CS4 issues and forums? [Archive] - Large Format Photography Forum

David Spivak-Focus Magazine

21-Jan-2009, 13:48

I'm afraid to uninstall CS3 until I get the bugs fixed in CS4. I love the new features in CS4 but am having constant crashes, "Photoshop needs to close"............

MAC or PC? If it's PC, blame your OS. Vista is the absolute worst OS since Windows 98 and I actually think it's worse. Sometimes I think it might be worth it to pay double the price of a fully loaded hp to get a bare bottom MAC with all of the time and headaches it causes me. CS4 took a week of almost completely re-programming my computer for CS4 and several days on the phone with Adobe tech support and I'm still having problems nearly 90 days later. I had NO problems with CS3 whatsoever.

Kirk Gittings

21-Jan-2009, 13:57

I use both Macs and PCs. On this one, my main editing computer, I am still using XP. I was always afraid to upgrade to Vista from all the awful reports.

Ben Hopson

21-Jan-2009, 14:23

Donald Miller

21-Jan-2009, 14:25

I am running CS4 on Vista (both 32 and 64 bit) with absolutely no problems, to date, whatsoever (three months now. Maybe I am just fortunate. I have had absolutely no crashes. I am running 12 gigs of ram on my dual quad core 64 bit system and 2 gigs of ram on my dual core 32 bit install.

I am running video editing and composting with After Effects CS4 in addition to Photoshop CS4 and that would seem to be more taxing than Photoshop alone by several orders of magnitude.

Sorry to hear about your difficulties.

Greg Miller

21-Jan-2009, 15:12

Looks like Adobe is working on a solution to Photoshop CS 4 problems. They are asking for volunteers to try out a beta fix/patch. I am glad I drug my feet and did not upgrade right away. It would be nice to have the new features in CS 4, but only if the program is stable.

http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b7882c

I don't know if that patch will help Kirk or not. Many people have experienced "performance" problems in that CS4 runs slow. I think that is the fix Adobe is working on. I haven't heard many cases where CS4 crashes.

I think Kirk's best route would be to submit a case to the Adobe Support team at https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/support/index.cfm?event=membership&returnURL=%2Fcfusion%2Fsupport%2Findex.cfm%3Fevent%3Dportal%26loc%3Den_us&loc=en_us

Stephen Best

21-Jan-2009, 15:19

I think Kirk's best route would be to submit a case to the Adobe Support team at https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/support/index.cfm?event=membership&returnURL=%2Fcfusion%2Fsupport%2Findex.cfm%3Fevent%3Dportal%26loc%3Den_us&loc=en_us

I submitted seven CS4 bugs to the above, four of which made it to engineering. Whether the fixes make it into the upcoming 11.0.1 update remains to be seen. The other three are just sitting in their queue. I suspect the cut-off for bugs likely to be fixed in the lifetime of this version has passed.

Personally I find CS3 a more usable product, though if I was able to avail myself to 64-bit support (I'm on a Mac) maybe I would be more tolerant of CS4's shortcomings.

Greg Miller

21-Jan-2009, 16:34

Kirk's issue might be a CS4 bug, but it also might be a configuration issue specific to his PC or a conflict with Kirk's hardware or other software. So I still think submitting an Adobe support ticket would be useful.

I personally have dad no problems with CS4 on my Vista box, except for a small decrease in processing speed as compared to CS3, but I do find many of the new enhancements quite useful.

D. Bryant

21-Jan-2009, 18:57

MAC or PC? If it's PC, blame your OS. Vista is the absolute worst OS since Windows 98 and I actually think it's worse. Sometimes I think it might be worth it to pay double the price of a fully loaded hp to get a bare bottom MAC with all of the time and headaches it causes me. CS4 took a week of almost completely re-programming my computer for CS4 and several days on the phone with Adobe tech support and I'm still having problems nearly 90 days later. I had NO problems with CS3 whatsoever.

