CS3 bugs - anyone else seeing them?

[Lisa Nikodym]

I posted this in another thread, but it's not clear anyone noticed it there, so I'm reposting it as a new topic in the hope of getting some response:

I never used the beta version of CS3, but I've had a host of annoying bugs with CS3 (and had none with CS2). Perhaps it's because my PC is 3 or 4 years old, but when I load CS3 about half the time I get warning messages that it couldn't load some things called "FastCore" and "MMXCore" (if I remember their exact names correctly?), and, when I get into CS3, it sometimes (not always) goes into a weird mode where the cursor flickers rapidly and I can't get it to click on many things. Often I can't open Bridge, or open files from the "recent files" list; when I try, nothing happens. Closing and restarting CS3 sometimes helps. Rebooting sometimes helps. The problems seem to come & go randomly, and CS3 is unusable about half the times I open it. In the meantime, I've gone back to using CS2.

I also find that CS3 runs much slower than CS2 on my PC. Perhaps because it's not loading the FastCore and MMXCore routines...?

Has anyone else here seen problems like this?  Has anyone any suggestions for fixing them?

Thanks,
Lisa

[plugsnpixels]

Hi Lisa,

I'm working on the Mac side, but I'll put in my 2 cents' worth.

I did use the beta on a few machines of varying ages, and experienced some weirdness (disappearing cursor and such, and error messages about missing support items). The "worst" problem I had was when doing a perspective transformation and dragging the handles outside the bounds of the image window. The handles would snap back part way, giving me less transformation than desired. The workaround was to zoom out and stay within the bounds of the window. The release fixed this.

As for using CS3 on older machines, I'm writing you from home on a 7+-year old G4 Mac (dual 533, 1.5 gigs RAM) and CS3 is quite usable on it--maybe even more responsive than CS2. (Don't feel bad for me though; in the office I've got a new quad-Mac Pro waiting to be set up and 100 CS3 Premium licenses!)

I am still sorting out plug-in support. On the G4, I reference my CS2 plug-ins folder, where I have new and old plug-ins installed. CS3 sees them all. In the office on my Intel iMac, CS3 does not (it sees only the CS3-native plug-ins).

You didn't mention how much RAM you have; this could be a factor. Also, Windows being Windows, who knows... Maybe you need a Windows reinstall or other such cleanup.

It is true that uninstalling the beta (which I know you didn't use) and installing CS3 was not a happy experience for a lot of people (check the various forums). I work in IT and also had to fight with it, finally manually uninstalling the various beta pieces after the official Adobe uninstall script did nothing.

So please provide some more details about your system. Do you have a second PC you can try it on as a comparison? Doing so may reveal issues with your main system.

PS: Those are great travel photos on your website!

[mcbroomf]

I posted this in another thread, but it's not clear anyone noticed it there, so I'm reposting it as a new topic in the hope of getting some response:

I never used the beta version of CS3, but I've had a host of annoying bugs with CS3 (and had none with CS2). Perhaps it's because my PC is 3 or 4 years old, but when I load CS3 about half the time I get warning messages that it couldn't load some things called "FastCore" and "MMXCore" (if I remember their exact names correctly?), and, when I get into CS3, it sometimes (not always) goes into a weird mode where the cursor flickers rapidly and I can't get it to click on many things. Often I can't open Bridge, or open files from the "recent files" list; when I try, nothing happens. Closing and restarting CS3 sometimes helps. Rebooting sometimes helps. The problems seem to come & go randomly, and CS3 is unusable about half the times I open it. In the meantime, I've gone back to using CS2.

I also find that CS3 runs much slower than CS2 on my PC. Perhaps because it's not loading the FastCore and MMXCore routines...?

Has anyone else here seen problems like this?  Has anyone any suggestions for fixing them?

Thanks,
Lisa
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=139438\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Hi Lisa,
YES!  I had EXACTLY the same problems with CS3 (except I don't use Bridge so I may have had that problem an not know), although I did use CS3 beta and initially thought that the culprit.  Still after I scoured my system the issues persisted.

I found a link on the Adobe web site to problems with CS3 and started working through them.  When I got the the one that told me to disable all external plugins my problems vanished.

If you've not tried it give it a go, and check out the Adobe forum for the FAQ and started working through it.

Good luck,

Mike

Edit, I had to disable OLD plugins linked from my CS2 directory.  I never found out which one was bad as I just re-installed the ones I currently use...no problems.  My system is plenty fast running CS3, but it's a Core 2 Duo E6700 with 4GB

[Lisa Nikodym]

I had to disable OLD plugins linked from my CS2 directory. I never found out which one was bad as I just re-installed the ones I currently use...no problems.

