Muse not running after Creative Cloud Desktop app update

[DaveH5]

After the latest update to version 6.1.0.587 my copy of Adobe Muse will no longer open.

It partially loads, and then just closes.

In the Windows 10 logs I'm seeing -

Application: Muse.exe
Framework Version: v4.0.30319
Description: The process was terminated due to an unhandled exception.
Exception Info: exception code c0000005, exception address 0000000000DEE917

Followed by -

Faulting application name: Muse.exe, version: 2018.1.1.6, time stamp: 0x5d3ed771
Faulting module name: Muse.exe, version: 2018.1.1.6, time stamp: 0x5d3ed771
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x000000000060e917
Faulting process ID: 0x3150
Faulting application start time: 0x01da33a19cf3e497
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Muse CC 2018\Muse.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Muse CC 2018\Muse.exe
Report ID: 8266414e-2cfd-4801-b0e4-a5257678bd62
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

Anyone any idea why this is happening?

I have uninstalled and reinstalled Muse and that makes no difference.

This is a big problem as I need to update one of my Muse websites.

And please, DON'T just tell me that Muse is now unsupported and obsolete and I should be using something else, I'm well aware of that!

I have carried on using Muse until I can find something better, which I haven't yet, and it has always worked fine up until now.

I haven't knowingly made any changes which would prevent it from working, so why has it suddenly apparently failed?

Thanks, Dave.

[kglad]

@natashax4 

ouch.

[DaveH5]

As far as I'm concerned, they have to fix the issue, for the simple reason that I have a single app subscription with Muse, and if they prevent it from running due to a fault in their Desktop app, and don't fix it, they are taking my money fraudulently! Yes, I can work around it, and now there's no file syncing any more, I could just completely remove CC Desktop for good, Muse does not need it, problem solved! That's not the point though, they didn't test the latest CC Desktop app update with Muse, understandably, but now the problem has been brought to their attention they have no justification for not fixing the problem.

[anber]

Since Muse stopped working for me from today (April 28, 2024), I'm interested in your current situation with Muse. Has anything changed for the better for you regarding Muse? A new option has activated for me this time. This time it's about a 7-day trial (which of course I didn't start). I wouldn't mind if they were able to extend this 7-day trial to an 'infinity' mode 😉

[johno69315311]

If you have a Mac do this: On your startup disk go to: Applications > Utilities > Adobe Application Manager > IPC > AdobeIPCBroker. Now, add a random letter to this file name—for example, AdobeIPCBrokerx. Then launch Muse from the application, not from Adobe Creative Cloud.

[jenh50541205]

This has worked thank you so much!!

[monzalui]

Thank you so much!! Searched and tried everything and worked with tech support for hours and hours. This simple method worked!

[monzalui]

That was after I uninstalled latest cc and used a version of cc and Muse that were downloaded from links the tech support gave me. The links only work for 24 hours so it's no use posting here. Adobe tech support was awesome too, they were helping even though the app has been sunset long time ago.

[kglad]

thanks for that additional information @monzalui 

[DaveH5]

That's good to hear.
I think we're all hoping that the next update to CC Desktop will fix this issue, the developers must be well aware of the problem by now!

[Filmografie]

Perhaps we need to cast a wider net to understand what might be happening: https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/01/windows_10_users_errors_hardware/?

[DaveH5]

I'm aware of that problem, I'm suffering it myself!

It's nothing to do with the Muse problem of course, but I suspect that the scenario is exactly the same, an update has been rolled out which has caused things to stop working, by accident not by design.

I hope Microsoft will fix their mistake on the next Patch Tuesday update. They should hang their heads in shame, as this will potentially have affected millions of people!

I don't believe they would suddenly drop Windows 10 support for some processors, as the theory seems to be in some places, without saying anything in advance.

Likewise with Adobe, I don't believe they would do something deliberately to stop Muse from working with no notice given, as they must know that many people are still using it.

It's just carelessness, nothing more, and I hope it will be fixed, both by Adobe and Microsoft.

[saraz943607]

@DaveH5I interacted directly with Adobe tech support several times on each of these issues-- first when they severed the connection with Typekit (with no notice to any of us) and this time, around the issue of severing the ability to open Muse anymore. On both occasions, the standard response was "Muse is EOL, and is no longer supported. Go to the community forum for an answer." In each case, they logged a support ticket and then closed it because my request could not be accommodated within their current policies. I think disconnected Typekit was a conscious decision, due to a change in their priorities. At that time, I was assured BY EMAIL by someone at Adobe that Muse would continue to be available to people who wanted to use it, and when I had it installed, it was recognized as being part of my plan. She pointed out that they continue to make other, older applications available, but this is not a question of availability. I can install it just fine from within Creative Cloud. I just can't open it and the fix of renaming that file doesn't work for me. In this case, I am quite sure they are aware of the problem and from what I was told in my exchanges with tech support, they have no intention of doing anything about it.

