PSE 7 - Not behaving

[cap0557]

Hi, hope someone can help?

I am a PSE7 and PRE7 user. For a couple of months I've been happily using both applications although mainly PSE. However, Photoshop now appears to have developed some strange behaviours.

I have noticed that the "generating thumbnails" is continually running. I can continue to work but having left the application running from many, many hours it shows no sign of stopping. Previously, this function started and would stop within minutes and list the number of thumbnails generated etc. In addition to this once you exit the package and try to reopen the application it hangs. I have since found that after exiting, PSE is still running a process and is using about 25% of CPU and about 500mb Ram. If I stop the process then I can get back into the application.

I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the programme which has made no difference at all. I have also deleted the thumbnail file as advised elsewhere but that made no difference. My OS is Vista home premium running on a Quad Core with 3gb Ram.

As I say I can continue to work around the problem but that's not what I want to do .

Can any one help or experienced the same issues?

[Juergen D]

Try resetting the preferences for both the Editor and Organizer. Follow the instructions here (#3):
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/405/kb405398.html

Juergen

[cap0557]

Juergen, thanks for the response. I've located the support page but I don't appear to have the same directory/folder structure as indicated. Do you know where else the preference files are located?

Also do I have to also take the windows registry option?

Thanks
Chris

[Juergen D]

Also do I have to also take the windows registry option?
No, only the prefs reset. You probably need to set Windows to show hidden files and folders (>Tools >Folder Options >View).

Juergen

[cap0557]

Thanks once again.

I managed to delete the prefs file by accessing it using Ctrl+Alt+Shift whilst clicking on the Editor option. That was the good news, unfortunately once I restarted the problem persisted. I think though I may have cracked it. I took a guess at the catalog being corrupt. Attempted to use the repair and optimise current catlaog option but this didn't have any affect, the final choice was to create a new catalog which I did. This seems to have cured the problem as there are no residual processes running after exiting PSE and the thumbnails have all been generated and that process completed. I guess it could have been a combination of both the prefs and the catalog, but things appear back to to normal.

Many thanks for your prompt responses.

Regards

[novasceo]

Hi,
I'm having the same problem with PSE7 hanging forever when generating thumbnails. I have tried all the steps described above to no avail. My problem might be a bit more severe: while PSE is generating thumbnails, the program is completely unresponsive.

cap0557, when you created a new catalog, did you then re-import all your pictures and re-do all your tags? I hope you found a way to do that automatically! I've been using PSE for years, and I've got untold hours invested in tagging. I would HATE to lose my catalog. I have a backup from about a year ago, so it's not THAT bad, but still (and I know -- I should back up more frequently...)

Scott

[johnrellis]

I'm having the same problem with PSE7 hanging forever when generating thumbnails. I have tried all the steps described above to no avail. My problem might be a bit more severe: while PSE is generating thumbnails, the program is completely unresponsive. How long is "forever"? PSE generates about 5,000 - 10,000 thumbnails per hour on a typical machine, so if you have a large catalog, it can take many hours. How long have you waited?

While it's generating thumbnails, the program often isn't otherwise usable.

[novasceo]

Thanks for the reply!

I just killed it again after 16 hours. The thumb.5.cache file modified time is the time when I last started the program. I think I have about 15K pictures, so three hours or so should be sufficient, I would think.

While it is running, the Task Manager process window shows that it is using 50% of the CPU consistently, and about 186 MB. I have 2GB installed in my machine.

[novasceo]

I am currently trying what cap0557 did -- create a new catalog and re-import everything. I think I check "write tag data to photo files" so hopefully my tags will re-import.

It turns out I have 37,000 photos! Still, at 5K/hour, it should be able to create thumbnails in 7 or 8 hours.

I would still like to resolve the problem in the old catalog, so if anyone has any input please post!

[johnrellis]

Work through all the steps in this FAQ:

http://www.johnrellis.com/psedbtool/photoshopelements-6-7-faq.htm#_Recreate_Organizer_thumbnails

[johnrellis]

Also, in step 4, trying selecting just one thumbnail at a time and doing Edit > Update Thumbnail. If you can't update individual thumbnails, then you can skip doing step 4 on all the thumbnails.