That could very well be it.  I'm using all my old CS2 plugins, and never disabled & reinstalled them.  I'll give that a try this weekend.  Thanks very much for the tip!

Lisa

[Robben]

Sadly, CS3 has too many bugs / irritations to name...  

Me, I can't seem to get "Layer Mask Hides Effects" to work, for one (etc., etc.)

And yes, some parts of it have become very slow, though I have 2GB RAM.
I have an elaborate action that takes 6 seconds in CS2. It takes 3 times as long in CS3    You would suspect the Performance "accelerated" isn't working properly or something...

[Lisa Nikodym]

OK, I uninstalled all third-party plugins, and CS3 now works fine!  Thanks very much, Mike, you're a life-saver.  

And it runs much faster now.  Apparently the problem was affecting speed too.

The FastCore and MMXCore routine warning windows had popped up because those were effectively plug-ins in my CS2 plug-in directory (though I don't know where they came from originally), and I had simply defined my old CS2 plug-in directory as an additional CS3 plug-in directory, since it seemed easier than moving and/or reinstalling the old plug-ins.  That was probably the source of all my problems.  I'll properly reinstall the plug-ins under CS3 now.

Lisa

[mcbroomf]

...... I had simply defined my old CS2 plug-in directory as an additional CS3 plug-in directory, since it seemed easier than moving and/or reinstalling the old plug-ins.  ....

Lisa
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=139576\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

That's exactly what I had done.....glad it worked.

Mike

[Lisa Nikodym]

Oops, one more problem.  I uninstalled PhotoKit Sharpener along with all the other plug-ins, then downloaded the new version for CS3, and tried to install it.  It appeared to install OK, but when I try to use it, it wants to "activate" it; it automatically finds my serial number OK, but says it's "unable to activate".

I tried uninstalling it again, and it disappeared from CS3 (as it should).  However, it was still there (and usable) under CS2, which I still have installed.  Maybe the CS3 version won't activate because the CS2 version is still installed, but I can't figure out how to uninstall the CS2 version.  It's not there under "Add/Remove Programs", and the Pixel Genius installation instructions say nothing about UNinstalling.  Any suggestions from anyone?

Lisa

[Richowens]

Lisa,

 From the PKS download page in the fine print at the bottom.

 If for some reason activating fails because you don't have an updated eSellerate Engine installed (this can happen if you have an older product using eSellerate's engine) you can update the eSellerate Engine at this download page (for Mac and Windows).

Activation can be done automatically over the Internet or manually if your machine is not "net" connected. Note, you WILL still need to have a computer handy that is net connected to obtain your manual activation ID key. To manually activate your product click HERE

HTH

Rich

[Robben]

If you're not on Vista you didn't really need the update for PK (just read that an hour ago).

[Lisa Nikodym]

If you're not on Vista you didn't really need the update for PK (just read that an hour ago).

Thanks, Rich & Robben.  The comment on not really needing the update especially helps.  I'm still using XP, so I just uninstalled the new version of PK Sharpener and reinstalled the old one I was using with CS2, and it looks like it works now.

I'll be getting a new PC in a few months anyway, at which point I'll be having fun with Vista   , and will install the new version of PKS (hopefully without any hiccups) then...

Lisa

[One Frame at a Time]

Posted this below and got no response.  I am having a problem with Image Processor. I need to make some global corrections to a whole folder of images and then re-size and save. I have the box checked to "Open first image" but it just processes the whole folder without ever showing me the first image or applying any corrections.  I really could use some help with this if anyone has an idea.  

I never ran the Beta and do not have any 3rd party plug-ins installed right now.

Thanks,

Paul

[seamus finn]

Has anybody had problems installing CS3 on Vista? (See separate topic here). I bought a faster machine for Lightroom, quad core dual processor, Lightroom V 1.2 installed no problem and in many respects is quicker. But I can't install CS3. I'm using a downloaded version from the official Adobe Store with proper, legal registration number. It worked perfectly on Windows XP.  I deactivated it on the first machine. However, when I click on CS3 SETUP in Vista, the window comes up briefly, and then quickly fades away. That's as far as I can get - every time. No alert of any kind appears, no way to input a registration number. I downloaded CS3 again - same thing.  I got only one response to my post above, and since the subject of bugs is being discussed here, I was hoping somebody might be able to help.