Photoshop Elements 2 crashes on startup on OSX 10.4.11

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Level 1

8 points

Photoshop Elements 2 crashes on startup on OSX 10.4.11

After doing a clean reinstall of Tiger on my G5, and then updating to 10.4.11, I reloaded Photoshop Elements 2. However, when I click on PE to start it up, it soon indicates an error message (with no specific error type indicated) and will not start up.

Some years ago, I had originally loaded PE 2 on my G5 when it had Panther, and PE worked fine all through OS X updates through OS X 10.4.11.

This time, I loaded PE 2 directly onto OS X 10.4.11. Maybe--because it PE is an old software--it could not cope with installation directly onto 10.4.11, but could cope and work OK from its original installation on 10.3 through all OS updates up through 10.4.11.

Any ideas? PE 2 still works on my bootable backup external hard drive (10.4.11), but I'll eventually need to back up my current internal hard drive contents onto that again.

If I can't get PE 2 to work on my internal hard drive, I'll have to use GIMP (which I've already downloaded) in preference to laying out the bucks for the latest version of PE for Mac.

Thanks for any ideas you can suggest to fix this glitch.

17” 1.6 GHz iMac G5, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Oct 1, 2010 9:53 AM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

239,183 points

Oct 1, 2010 10:34 AM in response to Gregg Taylor

Hi Gregg, did you Repair Permissions after Installing?

Open Console in Utilities & either look for PE/Adobe crash logs, or watch it for clues as you try to launch it.

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Answer 2

Gregg Taylor Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 1, 2010 2:57 PM in response to BDAqua

Here are some relevant parts of the Photoshop elements 2.0 crash log (should I post the entire crash log for a single crash incident?).

I don't have the knowledge to use these data to figure out and attempt a fix. Any suggestions?

I have already:

1. Repaired permissions.

2. Trashed the prefs, deleting two files from the prefs folder:
"Photoshop Elements 2.0 Paths"
"Photoshop Elements 2.0 Prefs"

3. When starting up PE, I immediately held down Shift-Command-Option, as suggested by the PE 2.0 ReadMe in case of startup problems.

None of the above three actions has solved the problem.

---------------
PID: 420
Thread: 0

Exception: EXC BADACCESS (0x0001)
Codes: KERN INVALIDADDRESS (0x0001) at 0x50065cb8

Thread 0 Crashed:
---------------
Thread 0 crashed with PPC Thread State 64:
---------------
Oct 1 17:35:27 gregg-taylors-imac-g5 /System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/Current/Support/LaunchCFMA pp: launch failed because the application path is invalid or non-existent. '/Library/Application Support/AuthApp'\n
/System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/Current/Support/LaunchCFMAp p[413] launch failed because the application path is invalid or non-existent. '/Library/Application Support/AuthApp'
Oct 1 17:36:04 gregg-taylors-imac-g5 authexec: executing /bin/chmod
Oct 1 17:37:16 gregg-taylors-imac-g5 crashdump[422]: Photoshop Elements 2.0 crashed

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Answer 3

Gregg Taylor Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 1, 2010 3:20 PM in response to Gregg Taylor

Just now, I repaired permissions, uninstalled PE 2 again (or, more properly, deleted it, since there is no uninstaller for it), trashed the prefs (I found another prefs file to trash, "com.adobe.Photoshop.Elements.plist"), reinstalled PE, repaired permissions, tried to start up PE, then it crashed again.

BTW, re #3 in my previous post, the purpose of that action is, according to the ReadMe, is "to rebuild your preferences."

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Answer 4

BDAqua

Level 10

239,183 points

Oct 1, 2010 3:37 PM in response to Gregg Taylor

should I post the entire crash log for a single crash incident?

Normally we would need more, but I think you did an amazing job of finding the culprit... "launch failed because the application path is invalid or non-existent."

See the last very interesting post here...

http://hintsforums.macworld.com/archive/index.php/t-57253.html

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Answer 5

Gregg Taylor Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 1, 2010 3:55 PM in response to BDAqua

Thanks for the suggestion per the link. I'll try to do something similar, and report back on the results.

Gotta go out now, so I'll be trying that tactic later tonight after I return.

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Answer 6

Gregg Taylor Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 1, 2010 5:43 PM in response to Gregg Taylor

I did a control-click on the Photoshop Elements 2.0 application ----> opened the "Contents" folder, and it DOES contain a "Mac OS" folder, so that's not the cause.

Obviously, per the crash log, there's a faulty pathway somewhere. . . .

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Answer 7

BDAqua

Level 10

239,183 points

Oct 1, 2010 5:58 PM in response to Gregg Taylor

Did you check out...

/Library/Application Support/AuthApp

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Answer 8

Gregg Taylor Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 1, 2010 7:57 PM in response to BDAqua

Alas, I looked and found no "AuthApp" file within "/Library/Application Support."

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Answer 9

BDAqua

Level 10

239,183 points

Oct 1, 2010 8:22 PM in response to Gregg Taylor

AHA... neither can PE! 😉

I'd get EasyFind...

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/11076

Use it to search your whole drive for Files & Folders, case insensitive, Package Contents, & show invisibles...

AuthApp

Or hey, look on the other drive that does run it! 😀

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Answer 10

Gregg Taylor Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 3, 2010 5:37 PM in response to BDAqua

Thanks for the additional suggestions.

I did look for the missing file on the external drive where Photoshop Elements does work, but could not find it there.

BTW, my paste, from the crash report, of the name of the missing file was somehow incomplete--a bit was missing off the end; the full name actually is: /Library/Application Support/AuthApp'\n

Per your suggestion, I checked out the EasyFind software on MacUpdate, but it turns out there were several comments there that said the software doesn't work right with 10.4.11, which I have. Oh well, I guess I'll have to learn GIMP instead.

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Answer 11

BDAqua

Level 10

239,183 points

Oct 3, 2010 6:56 PM in response to Gregg Taylor

there were several comments there that said the software doesn't work right with 10.4.11

Whoa, works fine for me in 10.4.11/10.5.8/10.6.4, I wonder what their problem is... I can use vers. 3.x or vers 4.x just fine.

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Answer 12

roam

Level 6

13,631 points

Oct 4, 2010 6:05 AM in response to Gregg Taylor

Have you tried restoring the PE2 preference files to their default settings?

"In Mac OS X, hold down Option CommandShift immediately after launching Photoshop Elements.
Click Yes to delete the Adobe Photoshop Elements settings file."

+Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 manual, page 34+

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Answer 13

Gregg Taylor Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 4, 2010 10:15 AM in response to BDAqua

I'll maybe give it a try.

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Answer 14

Gregg Taylor Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 4, 2010 10:16 AM in response to roam

Yes, I've tried that, to no avail. It's mentioned in the Read Me, too.

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Answer 15

Oct 4, 2010 2:41 PM in response to Gregg Taylor

Go to applications>Photoshop Elements 2>Plug-ins>Import/Export and delete the adobe TWAIN driver. Does that help?

That may not be exactly the file path in PSE 2--I don't have it installed to check, but it will be in Plug-ins under Import.

EDIT Also, in the preferences, set Check for Updates (sorry, don't remember the exact location back then) to Never.

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