Although I'm no fan of Vista, I think your remark is a complete generalization. If you follow some of the Adobe/CS4 forums some of the most trying problems are related to Adobe's poor implementation of OpenGL regardless of platform. Additionally there are printing issues being caused by Apple's broken code for the ColorSync color Management system in Leapord.

But let's be honest and clear, the monkey is really on Adobe's back for releasing what is essetianlly a beta version of CS4.

There are also issues with LR 2.2 and ACR 5.X which maybe related. In short Adobe screwed the pooch and their customers with this release of this version of Photoshop.

Yes the feature list is very promising and cool, but if the effing thing doesn't perform what good is the product. So I'm hanging with CS3 until this all blows over.

Another crappy thing that Adobe pulled was forcing users of CS3 Extended to upgrade to CS4 Extended in early Jan. or loose their upgrade path.

If Adobe keeps this up they could eventually become the GM of the photo editing software world.

Don Bryant

D. Bryant

21-Jan-2009, 19:02

I use both Macs and PCs. On this one, my main editing computer, I am still using XP. I was always afraid to upgrade to Vista from all the awful reports.
Kirk, I have friends running XP SP3 32 having the same issues that others are experiencing with slow graphics updates that have been reported by Apple and PC users. And the issues don't seem to be constant or repeatable regardless off hardware or OS.

Don Bryant

D. Bryant

21-Jan-2009, 19:38

Here are some YouTube links that demostrate the slow CS4 problems and some critical rmarks by Deke McClelland:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5PL5kKBihg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5invWFqcQs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSlhL2QDuN0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnpFAY413qI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOFNCB_u_aY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM_nRFR3h0w&feature=related

Other YouTube videos about these problems maybe around as well.

Don Bryant

SamReeves

21-Jan-2009, 20:13

CS4 is not bad, as long as you turn off some of the bells and whistles of OpenGL. At first I was pretty pissed with the tabbed flash animations. It sucked up a ton of memory on my Mac Pro. However if I have to go into high production, CS3 is prolly a better option ATM.

D. Bryant

21-Jan-2009, 21:16

CS4 is not bad, as long as you turn off some of the bells and whistles of OpenGL.

That just doesn't work in all cases. CS4 is seriously flawed.

Don Bryant

Colin Graham

21-Jan-2009, 21:57

D. Bryant

21-Jan-2009, 23:02

I'd not heard this. Wow.
Actually I was slightly incorrect. Adobe CS3 Extended users had to upgrade to CS4 extended or CS4 standard edition by Jan. '09. It was nice of Adobe to give them a choice, eh!

Don Bryant

Armin Seeholzer

22-Jan-2009, 03:02

As always I just say it again:::::
Never buy a software short after release, or only YOU like to be a betatester;--))))

I will never understand it, why somewhere does it!!!!!

I learned it the hard way, good luck, Armin

Marko

22-Jan-2009, 06:47

Another crappy thing that Adobe pulled was forcing users of CS3 Extended to upgrade to CS4 Extended in early Jan. or loose their upgrade path.

If Adobe keeps this up they could eventually become the GM of the photo editing software world.

Don Bryant

I would agree with the second statement IF the first one were true.

Yes, Adobe seems to be increasingly losing its marbles lately (over the last few years or so), but I am just looking at Adobe webiste (http://www.adobe.com/) and can't see anything like what you mention.

On the contrary, they currently have a special where you can upgrade to any CS4 suite from any previous CS version or from Macromedia 8 series for the same price as if upgrading from any CS3 suite.

This special is limited, however, in that it lasts "only" until Feb. 28. Are you sure you weren't looking at something similar?

Perhaps the same advice that is always given, with alacrity, when someone reports bad news about film should apply to digital products too? The one about not being alarmist and about checking one's sources? ;)

P.S.

I have nothing to do with Adobe except using their products professionally for the past dozen years or so. I will be the first to jump at them if (or when) they mess up.

And no, I have not upgraded to CS4 yet - I am waiting for the first major service release, just like I do with any other software.

