Inspiring

Question

Creative Cloud Error 184 (again)

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
September 30, 2019
6 replies
13630 views

I have read several discussions on this error, but I'm still at a loss as to what to do. I restarted my PC. I made sure there were no Adobe processes running (I even ended all Adobe processes showing in Task Manager). Then I launched the Creative Cloud desktop app. It says "Creative Cloud Updates are available." I click Proceed and it begins updating,. It gets to 78% and then hangs for several minutes. Then my desktop disappears for a few seconds, then reappears and Creative Cloud displays the red triangle and error 184.

The various threads on this topic say that some program has a file locked. How can I tell what file it is? Do you have any idea why my desktop disappeared?

This topic has been closed for replies.

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

See this related discussion.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/Get-Started/Error-184-on-Creative-Cloud-Update/td-p/10503442

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

J

J IsnerAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks for the link. I have seen that discussion and others like it. I don't have any older versions of any of the apps installed, only the latest PS, LR, and BR. The problem is with the Creative Cloud app itself.

Three weeks ago, I spent 45 minutes in a remote debugging session with Adobe engineers from India. They walked me through a fix that involved (a) killing one of the Adobe processes that runs at startup (unfortunately, I don't recall which process it was ... there are a seven or eight of them) and (b) renaming two dll's in

C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\CoreSyncExtension\. Then I retried the update and it ran quickly to completion. However just as I suspected, the next time the app needed to update itself (which happened today), it again failed with error 184. I'm pretty sure the same temporary fix will work, but I don't remember which app to kill! It's most certainly one of these:

FYI, the relevant line in the instal.log says

WARN: Unable to move file at "C:\adobeTemp\ETRA667.tmp\7\CoreSyncExtension\CoreSync_x64.dll" to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\CoreSyncExtension\CoreSync_x64.dll" Error 32 The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.. Try setting correct permissions to the specified file/folder or parent folder, so that admin has rights to modify it.

Unfortunately, the message does not identify the process.

Now here's how the failed update is hurting my system: When the Creative Cloud app finishes updating, regardless of whether it succeeds or fails, it kills and restarts explorer.exe. If the update has failed, CC will try to update itself again the next time the PC is restarted ... and the next time ... and the next time. The attempted update happens relatively soon after I boot the PC, while other programs are still being started. Explorer.exe is being killed while other critical startup events are still happening, leaving my system in a broken state.

A possible workaround might be to delay the startup of Creative Cloud, but I have no idea how to do it.

D

Dwilden

Participant

For me this solution solve the error 184

"rename two dll's in C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\CoreSyncExtension\ (CoreSync_x64.dll and CoreSync_x86.dll), then try updating CreativeCloud again. This time, update succeeded."

J

J IsnerAuthor

Inspiring

It's Baaaaack!

Today the new Creative Cloud Desktop app installed itself on my Windows 10 PC. The new app has the same problem as the old one: It tries to update itself and fails with Error 184, leaving my system in a broken state (permissions problems). The workaround given to me by the Adobe engineers less than three weeks ago only held until the next update. I was hoping that the new app would fix this bug. Sadly, it appears to only "streamline" the user interface.

S

Samoreen

Inspiring

Hi,

The new app is actually a tiny web browser showing the contents of this page : https://creativecloud.adobe.com/apps/all/desktop . It's exactly the same thing and you can manage and update your apps from this web page. So, updating the CC Desktop app itself is not absolutely necessary.

--Patrick

J

J IsnerAuthor

Inspiring

Hi Samoreen,

I don't see that they're "exactly the same." The desktop app is currently telling me that an update for PS is available (which is true). However the web page is inviting me to "get" PS. So the two don't seem to be in sync.

But suppose they were in sync. Then running the desktop app should be optional, and you should be able to uninstall it. However Adobe prevents you from uninstalling it:

As long as you can't uninstall it, it will continue to try to update itself at every startup. And fail, with consequences.

S

Samoreen

Inspiring

> Could CC be causing this?

Yes, CC Desktop is the cause of a lot of trouble. You should be aware that under some circumstances, especially when updating itself, CC Desktop merely kills the explorer.exe process in order to avoid a reboot after replacing currently running modules (this has been proven by some tests I and another user have made). This is why your desktop "blinks". Explorer.exe is no longer running for a while, so you no longer have any desktop. This happened again to me this morning when CC Desktop updated itself.

This is absolutely insane and has already been discussed elsewhere. This an unacceptable and incredibly bad programming practice. Just because explorer.exe could be executing some important tasks when it was brutally killed. This is also why you lose access to some devices because explorer.exe is not relaunched correctly. Logging out and logging in again should fix the problem.

--Patrick

J

J IsnerAuthor

Inspiring

I wonder why more people aren't affected by this. Could there be something particular about our Windows setup?

S

Samoreen

Inspiring

A lot of people have various problems with CC Desktop. I guess many of them have given up complaining. I don't think that these problems are related to the system configuration, just because these issues may or may not happen while the system configuration didn't change. This program is merely extremely buggy.

--Patrick

J

J IsnerAuthor

Inspiring

I'm beginning to suspect that CreativeCloud is the source of other problems I've been having on my Windows 10 computer. Here are two pieces of evidence for that theory.

