Tim, as Elements is loading it displays "tasks". What does the start up screen say at the point at which it crashes?
People do occasionally report problems with Elements crashing when it gets to "loading fonts". Most often this can be tracked back to either too many fonts installed on the system or to a corrupted font. Since Elements doesn’t have any fonts of its own (it loads what’s on the system already) you might want to see if you have a) too many, or b) one that’s corrupt.
If you have over 150 to 200 installed, try moving some of them out into a different folder and see if that helps.
If you have reason to suspect a corrupt font, split the fonts into two groups, test, split again, and keep going until you isolate a bad one. This usually takes longer to describe than to do.
Beth, It crashes when it gets to "Sorting Fonts". I assume you’re talking about the fonts loaded in Windows?
Tim, you may have too many fonts; that’s been a problem for some in loading Elements.
Tim,
As Chuck indicates, if you have over 150 (or so) fonts installed and active on your system, it bloats your system so in some cases it not only works a lot slower, it can even cause it to crash. If you have text in your image, and you have fonts that are corrupted, then this can also cause file problems and crashes. In some programs (although I’m not so sure in Elements) if you even have corrupted or improperly designed fonts installed, you’ll have troubles. To check on the condition of your fonts, (on a PC), to to Control Panel, Fonts and individually double click on each font, one at a time, and it’ll display it’s look example. If it doesn’t display, it’s got a problem and either should be reinstalled or deleted from your font library. If you are like many of us, and wish to have many more than 150 fonts installed, I’d suggest you purchase an external font manager (ATM Deluxe or Bitstream’s Font Review) which allows you to install thousands of fonts, but also allows you to make custom packs which can be activated or deactivated with a click. This relieves you of the too many fonts problem. I have over 2000 fonts installed on my system, but only keep around 100 active at any one time.
Bob
I opened all the font files individually and they all opened. I do notice, however that some of them only have rectangles representing the letters. I only have about 70 fonts. Elements crashes when it gets to "Sorting Font Files".
Thanks,
Tim
Tim, two things I’m thinking. First, move any of those fonts that don’t display properly into a new folder so they’re out of the way. You might also want to take a look at the article at the end of the link, because it lists the required fonts for Elements. It would be worth comparing to make sure you’ve got everything you need, especially if you have to move some of them out.
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http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/2a39e.htm>
Hi Tim,
I seem to be having the very same problem. I have Elements 1.0 which came with my new scanner. Had I known it was an old version, I wouldn’t have been talked into buying the scanner I don’t think. Anyway, Elements worked fine for a few weeks, but then last night in the middle of a project, it crashed. It refused to launch again and I keep getting the message "Elements has encountered a problem and mush shut down". Ok, try it again…won’t open with out the message. Ok, uninstall and reinstall..same problem, only I noticed that when it stops trying to launch is right when it gets to the part about FONTS! I have a new Dell and I’m using XP. No extra fonts on this machine..nothing different about anything in the last few weeks since I’ve had my new Dell. I think bundled software stinks! What to do now?
April
April, have you methodically checked your fonts to see if one has become corrupted? I think I gave some instructions earlier in this thread: Divide them in half, try launch, keep breaking into smaller segments. If you encounter a group that won’t let you launch, your bad one is somewhere in there. Take it out and everything should be OK.
I forgot to say that the bundled version of Elements is identical to full version. It’s just that you usually don’t get the paper manual.
April,
After you get a handle on your new loading problem, give PSE ver. 1 a chance. I think you will be amazed by its capabilities and power, especially if you have ever used a competitor’s image editor.
I bought version 1 the week it was released. After putting in some serious effort to learn to use it, I was dumbfounded by the enhancements and improvements I can make to my images. I still use version 1 and think it worth every penny of the $99 I paid for it.
Nancy
April,
I’m glad (?) to see someone else is having the same problem. I tried removing the fonts to another folder as Beth suggested and that didn’t work. As I said before, mine crashes when it gets to Sorting Font List. I’m also running XP. I’m really at a loss here.
