PSE 6.0: palettes only as admin on Mac

[platti]

Hello,

I installed PSE 6.0 on my Mac (Leopard). Now I see and can use the palettes for the effects only when I open the app as admin, as a restricted user the palettes are empty.

Any tips or hints?

[ljameso1]

I have tiger so not sure if can help. Suggest check on Apple forum to see if there is a way to make you an authorized user. I'm wondering if the administrator has to give permission for other users.

[Cloud]

How are you opening the app as admin. Do you mean you run it from the command line as sudo, or opening it from an admin account, or something else?

Also, have you run First Aid from the Disk Utility app and repaired permissions?

[platti]

Hi,

Thanks for the replies.
It is the only app, that causes this partial issue. Non of the other apps shows any (similar) problems when I'm using them as a restricted user (as this is, how I normally use my mac. :) ).

[Cloud]

I'm a Mac OSX Leopard, and although I don't have PE6 I do know a fair amount about Mac OS X. I was tying to understand exactly when you mean by running as admin. There is more than one way to do this, and the way you used might give a clue as to the cause of the problem.

Do you understand what I mean by "repairing permissions"? If you don't I can explain further. It's not difficult.

[platti]

Hi,

well, it is that easy:
there are two accounts on my mac: one with adminpermissions, the other one as a restricted user, which I use normally. When I start the app as a user with adminpermissions, everything is fine in PSE 6.0. But when I start the app as a restricted user, the palettes, e.g. for effects, layereffects, borders, backgrounds are empty. Only the layerpalette itself works correctly.

And: I repaired permissions (which I do not think to be as important, as it is usually said) - there is no change in the situation.

[Cloud]

Well the permissions thing can sometime fix things, so it is worth doing, especially when you seem to have a permissions related problem, but yes, it not often the solution - that would be too easy.

The next possibility is whether the user pallet are installed in a user specific location, or are they installed for all users. Where are pallets installed with PSE6? For example, are they in the $HOME/library or /Library, etc. (maybe a PSE6 guru needs to answer this question).

When you installed PSE6 was which user did you use? Are the user pallets additional installs? If so again which user?

[nycfonephreak]

I am unable to get Save for Web to work when running PSE6 on a limited account. It works fine if I log into my Admin Account. But, on the limited account, when I click on "Save for Web" under the File menu, nothing happens - the save for web dialog never opens.

I asked about this over at dpreview in the Mac Discussion forum (I'm a relative Mac newbie) - I was told that Adobe requires Admin rights for their apps to run fully on the Mac.

I hope it's not a violation of policy here to post links to other discussion forums. Here's the link to that discussion:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1017&message=27494785

[Cloud]

Oh, that does seem to put a different light on this. If other users are having problems with running PSE6 from a non-admin account it implies there is a problem with PSE6.

I wonder is someone else with PSE6 could try this from a non-admin account.

[platti]

Hi,

this is the solution:
Adminpermissions for the restricted useraccount - delete the MediaDatabase.db3 under /.../locale/... - restart PSE 6.0 and the database with the palettes will be rebuild, the palettes are filled and can be used.
Then set the user back to restricted - and everything works fine!
(thanks to www.macuser.de)

[Jancy]

I have read on I think one of the post here or another site that you have to be in admin to use PS6. If I find it I will post back. I am sure some one will respond to this that knows for sure.

[Wendy]

Hi ...

PSE6 only seems to let you change somethings if you are using the Admin Account ... this doesn't really bother me as I use the Admin Account anyway.

In this specific case because you were not Admin it wouldn't let you delete the MediaDatabase.db3 ... and when you delete that (or as I usually suggest rename it to MediaDatabaseOLD.db3) then Elements is forced to rebuild the database .. which is all the items in Effects etc :)

Wendy

[platti]

Hi Wendy,

It was not that easy :).
The first thing I did for troubleshooting was to delete the .db3 using my adminaccount.
But that alone didn't fix the problem for the restricted useraccount. At last it was the starting of the app with adminpermissions from the useraccount.