Paul Kierstead

22-Jan-2009, 07:40

Curious. Although I haven't put huge numbers of ours in using CS4, I have put a fair few and generally had very few problems. I don't "draw", so I don't know about those problems shown in the YouTube videos; however, the usual photo manipulation stuff works well. I have had a hang here and there, and do have at least one PNG file which makes it go boom.

I will say performance was pretty bad on big files (probably worse then CS3) until I gave it a seperate disk for scratch and all the RAM it could eat. And there is the rub; on Mac, it'll only eat 3 GB or so, which is very sad. I know Apple played into that some, but Adobe really should have pushed hard to make it 64 bit. But it definitely helps to make sure it does get all 3GB without swap. And it is largely pretty snappy now.

Kirk Gittings

22-Jan-2009, 07:51

I agree completely, unfortunately to maintain my usual workflow with my new 5DMII, I had to upgrade to CS4 as CS3 is not being updated for some of the new cameras, Another near trick by Adobe.

As always I just say it again:::::
Never buy a software short after release, or only YOU like to be a betatester;--))))

I will never understand it, why somewhere does it!!!!!

I learned it the hard way, good luck, Armin

D. Bryant

22-Jan-2009, 11:16

I would agree with the second statement IF the first one were true.

Yes, Adobe seems to be increasingly losing its marbles lately (over the last few years or so), but I am just looking at Adobe webiste (http://www.adobe.com/) and can't see anything like what you mention.

On the contrary, they currently have a special where you can upgrade to any CS4 suite from any previous CS version or from Macromedia 8 series for the same price as if upgrading from any CS3 suite.

This special is limited, however, in that it lasts "only" until Feb. 28. Are you sure you weren't looking at something similar?

Perhaps the same advice that is always given, with alacrity, when someone reports bad news about film should apply to digital products too? The one about not being alarmist and about checking one's sources? ;)

P.S.

I have nothing to do with Adobe except using their products professionally for the past dozen years or so. I will be the first to jump at them if (or when) they mess up.

And no, I have not upgraded to CS4 yet - I am waiting for the first major service release, just like I do with any other software.

Well I'm sorry but the statement I made is accurate. A friend of mine and a well respected fellow large format forum member notified me of this in late December. Unfortunately I discarded the link he sent since it did not apply to me.

Don Bryant

D. Bryant

22-Jan-2009, 11:21

Rakesh Malik

22-Jan-2009, 11:36

MAC or PC? If it's PC, blame your OS.

That's bogus. Adobe and Apple are the only companies out there whose software have problems with Vista so far in my experience. For practically everything else, the experience in Vista has been considerably better, particularly when there are 64-bit versions of the software available.

And even with those, Adobe's are the only ones that gave me any trouble (Apple doesn't have a 64-bit version of quicktime that I can find anywhere), but once installed Photoshop CS4 extended has been fine -- and LOT faster than CS3 on the same machine.

Paul Kierstead

22-Jan-2009, 12:27

Okay here is a post on Photo.net discussing the upgrade issue:

http://photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00RuLV

Don Bryant

That link does not substantiate you're assertion that

Actually I was slightly incorrect. Adobe CS3 Extended users had to upgrade to CS4 extended or CS4 standard edition by Jan. '09. It was nice of Adobe to give them a choice, eh!

The link asserts that if you have CS3 extended, you can only upgrade to CS4 extended after Jan. If you wish to upgrade to CS4 standard from CS3 extended, you have to do it by Jan. On top of that, there is absolutely zero evidence other then hearsay for even that restriction.

Marko

22-Jan-2009, 13:19

Well I'm sorry but the statement I made is accurate. A friend of mine and a well respected fellow large format forum member notified me of this in late December. Unfortunately I discarded the link he sent since it did not apply to me.

