Help! I think my PSE 5 died!!

[danadove]

:confused:Hey all! I just went to open my PSE 5 this afternoon after a night off, and I got this error message: "Could not initialize Photoshop Elements because the file is already in use or was left open." So, I tried the obvious, rebooted my computer, then even went as far as to uninstall pse and reinstall it--same thing. Has this ever happened to anyone and can anyone help me??? TIA!
Dana

[wormmeshi]

Dana,

I assume you are opening the organizer. If the program starts you can try recovering your catalog my going to File menu under Catalog and then clicking Recover.

[Chuck S.]

Dana, you may want to try to go through the reset preferences routine:

Close PSE 5
While holding down CTRL, ALT and Shift keys, restart the program
You should get a popup window that asks whether you want to delete the Adobe Photoshop Elements Settings File. Click on Yes.
If that does the trick, the program should open without further issues.Hope that does the trick for you.

[danadove]

No I can't even get that far. My program won't open.

[danadove]

chuck I tried that too, it asked if I wanted to delete files, I answered yes, then the same error message:cannot open....

[Chuck S.]

Dana, how about going into the Windows Task Manager (CTRL-ALT-DELETE>Task Manager) and seeing if you can find any Elements-related applications or processes that may be running? If you find one that has Adobe or Elements in its Image Name, try selecting it and clicking the End Process button. Just another shot in the dark...

[wormmeshi]

Dana,

Which application are you trying to run, Editor, Organizer or the Welcome screen?

[danadove]

Chuck, I tried that too! Nothing was running under Photoshop. I think my computer is just crazy! I'm going through now and deleting anything related to PSE so I can reinstall it again. I hope it works!! I make siggys and blinkies for another group, and I miss it. LOL.

[danadove]

James, I usually use the editor. But that is just it, I can't get passed the big butterfly before it gives me the error message.

[Chuck S.]

Dana, how about shutting down your computer, then holding down the F8 key during restart, then selecting Safe Mode. Try to run PSE 5 in Safe Mode and see if that will clear the problem.

Another option is to restore the computer to the last point where it was working. I've not done that, so I'm not going to offer any specifics on that....

[danadove]

I will try both of these to see if works thank you so much!!

[billd2]

Dana, I would do as Chuck suggests and use System Restore. I have used that procedure many times and it has worked quite nicely. Just use a restore point that is available prior to the time the problems began. If you need assistance just reply and I will outline the steps for you.

[danadove]

thanks to all who helped! system restore did the trick. I just really don't understand why it happened.

[billd2]

Dana, sounds like you got things back to normal. Good ole System Restore. As to understanding why it happened, I learned a long time ago that computers work in mysterious ways with no logical explanations.