[captainsky]

Hi,

First, let me says thank you for taking the time to read about my problem and hopefully offering helpful feedback. I really appreciate it as I am totally stumped as to how to proceed with fixing the problem that plagues me.

The PROBLEM: Photoshop CS4 will NOT launch. After working for a week, the program started showing an an error message whenever I launched it. The error message is as follows: Adobe Photoshop CS4 has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience. I have the Adobe Master Collection CS4 installed on my system and all the other Adobe programs work fine; it is only the Photoshop program that is NOT working.

My first action was to see if I received the same error message if I was in SAFE MODE. To my relief, in Safe Mode I found that Photoshop launched WITHOUT a problem, generating NO error message. After rebooting the system I proceeded to MSCONFIG and turned off ALL the start-up items, services, both Microsoft and non-Microsoft, and the System INI and WINIIN files. I thought this would create a very similar environment to Safe Mode; however, there is obviously a difference because Photoshop still received the same error message even after turning everything off under MSCONFIG. I am a little confused because I thought that turning off all the services and start-up items was basically the same as Safe Mode.

When MSCONFIG did not work, I resorted to another option, and that was to roll-back my system using Roxio's BackOnTrack. Fortunately, I had a number of restore points and I started rolling back the system. I rolled back as far as a week before, to the time when I had just installed Photoshop and everything was working fine. However, that still DID NOT fix the problem with Photoshop. I guess rolling back does not restore the system to the EXACT state it was in prior.

Finally, I resorted to uninstalling the Adobe Master Suite with Photoshop and then REINSTALLED the Adobe Suite on my system. I thought this would definitely fix the problem, but, alas, it also DID NOT fix the problem. As soon as I tried to launch Photoshop again I received the same damn error message.

I am so FRUSTRATED and have no idea how to proceed. I am hopefully optimistic that since Photoshop works in SAFE MODE that there MUST be a way to determine and fix the issue that is causing Photoshop to always receive an error message upon launching. I do not want to have to reinstall the entire operating system to resolve this problem as it would be so much work to reinstall all my programs. Argh! Please HELP!

I would greatly appreciate any feedback that would lead me in the right direction to fixing this problem, as Photoshop is an important program in my arsenal. Thanks, again!!

[Hughv]

In older versions, the fix is to delete the preferences file:
Method 2 or 1 should work:
http://www.northlite.net/ps/prefs.htm

[captainsky]

Hey Hughv,

Thanks for the good suggestion. I hadn't thought of the possibility that the preferences file might be corrupt and its implications. However, even after I deleted the Photoshop CS4 Preference File, I still encountered the same error message when attempting to launch Photoshop.

This is so frustrating! I am starting to feel as though I am going to have to wipe the drive clean and start from scratch, and I don't want to do that! I should mention that I just wiped the drive clean three weeks ago and have been in the process of adding back all of my applications. Prior to formatting the drive, I had the Adobe Master's Suite with Photoshop working just peachy for at least six months, so this error problem is something totally new that did not plague me before.

Any more suggestions, HughV or anyone else?

[captainsky]

Hi Everyone,

Another Question: I am curious as to what the difference is between shutting down everything through MSCONFIG and Safe Mode is on my computer. I thought by shutting down all the services and start-up items, would also shut down most of the drivers, and isn't that very similar to Safe Mode? Why would Photoshop be working in Safe Mode and yet NOT work when I turned everything off in MSCONFIG? Can someone enlighten me about the difference between the two actions? Thanks.

[Hughv]

There are many services in msconfig that you shouldn't fool with, and that are running even in Safe Mode.

Loook in event viewer for any System or application errors that may apply.
errors

[captainsky]

Hey HughV,

Good idea. I checked in Event Viewer and it naturally showed an error message for Photoshop. When I clicked on the properties button it read:

Faulting application photoshop.exe, version 11.0.0.0, faulting module adobeowl.dll, version 2.0.70.0, fault address 0x0000d4e0.

So I looked up info on the adobeowl.dll and didn't find anything that was too helpful. Someone with a similar problem was asked if they had done anything to their video card recently, like an update. I did do an update to my video card a week or so ago, and though I did pull it directly from the vendors site for my video driver maybe it caused havoc? However, I do not know how to uninstall a video driver. I am thought maybe under Device Manager but I couldn't figure out if it would be the monitor driver or another one, Perhaps you could enlighten me on how to proceed. I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

Best,
Skyler

[Hughv]

You can uninstall it in Device manager (Rt-click/uninstall).
I'd try just reinstalling the original driver.

[Cosmo99]

The adobe website has an uninstall program for Photoshop CS4. When you uninstall it from add remove programs, it doesn't completely uninstall and sometimes doesn't re install correctly.