Don Bryant

Okay here is a post on Photo.net discussing the upgrade issue:

http://photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00RuLV

Don Bryant

Well, I'm sorry, but there is no mention on any such restriction on Adobe's own website (http://adobe.com/) - If the link doesn't work for you, cut and paste this into your browser: http://adobe.com/.

Regardless of what someone over on p-net, apug or even here chooses to say or believe, I would think the information found - or not found - on Adobe's own website is what really matters.

Marko

22-Jan-2009, 13:27

And just to clarify the issue further, the OP in the p-net discussion you quoted states:

For what it is worth, Adobe support just told me that if you have Photoshop CS3 Extended and only want to upgrade to CS4 Standard, you need to do it soon. Sometime in January (Adobe has not told the reps a specific date, it may be as soon as the first), they will no longer allow this upgrade path. Therefore, according to this rep, if you have CS3 Extended, you will only be allowed to upgrade to CS4 Extended (not Standard) after this cutoff date. I asked the customer service rep. to explain it twice and he seemed very assured that he had the right information. Take the information for what it is worth.

In other words, you won't be able to downgrade your product while upgrading your version, but there is no restriction on upgrading the version of the same product.

But there is no explicit statement to this effect to be found anywhere on Adobe's site either.

D. Bryant

22-Jan-2009, 13:58

And just to clarify the issue further, the OP in the p-net discussion you quoted states:

In other words, you won't be able to downgrade your product while upgrading your version, but there is no restriction on upgrading the version of the same product.

But there is no explicit statement to this effect to be found anywhere on Adobe's site either.

Whatever Marko, read it the way you want.

Don Bryant

Marko

22-Jan-2009, 14:12

Thanks Don, always a pleasure to have an intelligent and rational conversation.

David Spivak-Focus Magazine

27-Jan-2009, 17:06

I have HAD IT with Windows Vista. I am done with it, sick of it, and ready to throw my entire computer on the ground in such frustration. I spent at least 4-5 hours on the phone with Adobe today un-installing and re-installing all of CS4, had to conference in Windows Support which I had to pay $250 for, and had 3 people remotely connecting to my computer just to tell me that some user account had become corrupt and I needed to create a new one, delete all of temp files and do 10,000 other things to allow me to finally run CS4. Somehow, while I was doing this, one of these idiots disabled my anti-virus software because they thought it was interfering with CS4 (NO CLUE HOW) and now I've caught a bad virus on my computer that Norton isn't even deleting!!

ARGH!!!

aphexafx

27-Jan-2009, 17:54

^ Your anti-virus program was disabled for a bit and now you think you have a “bad” virus? First of all, it is highly likely that the anti-virus software WAS the issue with CS4. Norton is, well, crap, and it mostly sells because of hype and rumor and general misinformation about what computer viruses are and how they work.

Secondly, I manage a total of three systems here and five elsewhere. They are all production workstations on the internet or laptops. NONE of them have any form of anti-virus software whatsoever. NONE. I have never had an issue with a "virus". Ever. You don’t need Norton, you just need to not download programs that are unknown to you.

I think that people who need to spend $250 on a three way conference call with three remote connects are likely to blame any sort of issue on a "virus". Good luck with that. Btw, Adobe installs have always been a pita. This is not Microsoft's fault.

I am friendly towards OSX, Windows, and Solaris - but I think the "I hate Vista, it's ruining my life" thing is getting a bit out of hand. I agree that it is bloated and has compatibility issues (though I’ve never come across any on my two Vista machines) but it is not a frothing bin of hell just waiting for a “virus” to come and make everything stop – it is in fact very secure, and you really don’t need virus software robbing your processor time. A little time investigating all of this will probably change the way your Vista machine works for you.

I'm probably going to make an enemy here, sorry about that, I really don't mean to, I just thought I would say something… cheers!

aphexafx

28-Jan-2009, 02:25

David Spivak: I'm leaving the above post, but please accept my apologies for coming off so negative or demeaning. Apparently I was in a bad mood. Har har.