(1) If I kill CreativeCloud and restart it, it tries to update itself, and it fails in about 4 minutes. Just before it fails, my desktop "blinks" (briefly goes black) twice.

(2) Before noticing the CreativeCloud update problem, I had been getting the double-blinking behavior about 3-4 minutes into startup every time I booted my PC.

Since CreativeCloud runs at startup, I now suspect that Creative Cloud is the source of the double blink.

But wait, it gets worse: After the double blink (the one that follows startup), there are problems with permissions. For example, if I try to launch Device Manager, I get "Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item." I also lose access to my printer and other hardware devices (again, no permission to access).

Could CC be causing this?

S

Samoreen

Inspiring

Hi,

Before applying the usual and most often useless and time consuming "uninstall/cleanup/reinstall" procedure, you should have a look at the end of this thread :

https://community.adobe.com/t5/Get-Started/Back-to-Adobe-CC-Desktop-App-hell/td-p/10580751

In order to determine which file is locked, you should run the Adobe Log Collector tool, unzip the ZXP file created by the Log Collector (this file is actually a Zip file - just change the extension from ZXP to ZIP), look for the Install.log file, open it in Notepad or any text editor, and search the text for "184". You'll see which file is considered as locked. Uploading the ZXP file as suggested by the Collector tool is not necessary. Just hit Cancel when requested.

The Log Collector tool can be downloaded from https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/cc-log-collector.html . Using this tool in order to determine which file is locked should be the first recommendation made by the support in case of error 184.

Good luck by taming the CC desktop beast.

--Patrick

J

J IsnerAuthor

Inspiring

Hi Samoreen,
Thank you for suggesting the LogCollector. I ran it and got the following details for error 184

FATAL: Error (Code = 184) executing in command 'MoveFileCommand' for package: 'CoreSyncExtensionInstaller', version:4.3.9.2

FATAL: Error occurred in install of package (Name: CoreSyncExtensionInstaller Version: 4.3.9.2). Error code: '184'

ERROR: CopyPrimitiveEx | GetAnyOperationsAborted failed with error: 0

ERROR: CreateProcess failed! Error: 2

ERROR: Destination path:C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Sync\CoreSync does not exist

ERROR: Destination path:C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Sync\CoreSyncPlugins\DesignLibraryPlugin does not exist

ERROR: Destination path:C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Sync\CoreSyncPlugins\LiveType does not exist

ERROR: Destination path:C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Sync\CoreSyncPlugins\SynKit does not exist

ERROR: Failed to rollback folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\CoreSyncExtension with error

Source: C:\adobeTemp\ETR6A2B.tmp;

Destination: C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\CoreSyncExtension;

ErrorString: Error 32 The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process..

Contrary to what the fifth ERROR message says, C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Sync\CoreSync DOES exist. However the folders below it do not exist (see attachment).

Which file that's locked by another process? Is it C:\adobeTemp\ETR6A2B.tmp ? The C:\adobeTemp folder is empty.

S

Samoreen

Inspiring

Hi,

This seems to describe another kind of problem. The log can be rather big and I think that you should look for the last occurrences of "184" and "locked" in the log file.The log files are cumulative, so make sure that you are looking at the records corresponding to your latest operations.

If this doesn't help spot an actually locked file, then read on...

What you're describing reminds me of known issues I had (and still have regularly) that were resulting in error code 183 and also sometimes error code 184. See https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/error-183-when-updating-cc-desktop-from-the-assets-tab . The problem is that the update starts but then stops for some reason after it has started deleting files and folders from the previous version. This issue can take different forms but the result is that the existing version can be partially or totally wiped out. There's no reliable recovery mechanism in the updater/installer.

One of the first things that you should try is to run CC Desktop as an administrator. This sometimes fixes these issues (on my system, CC Desktop doesn't run at all if not launched as an administrator).

Then you should check whether the updater has created a temporary folder for the new version. It should have the following form : C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Creative Cloud.<version_number>. If it exists, it contains the new version. In that case, just delete or rename the old version folder (which requires killing any Adobe process or service). Then rename C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Creative Cloud.<version_number> to C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Creative Cloud

> The C:\adobeTemp folder is empty.

This folder is always empty after a CC Desktop update operation, be it successful or not.

That's all I can say for the moment. I can have a look at your install.log file if you want. Just make it available from Dropbox or whatever cloud location or attach it to a message if it's not that big.

CC Desktop is merely a failure. It's too complex, unreliable and extremely buggy. It is unable to give the user clear informations about what caused the failure and nobody at Adobe seems to be able to support it (beside always repeating the same magic spell : uninstall everything Adobe/cleanup/reinstall). I wish it could disappear and be replaced with a more simple way to update our Adobe applications.

--Patrick

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

First ensure your computer meets current system requirements to run CC Desktop App and other software.
https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/system-requirements.html
Use the Adobe Cleaner Tools to wipe old versions off your system.
https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/cc-cleaner-tool-installation-problems.html
Using a computer user profile with administrative level permissions, do a clean re-install of CC desktop app followed by other apps.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

J

J IsnerAuthor

Inspiring

Sounds like a good plan. If I wipe out and re-install, will my program settings be preserved?

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

Did you sync your preferences to the cloud? If yes, you can get them back.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

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