[saxonkitty]

Hi captainsky,

If you haven't found a solution, look at the Event Properties for the error in the Event Viewer, note the "Event ID" and "Source," then Google that. For example, if you had an Event ID of 123 and the Source was xyzSoftware, enter "event id 123 xyzSoftware" in your search.

If you don't find your answer, post the Event ID and Source here and maybe someone can help.

sk

[captainsky]

As suggested, I looked up the Event ID and Source Info in the Event Viewer Box and then Googled it. I didn't learn anything from it, there was nothing relevant to Photoshop. One site focused on a list of many applications but known were similar to Photoshop that I could apply the same technique.

In case anyone wants to know, the Event ID: 1000 and the Source Info: Application Error.

Also, below is listed the exact error message shown in the Event Viewer under Properties:

Faulting application photoshop.exe, version 11.0.0.0, faulting module adobeowl.dll, version 2.0.70.0, fault address 0x0000d4e0.

I am starting to wonder if my only recourse is going to be to wipe the drive clean and start over again?! I don't really want to have to do it, as you all know it is very time consuming reinstalling all your programs and then tweaking them. Argh! Save me someone from this fate!

Any additional feedback is of course greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[captainsky]

Originally Posted by Cosmo99

The adobe website has an uninstall program for Photoshop CS4. When you uninstall it from add remove programs, it doesn't completely uninstall and sometimes doesn't re install correctly.

Yes, I became aware of this program not too long ago; it's the Adobe CS4 Cleaner Script. I did use it before I reinstalled the Adobe Master CS4 Suite for the second time on my system. It didn't seem to make a difference. It indicated that there was nothing to clean up. I guess because I use Revo Uninstaller (a very good program that I highly recommend!), which cleans up registry and program file entries well when it is uninstalling a program, there was nothing left for the Adobe Script Cleaner.

Thanks for the suggestion, it was a good one, and may help someone else. So that leaves me wide open for more feedback, anyone else with any ideas?

[Hughv]

Please don't use any registry cleaners. That may very well be the source of your problem.
Have you reinstalled the video driver yet?

[captainsky]

It's funny you mention registry cleaners, because I thought exactly the same thing, that it might have been what caused the problem in the first place. Alas, I did run a registry cleaner not once but twice in the last two weeks, and worse the program didn't make back-ups of the registry file either before it cleaned, or maybe I should say I didn't make a backup of the registry before the cleaning process. Oh, well, I know for next time NOT to use a registry cleaner anymore. I thought I read somewhere that it doesn't really don't make any difference in computer performance by running a registry cleaners, but I am not sure the accuracy of that information.

As for the video driver, since I had recently installed a new video driver that was procured from the vendor's site a few weeks ago, I thought it was definitely worth a shot. So I rolled the video driver back via the Device Manager to the previous version that I used on my system the last year without a problem. However, it didn't resolve the issue with Photoshop. Argh!! I don't know if there is a major difference in rolling back the driver and reinstalling the whole the driver from scratch, if so let me know.

I am really started to think my only option is going to be to reformat the drive and reinstall the operating system, which is easy; it's all the damn programs and their tweaks that take forever to do.

But if anyone has a suggestion, let me know.

[Hughv]

I think ot would be much more helpful to reinstall PS. Ay other relevant erros in Event Viewer?
AFAIK, rolling back installs the previous driver.

[captainsky]

Originally Posted by Hughv

I think ot would be much more helpful to reinstall PS. Ay other relevant erros in Event Viewer?
AFAIK, rolling back installs the previous driver.

Alas, in recent days I have tried not once but twice to reinstall the Adobe Master Suite with no success. Argh!

I think my only option left is to reinstall the entire operating system fresh. I do not relish this task but I am optimistic that it will resolve the Photoshop problem. The fact is that I really need to access Photoshop and I cannot continue to allocate many more days of troubleshooting that might not fix the problem. Plus, I think I kind of screwed up my system by rolling it back so many days and then I made the mistake to undo the rollbacks, and things haven't been the same since then on my computer. Programs and my browser are behaving out-of-sorts in certain instances.

I appreciate your help, HughV and anyone else that contributed to trying to solve this problem. To be honest, I posted this problem in three others forums and have not generated a solution from anyone's feedback. Though from the other sites, feedback was very limited. This site provided the most helpful responses to try out and solve the problem.

I don't have time today to do reinstall the operating system because I have to move a lot of data off my hard drive onto external drives and that will take some time. So I probably won't get around to wiping the drive until Friday or maybe even the weekend, depending on my schedule. So if you have any other ideas, feel free to share them with me.

Take care.