Creative Cloud Stuck on "Updating Creative Cloud" Freezes at different percentages

[dougbraden001]

I have spent the last 5 hours troubleshooting an issue with updating creative cloud.  I have seen it freeze at 12%, 14%, 15%, 36%, 34%, 38%, and 69%.  I spent quite a while on a chat/remote support session with an Adobe support person and he found that the updates will complete if I enable the built in admin account and run Creative Cloud Desktop as that user. 

I thought that would be a viable workaround, but it doesn't clear the constant update notifications in my normal user.  I've tried unininstalling every CC application (photoshop, lightroom, and cc desktop) and using the Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool, Limited Access Repair Tool, and Creative Cloud uninstaller.  I'm beyond fed up with this software at this point.  I can't believe I can't even uninstall the application with add/remove programs (currently I only have Creative Cloud Desktop installed).  When I try that it just sits forever. 

If anyone has found a resolution for this, I'd love to know what it is.  Adobe just blames Norton 360 for the issue.  I don't buy that for a second since Norton was running on the built-in admin account that worked and I have 3 other PCs I use Adobe products on also running Norton 360. 

I've checked all the folders I can find referencing Adobe.  Those folders all allow administrators and my user full privileges on them.  I've tried with AV and Firewall disabled.  I can't think of anything else, but I'm about to cancel my subscription.  This problem appears to be widespread and dates back years.  I can't believe there isn't a documented solution.  It's clearly a permissions issue given the fact the built-in admin account works, but I have no way to know where the permission problem lies since Adobe doesn't provide any kind of logging for the update process. 

Right now, I have to disable launch at startup and auto-updates in CC Desktop so that I can install or uninstall software, otherwise it queues behind the frozen CC update.

[Ncosgrove]

I would like to know why Creative Cloud crashes and when you go to repair/reinstall it looks like it works but it doesn't. You have to go through and manually delete folders whilst you still have to manually uninstall in order to reinstall Creative Cloud without any error. Only to find out a couple of weeks later that Creative Cloud goes ahead and takes another dump on you and you have to restart this process over again.

This should not happen! Waste of time and money...

[grantn9175573]

The latest update still fails to install Creative Cloud.

[Jeffrey_A_Wright]

Dougbraden001, I am sorry you are encountering problems updating the Creative Cloud desktop app.  Please use the information in  https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/troubleshoot-download-install-log-files.html to locate the fatal errors within the log files.  If you have any questions about the fatal errors that are discovered then please update this public forum discussion.

You also mentioned that Adobe blames Norton 360, but I do not see any case history under the e-mail address you used to post to this public discussion forum.  Did you contact our chat support team at https://helpx.adobe.com/contact.html prior to beginning this public forum discussion?  If so, then can you please post your case number so that I can review the interaction.  Information on how to locate and update your recent support cases can be found at https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/policy-pricing/customer-support-portal.html.

[dougbraden001]

Jeff,

I don't believe I was provided a case number, but I did initiate the chat session from the support menu>contact us link on adobe.com.  I initiated the chat at 8:09PM central time on Sunday 7/26.  The support agent joined at 8:44PM central time.  Once the agent joined the chat, we were online for a couple hours.  This is still visible in the buffer if I click the contact us link today, and I don't see a case number anywhere in that buffer.  Somewhere in the process the agent connected remotely using Bomgar (I think that was the remote access application, it was Adobe branded). 

I don't see any reference to a case number in my account, on the link you provided, and didn't get one during the chat session.  I also checked under https://account.adobe.com/support# accessed from my adobe account and it shows "No closed or open cases".  One of the last things the support agent said was that he would leave the case open in case I needed further assistance. 

Despite not seeing anything in my account, I do still see the chat buffer if I click on Support>Contact Us showing the initial discussion with the agent.  The agent's name is in that buffer, but I wasn't sure if it was OK to list the agent's name in this post so I've omitted that.  I think portions of the conversation were through the Bomgar client as well.

As for logs, I don't get any error messages in the client, it just freezes at some percent updated.  I don't see any guidance on where to find the logs outside the client.  I just see the following:

I don't get an error when the problem occurs.  The app will just say "Updating Creative Cloud" and progress until some percentage (which seems random) at which point it freezes.  When the updates work it takes less than a minute.  When it freezes I can let it sit for 15-20 minutes and see no progress.

I continued troubleshooting this last night. I uninstalled all adobe applications, ran the cleaner tool, deleted any adobe files from the following paths, and rebooted.

C:\Program Files\Adobe

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe

C:\Program Files(x86)\Adobe

C:\Program Files(x86)\Common Files\Adobe

C:\ProgramData\Adobe

C:\Users\UserAccount\AppData\Local\Adobe

C:\Users\UserAccount\AppData\Roaming\Adobe

C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\Adobe

C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Roaming\Adobe

Uninstalling was a nightmare.  Because the Creative Cloud app was stuck updating I had to change the preferences to prevent auto-updating the app, reboot the system (I couldn't get the app to stop updating even by killing services).  After rebooting, I opened the app, uninstalled the adobe apps (photoshop, lightroom, etc) through creative cloud, ran the cleaner tool (I tried running the standalone creative cloud uninstaller but it "completed with errors"), and then there were still files in the above directories that had to be manually deleted.

Once I'd removed all adobe software (Creative Cloud, Photoshop, Lightroom, Lightroom Classic, Acrobat Reader, Flashplayer, etc.), I rebooted and reinstalled using the direct downloaded ACCCx5_2_1_441.zip that the support agent had me download (I installed from my standard user account).

Once the creative cloud desktop app was installed, I enabled the built-in windows Administrator account and logged in as the built-in adminstrator.  When I opened creative cloud desktop in that account, it required updating so I ran the updates. They completed successfully.

When the updates completed, I logged out of the built-in administrator account, and back into my standard user account.  I then ran Creative Cloud Desktop as my normal user.  It appears the full wipe and reinstall, with updates from the built-in admin account did get the software updated.  It now appears that the creative cloud app is up to date on my standard user account (it doesn't find any updates when I check for them).  This is different from Sunday night.  When the agent ran updates through the built-in account on Sunday, the standard user account still found updates to download when CC Desktop was opened (even after a reboot).   I have no idea how the app can be up to date in one user account and not in another but it was.

I re-installed Photoshop, Lightroom, Lightroom CC, and Premiere Rush using the creative cloud app on my standard windows user account and that worked.

I won't know if the application can update on the standard user until the next creative cloud app update.  Hopefully the full wipe and reinstall has solved the issue.  It's ugly, but at least for now I appear to have a workaround by enabling the built-in admin account, updating, and disabling the built-in admin account. 

I remain really disappointed in the quality of the installers/uninstallers.  The ability to fully uninstall the software and install cleanly would have been far more professional than the deep dive I've had to go through running standalone cleaners/uninstallers and manually deleting files.  I've got about 8 hours into troubleshooting this issue and I'm still not confident the problem is truely solved.