[novasceo]

This post contains the contents of a private message thread that discusses the solution described above by another user. It talks about managing the retagging issue when creating a new catalog.

As I understand it when you assign tags in PSE basically they are attached to the photo and kept in the catalogue used.
What this means is that if you use the photo elsewhere there will be no tag information. By selecting the option from the file menu in PSE Organiser ("write tag and properties info to photo(s)") you are then embedding the information in that files IPTC metadata and therefore making it independent of PSE. Therefore going back to your scenario when you import the photos back into PSE you will bring in the embedded tag data and subsequently create the tags in a new catalogue.

Happy to share the info, so post accordingly

Cheers


---Quote (Originally by novasceo)---
Sounds like exactly the same issue.

As for the tag data, when you say "each time you want to write the data back" you mean that there is a separate command to do it, rather than an option to do it all the time. I think you're right - I'll check that when it finishes importing. It might be that starting with my backed-up catalog from a year ago might be better than starting over. It turns out I have 37,000 pictures!

Do you mind if I post these messages in the thread that you started back in June? Others might find it helpful.

Scott


---Quote (Originally by cap0557)---
Hey Scott,

The problem started in the same way as you describe, I could even identify the culprit picture but deleting it didn't do anything.

Just in case ... On the "write tag" I'm sure you need to select the option each time you want to write the data back. It doesn't do it automatically for each new picture added and subsequently tagged in PSE

Regards
Chris

[novasceo]

Start PSE to the Welcome screen
Hold down Ctrl/Shift/Alt while clicking Organize
Hold until you see the Catalog manager
Click New to create a new catalog
Import all your pictures into the new catalog

Preserving your tags through this process requires that you have previous used the "Write Keyboard Tag and Properties Info to Photos" command.

If you have done that, then when you re-import your photos, make sure to tell PSE to import the tags!

After all the photos are imported, you will have all your tags, but they will all be under Imported tags. Move them to the appropriate categories (Family, Friends, Events, etc.) You can Ctrl-click to select multiple tags before dragging them; this makes it much faster.

I still might try to work on fixing the old catalog, but I think it's dead.

[johnrellis]

Beware that creating a new catalog by relying on File > Write Keyword Tag and Properties Info has a number of problems. In general, very often not all of your metadata -- tags, captions, notes, star ratings, dates/times -- gets written correctly to the photos. Also, you lose all your stacks, version sets, albums, and projects (e.g. slide shows). See the last paragraph of this section for details:

http://www.johnrellis.com/psedbtool/#_Writing_File_Metadata

[johnrellis]

I still might try to work on fixing the old catalog, but I think it's dead.
To help others here who might encounter similar problems, which of the steps in the FAQ I posted have you tried?

[mastjab]

John, Your tips and insights are a great help. But I've worked through a lot of them and the issue is not resolved. I'm running PSE 7 on Vista with 2 gig memory. When opening PSE Organizer, I get the "has stopped working" error message and PSE closes. (this does not happen in PSE Editor).

I've followed your advice here:
- Repaired and Optimized catalog - still crashed
- Re-create the Photoshop Elements preferences files and registry entries. - still crashed
- Import photos into new test catalog - worked fine, so tried thumbnail steps
- Can't do "Update Thumbnail" option because crashes before I can get menu opened to select
- Delete thumb.5.cache - this step seems to keep PSE from crashing immediately when opened. The Generating Thubnails hourglass will spin for a variable amount of time, but it will crash after a few moments.

The crash happens while thumbnails are generated, so that is a possible cause. Or maybe there are other processes/checks made by PSE at the same time that cause the crash?

Thanks.

[johnrellis]

Try importing all your photos into a fresh test catalog. Perhaps there is a "poison" photo that is causing PSE to choke while generating thumbnails, and this test will identify that. If importing all the photos crashes PSE, and importing some of them doesn't, then you know it's likely there is a poison photo. You could then use "divide and conquer" to (tediously) identify the culprits. Import half of the photos and see if it crashes; if it does, divide that group into half again. If it doesn't, import the other half. Repeat.