Anyway, yes Vista can be a *****, but I just do not understand how people get all these viruses and whatnot, or think they do, or whatever. I hope you get things straightened out.

In my defense, I DID sink the soft arch of my right foot 3/4" onto a trim nail yesterday and I DID get a big huge tetanus shot this morning hehe. <limps off...>

David Spivak-Focus Magazine

28-Jan-2009, 08:38

Rakesh Malik

28-Jan-2009, 12:06

I have HAD IT with Windows Vista. I am done with it, sick of it, and ready to throw my entire computer on the ground in such frustration. I spent at least 4-5 hours on the phone with Adobe today un-installing and re-installing all of CS4,

You're blaming the wrong people -- the installation problems with CS4 are Adobe's fault, not Microsoft's.

Kirk Gittings

29-Jan-2009, 14:15

I haven't heard back from Adobe, but a post on the Fred Miranda site informed me that I was supposed to update my video driver before installing. Oops my bad. That solved half my problems (100% crashes on resource intensive activities like Photomerge and correcting lens distortion). CS4 really tries video resources? The other half of my problems were error messages related to MMX Core Routines on opening??? Weird stuff. These were corrected totally accidentally by installing the Bigger Tiles Plugin (a performance booster from the Goodies folder)!!!!!!

I was at the point where I thought this release was trash (not because of the new tools which are wonderful but because of the problems). I am still not thrilled with the performance on my machine, but part of it is the larger raw files from my 5DMII vs. the 5D. Be careful what you wish for!

Rakesh Malik

29-Jan-2009, 14:50

CS4 really tries video resources? The other half of my problems were error messages related to MMX Core Routines on openeing???

Yes, CS4 uses OpenGL to accelerate the UI, and I think that it uses the GPU if it's available for some of the filters. MMX surprises me, since that's so old, but there's probably a lot of old code sticking around in PS somewhere :)

poco

30-Jan-2009, 05:53

Here's an unrelated problem that's not worth starting a new thread on, but someone may be willing to help with -- I'm running vista and CS3 and whenever I turn on Bridge I get the error message, " This application requires a Intel Pentium 4, Intel Duo Core, or Intel Core 2 compatible processor. The application may perform poorly, are you sure you want to continue?"

And that's pretty insulting because I have a Core 2 Quad processor. Photoshop itself seems to recognize this as when I go to help/system it lists:

Operating System: Windows NT
Version: 6.0 Service Pack 1
System architecture: Intel CPU Family:6, Model:7, Stepping:7 with MMX, SSE Integer, SSE FP, SSE2
Physical processor count: 4
Processor speed: 2333 MHz

So what's the Bridge error message about? And what's with NT being listed as the operating system -- is Vista considered some flavor of NT? I don't get it....

D. Bryant

30-Jan-2009, 08:36

So what's the Bridge error message about? And what's with NT being listed as the operating system -- is Vista considered some flavor of NT? I don't get it....

Just ignore it. Vista is effing brain dead. If Bridge works okay don't sweat it. I'm running Vista Premium on a newer HP laptop and CS3/Bridge has never issued that message. On my desktop running XP2 SP3 I never have any problems. So I think what you are seiing is some wierd Vista-ism peculiar to your computing environment.

Don Bryant

poco

30-Jan-2009, 09:35

Thanks, Don.

I've been ignoring it without any ill effects other than the annoyance factor. But it's weird.

Rakesh Malik

30-Jan-2009, 09:39

Just ignore it. Vista is effing brain dead.

A bug in Bridge implies that Vista is brain dead? That's quite a stretch.

D. Bryant

30-Jan-2009, 10:38

A bug in Bridge implies that Vista is brain dead? That's quite a stretch.

You apparently didn't read my post carefully, thats not what I implied. As I said I don't get the error from teh version of Vista I use (or the hardware that I use to operate Vista) so I would have to suspect that there is some interaction with Bridge and Vista that causes the dialog to be displayed. This could be due to a lot of reasons which i (we) are not privy to, including the OP's computing environment.