They are putting their resources behind emerging and ongoing needs, and those of us who still are using Muse have been left behind. We were given proper notice of the EOL, and it was put on us to adapt accordingly. For Adobe, it's just business. It's not personal to any of us, but we simply aren't enough of a factor in their balance sheet to matter very much. That's just how it is, under the present economic system.

[natashax4]

EXACTLY! This is all on Adobe. Jokes on them. I cancelled my plan and went to Adobe PDF only. Now I am searching for new photo editor platform. I will NEVER trust Adobe again. 

[kglad]

@natashax4 

eventually, all software is abandoned/unsupported no matter who makes it.

[saraz943607]

@natashax4  If it's just photo editing and composition you want (and don't need drawing and text tools), I recommend ON1 Photo RAW 2024 (https://www.on1.com/). I still need Photoshop's tools, but On1 is better for photo editing.

[DaveH5]

I understand what you say about Adobe Support.

The difficulty is getting them to understand that the problem is within the CC Desktop software, not within Muse!

Any software company is quite entitled to declare any of their software End of Life and Unsupported.
What they aren't entitled to do, unless with very good reason, such as a serious security flaw, is to deliberately disable that software from working, especially when they are still taking subscription money for it!

I still don't believe that is what Adobe have deliberately done.
What they've done is rolled out a new version of CC Desktop, with a change made to it which has prevented Muse from launching properly. They would not have tested it with Muse, as Muse is 'unsupported'. Now they have been made aware of the issue, I would expect them to test it with Muse, identify the problem, and fix it. If the problem can't be fixed, then I would expect a statement to that effect.

I only have Muse on my plan, as a single app subscription. If they still accept that, and allow you to download and install Muse from the CC Desktop app, I would certainly expect them to address the problem.
Muse does not need CC Desktop to run, so in my case if the next version does not fix the issue I fully intend to just remove it from my system completely.
The only use it has for me is for file syncing, and of course that is being removed now anyway!
That being the case, I don't need it, and as long as Muse will log onto my account by itself, that's the permanent fix as far as I'm concerned.
I do realise this doesn't help those with other CC apps, of course.

[kglad]

@DaveH5 

i don't think a muse only plan is available anymore.

[DaveH5]

I'm sure you're right.

I had Muse as a single app subscription years ago, as I didn't need or want any of the other CC apps.

When Muse was 'retired' they allowed me to carry on with the subscription as it was.

I don't doubt that I'm one of the very few still in that position, but I hope I'm not unique!

[kglad]

clearly (from all the commenters here), you're not the only active muse user.

[DaveH5]

clearly (from all the commenters here), you're not the only active muse user.

By @kglad

Indeed not, but I'd be interested to know if there are any others here who still have Muse on a single app subscription, with no other CC apps at all!

[Filmografie]

The beauty of Muse is that it is WYSIWYG and isn't target site specific, unlike the locked-in web site builders proprietary to wix, squarespace, etc. Otherwise it's back to Dreamweaver, Pinegrow and so on where you spend more time coding and a lot less designing. Another option is to get into Wordpress themes, which is another can of worms - before Muse I spent a lot of time flipping through wordpress theme catalogs to find something that might work without a lot of coding. Unfortunately Muse code is really difficult to work with in Dreamweaver and does not seem to export to much of anything - that is Adobe's fault for letting the Muse development team dissolve without any vision for future releases. Reminds me of the days when engineering would build something new and exotic then throw it over the cubicle wall and let marketing try to figure out how to actually sell it.

[saraz943607]

@Filmografie  Back when Adobe cut off access to Typekit, a lot of us had a lot of discussions about alternatives. I am totally with you about trying to do anything in Dreamweaver. I don't want to code, even though I am sure I could learn it if I had to. I don't want to be dependent on another web site for either my development or deployment, either. Because of this latest issue that keeps me from even opening Muse, I decided my best course of action was to go back to school (meaning to learn a new approach) and make use of tools that gave me the kind of design control I enjoyed with Muse. I also wanted to make sure that whatever I chose didn't do to me what Adobe did with Muse, so I wanted a solution that would be around for the foreseeable future. I also wanted something that would be even better than Muse for handling responsive design.

Muse was developed by the people who developed InDesign. For me, that made the learning curve a lot easier, because I was already using InDesign for print publishing and there were lots of similarities (like paragraph styles) that I could easily adapt to. If you think about it, Muse is really producing STATIC pages, just like InDesign does. It just produces more of them -- one for each breakpoint you define, and it harnesses some of the image resizing abilities from Photoshop to resize images appropriately for each breakpoint, without losing quality. There is NO dynamic content possible in Muse. There are no plugins to give you that either.

