Photoshop CS4

[nemophoto]

I'm trying to figure out if it's just my system, etc. or if this is a general problem. I run Photoshop CS4 under Vista 32-bit. I have max memory under 32-bit (3Gb usable of 4GB), loads of disk space, a 4-core processor. Photoshop CS4 crashes constantly! In an average day, I have to restart PC CS4 no less than four times, including often finally rebooting my system. Plug-ins that ran fine under CS3 (like Vertus Fluid Mask 3) rarely run under CS4, especially on 16-bit images. It's gotten so bad in the past few days that I've gone back to using CS3. In the past two days, NOT A SINGLE PHOTOSHOP CRASH.

I'm usually running Lightroom in conjunction with Photoshop. These crashes have put me several days behind on some catalog work. (Coincidentally, my wife, who works on a Mac with InDesign, has InDesign CS4, and most of the time works in CS3 because of crash issues.) Is the whole CS4 line screwed up?? Thanks.

Nemo

[Kirk Gittings]

try deleting your preferences file. That gets corrupted and can cause all kinds of problems.

[Mark D Segal]

NO - the whole CS4 line is DEFINITELY NOT screwed-up. I recommend focusing your diagnostic attention on your computer and operating system. If it's of any interest, I've been using Photoshop CS4 with a Windows computer running XP Professional Service Pack 2 ever since CS4 became available. I can have Lightroom, Acrobat, Excel, my Epson 3800 and my email all operating at the same time, and depending on the file size it all works fine. My computer is a 32 bit system, dual core with a pair of 3.0 GHz Xeon 5160 processors (Dell 690 Workstation, now three years old). It slows down once file sizes get very large = i.e. in the 300-500 MB range, but smaller files (say in the 70MB to 200MB range process efficiently with no crashing. I do pay attention to management of my computing resources and Adobe's computer configuration recommendations. I assume all that helps.

[Justan]

Start by looking in the computer’s event logs. They will probably have references to what took place. The application and system logs are the most likely locations to show something useful.

After that note the event id, the event source and the description provided and use them in a Google search. Note that you should remove any references to ip addresses or computer names as those confuse Google. Anyway, Google will turn up some possible solutions.

[mcbroomf]

I had a lot of problems with CS4 (or maybe CS3...memory not what is was  ) when I started using it.  It never crashed but I had some very odd behaviors with some of the tools and the mouse/cursor that essentially rendered it useless..  I eventually resorted to working my way through the Adobe Troubleshooting Guide.  One of the early steps was to disable all plugins/filters from previous versions.  Problem solved.

I would recommend working your way through the Adobe TS guide.

[nemophoto]

Thanks for the replies and suggestions. I went to Adobe's troubleshooting guides and started by disabling the OpenGL video. Though I miss some of the features, and it negates some of the reasons I updated my video card, it solved some of the crashes and weird mouse behavior. (I have an Asus Radeon EAH4890.) But, I still have issues, and now am getting regular BSOD crashes. The video goes haywire for a moment right before the crash, so it must be related to the driver or something. POS. I may buy orbuild another computer, since this is two years old. I also thought some momentary screen black outs were related to my old graphics cards, but now I think it might be system related. Seems to be the "perfect storm" of hardware, driver and software interaction.