Have a nice day,

[Cloud]

Platti,

I'm glad you sorted it out now. I think this thread will be very useful. Other uses will find it when searching for similar problems, and solutions. In fact it might be something I need when I eventually upgrade to PSE6, so thank you for passing on the solution.

[Wendy]

Hi Cloud ...

If you are the only person who uses the Mac then the easiest thing is just to use the Admin account :)

Wendy

[platti]

Hi,

This is out of adobe's forum:

"steve judge - 6:15am Apr 10, 08 PST (#17 of 23)

Looks like this is a common problem. I also have just installed elements 6. for mac and find that there are no effects or styles in the effects pallete.
I've tried running the installer again and choosing to repair photoshop but still nothing present.

I dont run in admin account so may try that but shouldnt need to - everything else runs ok in user account.

How do I get the styles/effects to work?
-----------------------------------------------------


Barbara Brundage - 7:07am Apr 10, 08 PST (#18 of 23)

The program is designed to be installed in and run in an admin account.

-------------------------------------------------------------

steve judge - 11:54am Apr 10, 08 PST (#23 of 23)

I have just spoken at length with Adobe technical Support.
Apparently they are aware of this as an issue and are working on a solution. They advise there will be an update as soon as its sorted."

So be patient and trust adobe :)

[Cloud]

Sound like an undocumented feature (a.k.a. bug). I'm please to hear that Adobe are working on it :)

Wendy, It could hit me because I was thinking of installing PSE6 on the Mac with the largest screen, and I'm not the admin on that one. But getting Admin rights on that machine sounds like the fix (and will feed my desire for world domination, HAHAHAHA....)

[Doug in Alaska]

Has anyone heard anything about a patch or update for this problem yet? My wife is not an admin and this is a bit of a problem. No, no, no, I'm not setting her up as an admin, learned that lesson long ago! :eek:

[Wendy]

Hi ...

It is early days yet and I doubt that a patch will be released quickly ... I use the Admin account so its never been an issue for me ..

Wendy

[Tomas]

The problem there is I have two legit copies of Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 for two different Macs - mine and my mothers. I have the only admin accounts on both machines, and trust me, you do NOT want my mum to have an admin account...

On her machine, PSE6 is basically a broken app, because the only actual user of the machine is a non-admin account to protect the machine.

Adobe really does need to fix this error, as there should be no reason to limit the running of a minor photo app to admin accounts only. I can imagine this could be a real PITA in many situations.

I assume this is actually being tracked as a trouble ticket at Adobe, if not, can we get one started?

Tom http://tijil.org/tom_icon_flap.gif

[Barbara Brundage]

Here is a workaround that will get your palettes working, but I don't think it helps save for web for everyone:

Dick Riegner - 5:26pm Apr 17, 08 PST (#12 of 16)
Dirk,

Thanks for your suggestion, it worked for me.

Here is a summary of what I did to run PSE 6 from both an administrator and a normal user account, with all the features such as Save for Web, and palettes such as Effects, fully functional. These instructions are for a 10.5 (Leopard) system.

1) Login to an administrator account

2) Install PSE 6 normally

3) Use the Finder to navigate to:

/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Photoshop Elements/6.0/Locale/

4) Click on the en_US folder

5) Use the Finder File->Get Info to display the folder information and click the Sharing & Permissions triangle to see the permissions detail

6) Click the padlock at the bottom of the window and enter an administrator account name and password

7) Click the + symbol at the bottom of the Get Info window to get a list of all the account names defined on your machine

8) Select one of the normal account names that you want to have full PSE 6 functionality and click the Select button

9) That normal account name should now be listed in the Sharing & Permissions pane in the Get Info window with Read only access to the en_US folder

10) Click the Read only status next to the normal user account name you just added and change it to Read & Write

11) Close the Get Info window to save the permissions change for the en_US folder

12) Now (double) click the en_US folder to navigate to its contents

13) Click the file MediaDatabase.db3 and repeat steps 5 through 11 to change its permissions for the normal user account

14) Login to a normal user account that you added to the en_US folder and MediaDatabase.db3 file permissions list and verify that the palettes are full and the Save for Web works