Participating Frequently

Question

Dreamweaver 21.5 unstable & crashing [MERGED by moderator]

Forum|Forum|8 months ago
May 21, 2025
35 replies
13035 views

On my PC and work laptop Dreamweaver is freezing and crashing everyday since this last update, it is very annoying. Please fix this bug.

Performance

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S

Stef-Cairns

Participant

I'm experiencing the same issues as everyone else, reverted back to 21.4 and it seems to have stabilised for now.

Steve-Meza

Participant

I experience the same problem. I have Windows 11 Pro 24H2. DW version 21.5. Frequently, DW crashes and I have to re-start the app. It happens most days. Very annoying. I don't remember having problems before I updated to Win 11 from Win 10.

S

Skorpjun

Participant

I too have constant freezes after a while (some seconds) when I use Dreamweaver. After terminating Dreamweaver through Task Manager and then running it again will make the app stable. Weird. Switching to 21.4 solves the issue.

Nayan_Kankariya

Community Manager

Hi @detor,

Thanks for writing to us. Can you please share the workflow where you are observing the crash on your Windows machine. We can accordingly troubleshoot and investigate the issue further.

Have a pleasant day!

Regards,

Nayan

Dreamweaver Team

SendraDS

Participant

Same issue here. Fresh install on new PC, only imported Site Definitions. Second time use and starts crashing again (same behaviour as last month still on older PC). Please fix this ASAP. Thanks!

Working in Code mode.

M

Maxim28110272ol9l

Participant

I'm experiencing the same issue since approximatly the same period.

B

Ben M

Community Expert

I'm experiencing the same issue since approximatly the same period.

By @Maxim28110272ol9l

Can you share anymore details from your instance? OS/version? Did you try any of the steps already mentioned in the thread and where they unsuccessful?

whcressall

Known Participant

Same. Dreamweaver crashes once per session. I can recover the file no problem (thus far) but any kind of shenanigans (rapid text edits, cuting and pasting repeatedly, spellcheck) results in a terminal hang.

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

@whcressall,

Are you editing in Live or Design? Try toggling to Design with Ctrl + Shift + F11.

Live view requires more resources to refresh the screen.
Design is more efficient for routine coding & editing.
Use Ctrl + S often to save work to disk & free up RAM.
Run validation checks to ensure you're working with error-free code.
Window ⇒ Results ⇒ Validation... check document.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

ninalove1

Participant

This answer can not be applied because DW 21.5 won't stay open for more than 30 seconds before hanging up. There's not even time to toggle the view (and I was already using Design anyway). Thanks for the attempt to help, but this version is badly broken and Adobe needs to withdraw it until it is fixed. What a waste of time they have caused with it!

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Dwight241548106hfp

Known Participant

Same is happening for me, with crashes, and all templates are gone from the Assets, though they are there in the Files window.

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

1) Restart Computer and run Dreamweaver as Administrator.

2) Restore Preferences

https://helpx.adobe.com/dreamweaver/kb/restore-preferences-dreamweaver.html

3) Revert to the previous version (21.4).

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

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Dwight241548106hfp

Known Participant

Thank you for trying to help. I was able to uninstall and then reinstall version 21.3, but both the blank Assets window and the crashes persist. I also reset Preferences, with no good effect. If you should have any other suggestions, do please let me know. I've been using Dreamweaver since Macromedia days, ca.1998, and have grown entirely used to it, but I guess I'm going to have to look elsewhere now. Best regards.

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Chris223305396c1k

Participating Frequently

I'm not going to 'reset my preferences'. This is a work computer. For the price my company pays to have access to Adobe apps, Adobe needs to fix this rather than giving us some kind of 'workaround' answer to a problem.

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

I'm not going to 'reset my preferences'. This is a work computer.
By @Chris223305396c1k

==========

Contact your IT dept for assistance. If needed, they can submit a help request from their Adobe Admin console.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

C

Chris223305396c1k

Participating Frequently

Thanks, I appreciate your reply, but I work from home on a computer supplied by my company. I don't have time to deal with workarounds and 'fixes'. This all sounds more like Adobe absconding from their responsibility to fix the broken app that my company pays a lot of money to procure a liscense for me to use. I'm just going to use Sublime text whenever DW crashes or until it's fixed.

S

surfingmtber

Participating Frequently

I am having the same issues with 21.5. How do you revert to an earlier version and why are we paying a monthly fee for flawed software? Win 10 fully upated.

G

glenn-p

Participating Frequently

Dreamweaver is basically discontinued. I reverted to 21.4 and the problems went away. I don't plan on updating it again (if there is another update). To revert to 21.4, I backed up my sites (a good idea but I didn't have any issues) and then used Creative Cloud to revert to the old version. The only side-effect was I lost my program layout tweaks (as if it was installed for the first time). There may be a way to back up the preferences but I didn't bother.

Here are the steps with help from Gemini:

Here’s how to export your site settings:

Open Dreamweaver.
Go to the Site menu at the top.
Select Manage Sites.
In the Manage Sites dialog box, select the site(s) you want to back up. You can select multiple sites by holding down Ctrl (Windows) or Command (macOS) and clicking on each site.
Click the Export icon (it usually looks like a folder with an arrow pointing out).
A dialog box will appear, prompting you to choose whether to back up your settings including login information, passwords, and local paths. Make sure to select the option that includes this information for a full backup. This is typically an option like "Back up my settings..." or by ensuring "Include login passwords and local paths on my machine" is checked if such an option appears.
Choose a location on your computer to save the .ste file(s) and give it a recognizable name.
Click Save.

You can install previous versions of Dreamweaver using the Adobe Creative Cloud desktop application.

Open the Creative Cloud desktop app.
Go to the Apps tab.
Find Dreamweaver in your list of installed applications.
Click the three dots (More actions) next to Dreamweaver.
From the context menu, select Other versions.
A list of previous versions will appear. Find the version you want to install and click Install.

F

Fatfreddy666

Participant

Yep same here, constant crashing on a managed Windows 11 laptop, everything up to date and maintained so probably another bug laden release from Adobe. Looks like Sublime or Visual Studio may be the way forward for stability, both productivity and sanity-wise.

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