Don Bryant

aphexafx

30-Jan-2009, 11:11

It is just astounding to me how all these issues with Adobe's software are somehow Vista's fault, when running in Vista, but Adobe's fault when running on other platforms.

Hop on the "Vista did it" bandwagon, everyone - it's so very easy and therefore must be true!!! And make sure to get rude when someone calls you on it, for good measure!

Yawn.

---

poco, Vista is indeed the latest version of the NT platform and API. No other software that I know of has any problem calling into the API and getting system resource values, I know this because I can do it from C/C++ just fine. If bridge is having difficulty with this, and reporting the wrong processor, it is definatley Adobe's fault - not Microsoft's. You should email Adobe and tell them about your issue so they can fix it.

poco

30-Jan-2009, 13:33

Thanks, Matt.

I'm actually more inclined to believe it's an Adobe problem than Vista's. Even a quick scan of the Adobe boards shows a lot of unresolved issues with CS* upgrades and an unwillingness/inability by the company to address them.

Rakesh Malik

30-Jan-2009, 13:43

You apparently didn't read my post carefully, thats not what I implied.

True, you didn't imply it... you stated it.

D. Bryant

30-Jan-2009, 13:49

True, you didn't imply it... you stated it.

I did? Please show me where.

Don Bryant

Kirk Gittings

30-Jan-2009, 13:56

Probably a dumb question........I have two possible drives to use for PS scratch. I assume you would want to use the faster one, but how do I figure that out?

Eric James

30-Jan-2009, 14:06

I've been learning a good deal here:

http://macperformanceguide.com/index.html

Certainly drive speed is a fundamental factor but so too are data density and the area of the disk employed for scratch. For example, a 500GB 7200RPM drive will provide faster write times than a 320GB 7200RPM drive; and the outer diameter of a given drive will provide faster performance than the smaller inner diameters. The author is also an advocate of striped RAID to enhance scratch performance - he would have you use both of your drives in tandem.

Gordon Moat

30-Jan-2009, 14:40

Probably a dumb question........I have two possible drives to use for PS scratch. I assume you would want to use the faster one, but how do I figure that out?

In audio and video editing, latency is a bigger issue than throughput. You can often find the specifications for latency of a drive when you know the manufacturers model information. In PhotoShop, rendering benefits from throughput, while more immediate and simpler actions benefit from reduced latency. Ideally you would use both drives as scratch drives, though you need to choose one to designate as first.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography (http://www.gordonmoat.com)

Rakesh Malik

30-Jan-2009, 14:53

I did? Please show me where.

Don Bryant

You wrote:
Just ignore it. Vista is effing brain dead

I'm not the only one who read it that way, so it's obviously you.
Face it, move on.

Rakesh Malik

30-Jan-2009, 14:58

Probably a dumb question........I have two possible drives to use for PS scratch. I assume you would want to use the faster one, but how do I figure that out?

The better one to use is probably the one that's least burdened, as long as they're both on fast controllers (i.e. not USB2 or something). A firewire drive wouldn't be ideal as a scratch disk either, though it would certainly be better than USB2 for that.

If you have two SATA disks or something along those lines, pick the one that generally gets less use as your primary scratch disk. You could do the research and figure out which one has better latency and which one has better throughput, but the gain to effort ratio there probably won't be very high :)

Kirk Gittings

2-Feb-2009, 11:04

I heard back from Adobe. Actually the first "core" related error messages at start up were caused by some incompatible plug-ins I carried over from CS3. I'm not sure which one. I haven't sorted that out, but by killing the link to additional pulgins folder, I cured the problem. Too bad the error message just couldn't say that????:rolleyes:

I haven't heard back from Adobe, but a post on the Fred Miranda site informed me that I was supposed to update my video driver before installing. Oops my bad. That solved half my problems (100% crashes on resource intensive activities like Photomerge and correcting lens distortion). CS4 really tries video resources? The other half of my problems were error messages related to MMX Core Routines on opening??? Weird stuff. These were corrected totally accidentally by installing the Bigger Tiles Plugin (a performance booster from the Goodies folder)!!!!!!