Precisely because I was FORCED to move on from Muse (because I can't open it, even using the fix talked about in this thread), I took a look at everything out there, what current needs are for design, speed, and functionality, and decided to make the leap into WordPress (now called Gutenberg), host it on a VPS managed server (so I don't have to worry about those issues or be dependent on some external cloud hosting setup), and go with a block theme that has responsiveness built into it and enough tools for me to have freedom in design. The theme I ended up with is Spectra One, and my page builder is Spectra (free) and Spectra Pro (more options). Full site editing (FSE) is now possible with block themes, which means you can set your global design (global colors, global fonts, custom blocks, etc.) and still turn it on or off for individual pages. The biggest arguement against this (in my opinion) is the WordPress security issue, but my hosting environment and my CDN provide a lot of protection for that, and a couple of  plugins plus good site mainentance takes care of the rest.

I took an in-depth look at everything that is out there and this is what I decided was the best solution for me. I have full control over the things that are important to me, and can deliver dynamic content (essential for a blog, and most web sites today), as well as send bulk mailings from within WordPress to grow the audience. There is built-in sharing (so users can post blog posts directly to their own social media accounts) and permalinks that make it easy to post on other sites.

My Muse sites were beautiful and just what I wanted to create. But that was 7 years ago and times have changed. Muse creates pages that are more like posters (fixed content in assorted sizes for different viewports), but that's not good enough for anyone who wants serious attention and readership today. I also detest cookie-cutter solutions, and don't want my sites to look just like everyone else's, so I have to have a solution that gives me enough control over the design to please me and yet doesn't require me to write code -- even custom CSS.

I expect to have to spend around a week or two getting up to speed with my new tools, but once I have done that, design and content creation should go quickly. I won't have to design breakpoints anymore. Those are built in and the new block-based Gutenberg is totally designed for responsiveness and speed. Elementor does have a lot of features that were attractive to me when I did a blog in 2016, but it produces bloated code because it's not built on the WordPress core, like the Astra and Spectra products are.  The overall industry is already shifting away from Elementor and Divi, and in a couple of months, a limited amount of full-site capabilities will be part of the core WordPress software, making it easier for anyone to design and maintain sites of all kinds.

There is a reason why WordPress accounts for almost half of all websites around the world, and now with block-based editing, I think everything that is NOT block-based will become essentially obsolete. I watched Muse for 4 years before it was mature enough for me to decide to use it. One year later, the EOL was announced, but I stuck with it because I was making 4 language versions of my original site and wanted to finish them before doing anything else. The delay was in verifying the accuracy of the translations. The design is otherwise identical.

So, right now I am planning on learning to use these tools in creating the blog, and then create a custom template for the static portions of the sites and make use of WordPress multisite management to clone them and then change the text. I don't want to code and I won't have to code. I know how to work with images, color and layout, and tools like loop builders allow me to create dynamic content (such as showing the latest posts on the home page, identifying other featured posts by category, having a sidebar that lists posts by particular criteria, etc. ) as well as static pages like contact forms and an "about" page.  Lots to learn in terms of using the tools, but I don't think it will take long to create the fundamental design. After that, it's just content creation and promotion.

[saraz943607]

I forgot to mention that the Brainstorm Force products (Astra and Spectra) are ALL WYSIWYG, and there are lots of managed WordPress hosting options that don't require you to depend on a particular site for development or hosting. I couldn't design without being able to see the effects immediately. I don't even have to hit "Preview Page in browser" anymore. It is truly WYSIWYG in the development window, and if you want to see what it will look like on desktop, tablet, or mobile, you just click on the appropriate icon and you see how your design will appear in any of those viewports, all without having to leave the page.

[kglad]

@DaveH5 

that, i do not know.

[saraz943607]

UPDATE: It turns out that WordPress (Gutenberg) Full Site Editing (FSE) is just beginning to emerge and is not a user-friendy tool for designers like Muse ex-users. I watched and waited for 4 years for Muse to mature to be a reliable product before I jumped in and began to use it. Early adoptors had lots of grief and I had lots of grief trying to jump on the FSE bandwagon. I am now using transition tools that make use of flexbox containers, but still operate more like classical page builders than full out block builders.  I am now making good progress with using the Astra theme, Astra Pro, Spectra and Spectra Pro page builder tools, and was happy that I can immediately see the effects of every single change I make -- typography, color, layout, etc. and it's easy to see how it will look in desktop, tablet, and mobile mode. and make adjustments, as necessary. That being said, there are other complexities with using WordPress, so it's been a steep learning curve for me. However, I can't go back to using Muse because it won't open no matter what I try, so I don't feel I have any other choice that makes sense for what it is I want to do. Once I get the layout worked out (probably another two days or so), then I'll be happily creating content and graphics again. I'm fortunate that my husband has an IT background and can handle the technical side of things like hooking up the caching, CDN, and mass mailing connections.  It's harder to set up at the beginning, but much smoother and easier to use after that, and it handles responsive conditions beautifully.