on your desk top. What happens when you click on those?

                                              • 20. Re: CS 4 will not start
                                                Noel Carboni Community Member
                                                function(){return A.apply(null,[this].concat($A(arguments)))}

                                                dec9 wrote:


                                                There are always errors in Windows 7 event viewer that are listed. The majority are start and stop times. You just need to drill through the list and find the PS hit.

                                                 

                                                You should qualify that.

                                                 

                                                A well running system should have no actual Error entries in its System log.  Most entries in there will be Information entries.  Even Warning entries should be rare.

                                                 

                                                The most recent Warning entry in my own System log was on 12/24, when I unplugged my network cable.  The last actual Error listed was on 12/19, where it reported a DVD-R I was trying to write had a bad block.  So no, there should not always be Error entries in there.

                                                 

                                                Make sure and check also the Application event log.  Errors in there have to do with application failures, and a failure to start Photoshop CS4 may well be logged there.

                                                 

                                                -Noel

                                                • 21. Re: CS 4 will not start
                                                  brian@annamayer.com Community Member

                                                  I ran a chkdsk and found/fixed errors. I also reinstalled PS and it seems to be running fine now.  Thanks everyone for your help.