I was at the point where I thought this release was trash (not because of the new tools which are wonderful but because of the problems). I am still not thrilled with the performance on my machine, but part of it is the larger raw files from my 5DMII vs. the 5D. Be careful what you wish for!:rolleyes:

Greg Miller

2-Feb-2009, 12:32

That's great that you are now on a path to having CS4 be a workable application for you. And it can be frustrating to try to get from some of the crazy error messages that pop up on our monitors.

TO defend Adobe and Microsoft just a little bit, not only do they have to put out applications that has functionality that everyone likes and find easy to use (virtually impossible with all the variability in human tastes), they also have to try to anticipate all the crazy things those humans will do when using the application, and anticipate all the system variables their applications will encounter. Just think about all the mother boards, graphics cards, hard drives, networks,... that are out there that they will encounter. So to anticipate all the things that can go wrong or create conflicts, identify on the fly what caused a problem, and send a meaningful error message to the monitor is a monumental task. The technical team has to do that while all the time getting pressure from the CEO and Sales and Marketing teams to deliver faster. Any experienced programmer can tell you the havoc a missing or extra period or semicolon can cause. So it is really pretty remarkable that Photoshop and Vista and even Leopard (which has a much more limited amount of variability to deal with because of Apple's control of the hardware base that exists) perform as well as they do.

Kirk Gittings

2-Feb-2009, 13:09

I understand Greg. I do not write any software though I do some HTML and can see from that experience how a simple code error can cause havoc and be hard to track down.

My point about the error message was.....how many resources get consumed by forcing the user to go through support for what I now know is a fairly common issue and fix with CS4? In addition why is there no real searchable database for solutions to these kinds of common problems? According to Adobe this pluggin problem affects about half of the upgraders like me! I searched their site and the web thoroughly with this particular error message before I contacted them and could find nothing. Seems like a poor business approach.

rvhalejr

9-Mar-2009, 13:23

.,.Seems like a poor business approach.,.

Executives for said enterprises probably do not agree, they depend on brand lock-in, forced upgrades, fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Not certifying compatible hardware, firmware, software nor maintaining end-to-end functional and interoperability test suites run prior to release is a sign of arrogance, ignorance and greed.

One way to put the fear of god into the oems is to find alternative solutions for their products. However, the learning curve for alternative tools can be steep requiring time and money.

Alternatively there is a "Safe Mode" for those who must live on the bleeding edge.

These days the choices are Virtualization (booting into different operating system environments using a tool like VMware), Designating a system as a test sandbox (isolated from your production system) or Physically changing out bootable disk drives, to mention but a few.

The problem with Virtualization (if I remember correctly) is that only certain processors can achieve true concurrency (this usually means only one big job can be run at a time).

Designating a system as a test sandbox is easy, expensive and takes up space.

Physically changing out bootable disk drives (requiring cloning images and flipping bits) is best done (arguably) by a systems engineer. Using a multi-boot tool might negate the necessity of physically swapping the drives.

Drive maintenance and MTBF is out of scope here, but if one produces huge images consistently low level disk cloning (using the high speed internal system buss) is one of your best friends.

To summarize, if living on the bleeding edge is a requirement there are ways to protect yourself, like running systems (or environments) in parallel.

This is an admittedly over-simplification of a really big and nasty problem. But if photographers can break down the work flows into little baby steps using different tools their digital processing capabilities become much more powerful (in terms of time to completion and the quality of the end product).

My advice to the executives (now thats really a stretch) would be to go out and get a real job, like one in photography or imaging instead of playing with mergers and acquisitions.

Maybe they should try to obtain some actuarial skills so they could quantify the risks associated with offering several dozen products released with minimal testing, little if any approved configurations and the danger of a big pile of substandard products (and product lines) collapsing in on itself.