If there isn't a poision photo, my only other suggestion is to work carefully through the remaining troubleshooting steps, including those in the Adobe's generic troubleshooting document. Those steps include all of the proven troubleshooting steps that I'm aware of.

[mastjab]

I tested for the "poison file", and found none. However, in the process I found a work around for the crashing catalog.

Open PSE and the Organizer while holding Shift-Ctrl-Alt, select the test catalog (not my real catalog, just a separate test catalog file, which can have - but doesn't need to have - images in it). Then, once organizer is open, switch to my real Catalog using the drop down menu File / Catalog.

After opening my real catalog this way, it doesn't crash.

Does that diagnosis indicate a problem to investigate, which may fix the original crashing problem?

[johnrellis]

Very interesting. Once you go the route of opening the test catalog and then opening the real catalog, can you exit PSE and then use Shift-Ctrl-Alt to open the real catalog directly? Or, after restarting PSE, do you always have to first open the test catalog first?

I don't have a clue as to what might be going on here.

[mastjab]

I always have to open the test catalog first, then switch into the "real working" catalog through drop down menu File / Catalog. If I open the "real working" catalog first, then PSE crashes. Very odd...

Thanks for your help. Any other suggestions or places to research?

[frank abramonte]

It turns out I have 37,000 photos! Still, at 5K/hour, it should be able to create thumbnails in 7 or 8 hours.

Not knowing much about the catalogs you speak of this is just a suggestion.

I notice a number of members having problems with their catalogs, many have photos numbering in the thousands.
You, novasceo have 37,000, amazing. That's like taking 3 photos every day for 34 years.
Is the current Elements software capable of handling that much data in a timely manner.
Perhaps there's a software program that can better manage that much data which can be used, in conjunction with Elements, to store and maneuver around all those photos.

[johnrellis]

Besides the catalog file proper, PSE 7 maintains a number of other files and folders that represent the state of the catalog. I wonder if one of these is the culprit -- you've already tried recreating the thumbnails, but let's test all the other files. Here's a simple way of testing that:

1. Do Help > System Info to find the location of the catalog folder.

2. In Windows Explorer, navigate to that folder.

3. Make a copy of the entire folder, adding "-test" to the copy's name.

4. In the -test folder, double-click the file catalog.pse7db. This should start PSE 7 and open the test copy of the catalog file. It should also start regenerating thumbnails, which will take several hours.

Does this work and fix the problem? If it does, we're not done, in case you have files archived to CD/DVD (with previews), projects (slide shows), or you're syncing with Photoshop.com. But at least we'll have a better idea of what's causing the problem and a possible workaround.

Of course, you may judge that your current workaround is adequate.

[johnrellis]

You, novasceo have 37,000, amazing. That's like taking 3 photos every day for 34 years.
Is the current Elements software capable of handling that much data in a timely manner. Perhaps there's a software program that can better manage that much data which can be used, in conjunction with Elements, to store and maneuver around all those photos.
A reasonable question.

A fair number of people on the Adobe forums have reported PSE 6 and 7 working well with catalogs with more than 25,000 photos, and a few have reported catalogs with north of 60,000 photos. When PSE 6 was released, Adobe said in a video that they had tested up to 100,000 photos. The core database technology underlying PSE 6-7-8 is SQLite, which has a very good reputation and handles much larger databases comfortably. The overall design and algorithms used by PSE are certainly capable of scaling to catalogs much larger.

But it's certainly conceivable that there is some bug in PSE related to the size of the catalog that is tickling the problem here.

Regarding other solutions, you can pay about twice as much for professional/prosumer solutions, including: Lightroom, Aperture, ACDSee Pro, Microsoft Expression Media. Lightroom's library module has a good reputation (and I would use it, except that it doesn't handle video or PDF).

[frank abramonte]

johnrellis, thanks for the intelligent update.
Here I thought 37,000 was unthinkable and you say there are some with over 60,000, WOW!
How does one get to view and manage all this and still have a life beyond the computer? (no reply expected)