Tim
Tim and April,
Did you look at the Event Viewer in your OS to read exactly what was listed for that Error? Certainly under the Application category an error was recorded as the program crashed.
April,
I hope you check back as I was able to get this solved. Turns out the settings file was corrupted. I guess this can happen if you turn off the computer or the program in the middle of using the program. (My son has the habit of doing that, which I’m trying to break him of). Anyway, the way to fix it is to click on the Elements icon. Before the starting window comes up hit the shift, ctrl and alt keys at the same time. A window will come up asking if you want to reset your settings. Click on yes and Elements should start up. I was able to find this out by registering my copy of Elements and talking to Adobe’s Tech service. They were very helpful. Good luck.
Tim
I’m having exactly the same problem. I use PSE 2 on Win XP Pro. Tried Tim’s advise, but nothing comes up when I hit alt+shift+ctrl, and PSE still hangs "sorting fornt files". Any other trick for restoring default settings?
Yonadav
If Elements is stalling on sorting fonts, then you’ve probably either got too many fonts installed or you have one or more corrupt fonts. If you have more than about 150, try moving some into a different folder. If reducing the number isn’t the issue, then do a methodical search – remove half of the fonts and try launching. If that’s OK, shift to the other half and try. When you find a group that’s making Elements hang, keep narrowing the number down by halves until you isolate the bad one.
Well, I finally fixed it. Here’s how:
– First, there’s nothing wrong with any of my fonts. It’s not a font that causing the problem. It’s just a BUG in PSE 2.
– Follwoing an advise I found in some other forum, I deleted several files named "AdobeFnt*.lst", that reside not in the Photoshop Elements folder, but rather in "program files\common files\adobe\fonts". I’m not sure if they are created by PS, PSE, or Acrobat, but deleting them does it.
– To make double sure, I also deleted the settings file (following Tim Seaman’s advise above – thanks, Tim)by hitting ctrl+alt+shift VERY QUICKLY after clicking the PSE icon.
My PSE 2 now works as smoothly as it used to. Too bad it cost me about 20 work hours, 4 uninstalls and re-installs, one "system restore" and one "undo system restore".
If anybody from Adobe support are reading this thread – please have this nasty bug fixed. There’s plenty of information here and in other Photoshop forums to give you all the information on this bug.
Yonadav
Yonadav: Thanks for sharing your results; if the same situation arises in the future for another forum participant, we should be able to troubleshoot it more efficiently.
Just for the heck of it, I checked the folder you cited, and, sure enough, I have four of the adobefnt*.lst files you cited – and I’ve never had any problem with PSE 2. Sounds like maybe one of those files was corrupted in your setup. I’m guessing it will be very difficult for Adobe to find this one…
Chuck
I had a similar problem with PSE2 after installing it. It would open ok, but as soon as I tried to do anything within the program such as open a new file it would stop responding. I had tried closing all the programs in the "Close Program" dialog box to no avail.
Then I found this forum and hit ctrl+alt+shift VERY QUICKLY after clicking the PSE icon, per the above recommendation. It seems to work ok now, but I haven’t really worked with it yet.
My question now is: What is the "settings file" I deleted and is it necessary for PSE2 to function properly? How do I restore it if I want to?
Thanks for any help, Nels
"Settings" is the what we know as the Preference folder. Yes, it is necessary, because that’s the folder that remembers all of your settings – like "set Adobe Online frequency to Never", which palettes are open and which are in the well, and it stores your Most Recent Files list, plus any other tweaks you’ve made to make your desktop homey. It will become corrupted occasionally, but nobody so far has figured out exactly why or when. When you use the keyboard shortcut to delete it, a new folder rebuilds automatically as Elements continues to launch. By the time PSE is open on your desktop, a new folder is already sitting there in place of the old.