This thread is a case in point.

Marko

9-Mar-2009, 14:02

Not certifying compatible hardware, firmware, software nor maintaining end-to-end functional and interoperability test suites run prior to release is a sign of arrogance, ignorance and greed.

One way to put the fear of god into the oems is to find alternative solutions for their products.

Absolutely. Adobe used to have a completely different kind of arrogance back before Quark became an empty shell due to the same malaise amplified by paranoia and before the buyout of Macromedia, when these two used to be real competitors. The kind of arrogance they displayed back then was the arrogance that comes from doing something right and being aware of it. They even used to have meaningful program icons back then! :)

That kind of approach enabled them to prevail and become the only player of consequence in the respective markets and that, for some inexplicable reason, always seems to compel the winners to start making the very same mistakes their competition did prior to vanishing. Hubris ante nemesis, I guess...

However, the learning curve for alternative tools can be steep requiring time and money.

I don't think it is the learning curve and the expense per se, but the very real possibility of having to repeat the entire process several times before settling on the appropriate alternative. The biggest cost in those cases would lie in lost productivity during the transition. That is what currently makes Adobe feel irreplaceable. But watch what happens when the next up-and-coming player shows up! Adobe will either have to eat some humble pie and start paying real close attention to their customers again, or they will eventually go the way of Quark. Ideally, there will be one strong but still "alternative" competitor that could help keep Adobe on its toes for the long term. By that I mean strong enough to make another buyout impossible but not strong enough to become an alternative standard. Standards are good, monopolies are not.

David Spivak-Focus Magazine

9-Mar-2009, 22:16

I remember back in the '90s no one would hire me because all I knew was PageMaker and some odd program called InDesign. Everyone told me to go back to school to learn Quark. HA! How times have changed.

David Spivak-Focus Magazine

11-Mar-2009, 13:59

I don't know how many of you use InDesign, but I just got a thorough workout of the new preflight system in CS4. IT IS TERRIBLE. ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE. Before all you did was hit File ---> Preflight and it would analyze your document and give you errors. This time around and I didn't know this until I tried it, it preflights your document while you work in it, significantly slowing down your computer while you work because it freezes the document whenever you make a change to an image that's RGB or anything like that. You also have to go in and specify what you want the document to preflight for - and it is not automatically setup to detect what most printed projects would want to detect.

CS4 is a literal clusterf*ck of Adobe just trying to improve things that don't need improving.

PenGun

11-Mar-2009, 18:04

Error messages ... in Linux I just chuck the first line into the Google and it'll usually take me right to the solution. It does take a bit more care but it is trivial to provide useful information when an app or part of the core goes south.

To paraphrase an earlier post 'windows is brain dead'.

AnalogV

18-Mar-2009, 06:11

I'm running CS4 on XP Pro SP3 and I haven't had a single problem; running like a charm.

Rider

28-Mar-2009, 10:07

I wrote a reply and lost it. Bottom lines:

(1) dont't be afraid of Vista 64. It's good, on a new machine.
(2) Photoshop CS$ has problems and Adobe knows it.

(3) Some are being fixed. http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2009/02/photoshop_cs4_u_1.html

(4) Some are not being fixed, until CS5. http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2008/12/notes_from_installer_mgmt.html

This is my favorite, and it's not being fixed:

[I've confirmed that there's an installer bug that causes Adobe Drive to be installed on Win64 systems regardless of whether you've unchecked that option. --J.]

[No, nor do I expect it to be changed in CS4. --J.]

Herb Cunningham

29-Mar-2009, 09:04

I was able to get CS4 upgrade from CS2 plus LR2 in a package deal. I have not installed CS4 on my G5 Mac-my computer geek tells me it won't run as fast on a single processor Mac. (?),

I agree about the continual upgrading- Adobe told me they plan an upgrade every 18 months.

Makes wet darkroom look really inviting.

Brian Ellis

29-Mar-2009, 09:28