dreamweaver cs4 crashes constantly

[sandthipe]

previously used dreamweaver 8 on this same computer with no major headaches. upgraded to dreamweaver cs4, and I get crashes all the time. no pattern to the crashes.

sometimes, adding a new folder to the site will cause it to crash (but not always).

sometimes trying to navigate the remote site will cause dreamweaver cs4 to crash.

sometimes looking at the screen will cause it to crash.

anyone else having the same sorts of trouble? i might be ready to switch to zend studio.

[Guest]

For the people who have already stipulated that they have re-formatted and re-installed their software, "re-installing dreamweaver" isn't a useful suggestion. Neither is blaming hardware or the need to defrag (come on) when we have already said we have tried different machines.

I work with Dreamweaver locally, all my files are stored locally, but have the remote sites setup to enable the check in and check out facility as well as for uploading/downloading changed files in an environment where more than one developer works on the same site. This is one of Dreamweaver's primary purposes if I'm not mistaken.

The OP refers to dreamweaver cs4 and I quote:

"sometimes, adding a new folder to the site will cause it to crash (but not always)."

"sometimes trying to navigate the remote site will cause dreamweaver cs4 to crash."

"sometimes looking at the screen will cause it to crash."

Me and others are suggesting that dreamweaver crashes frequently and have pin pointed it to when browsing or doing anything with the file tree locally, when a remote site has been seup. The two issues sound EXACTLY the same IMO.

Whilst I appreciate that this issue may not be happening for everyone, it is definately happening for some people, including me. The "reinstall it" / "use different machine" approach doesn't apply here.

Moving forward, it may be conflicting software that is causing the issue although it seems the posters are using a mixed bag of software. It could also be something to do with the FTP / connection / settings. I have tried several home and office connections (with different routers) and have still had this issue. In any case, DW shouldn't just be crashing.

[arnhemcs-Qfa7k6]

I got this crashing problem already in Tiger on my Intel Mac. On my G5 mac no problem. I solved it by not using ANY extension. I moved to Snow Leopard on this Intel Mac and now after installing ONE extension of relaible source the problem of crashing starts again. When working with Tiger my input was not taken serious by Adobe. For me this attitude was an important reason not to upgrade to CS 5.

[mhollis55]

This thread is still going?

I can say with confidence that Dreamweaver CS3 works in Leopard, Tiger and Snow Leopard. I have had one issue since upgrading to Snow Leopard that may be unrelated: On one of my websites I can no longer trust Dreamweaver's Cache, as it changed some of my code used to make smaller pictures open as larger pictures in a new window, using "Picture Window Fever." It listed the links to the larger versions as "undefined," after I had correctly defined all of them. It had also moved some of the code around.

But I cannot blame Snow Leopard for that. The particular site is pretty massive and has tons of stuff to keep track of. Simply un-checking "Enable Cache" in the Local Info for the site fixed the problem just fine. Dreamweaver does take a little more time updating changes I make from the template that defines the website, but on a Dual-Quad-Core Nehalem Mac, the difference is not so significant as to create a problem.

I am using a lot of extensions with CS 3. Lately, I have been using more of Project 7's extensions and I recommend and like them.

[arnhemcs-Qfa7k6]

That is correct. Like you I didnot have no such problem in CS3 (on my Intel Mac). But in CS4 on my Intel Mac starting to use even one reliable extension leads to crasing DW CS4. On my G5 no problem either. Clean installations nothing helped. The problem lies in my opinion in the combination of DW CS4 and the Extension (-s Manager?) on Intel.

[Guest]

Adobe has never responded to this thread or this problem. Their attitude is terrible. This thread has been going on for years,

and never once an adobe response.

We bought a new MAC last year, an iMAC with plenty of RAM and we bought the CS5 suite. CS5 seems to crash much less than CS4 or CS3, epscially the ftp crashes and sync crashes. We still get them some, but not nearly as much, so Adobe did something there. But they ain't talkin about it.

Unfortunately we cannot work without Photoshop, and we often need In Design and Dreamweaver, so we have the suite. My preference would be to never ever give Adobe another dime of my money until they can provide some support for their products.

[mhollis55]

MAC to me means Media Access Channel and it's an acronym, not an abbreviation for Macintosh Computer. Macs do have MACs, but so do Pee Cees.

Have you ever opened a support ticket with Adobe? I had a problem with licensing and they were extremely helpful working with CS3, which has been superseded by two generations of Adobe products. I really don't have anything bad to say about Adobe's technical support after that. And these are user-to-user forums. Technical support is not required to read these discussions

It's obvious to me that you are doing a fair amount of production from your company and you are frustrated. But looking here alone for all solutions to all problems with Adobe's software may not be the right path for you.

[Guest]

#1 MAC means Macintosh to those of us here. We know it's an acronym for other things, thank you.

#2 Of course a number of us have opened up support tickets, with no success, and sometimes no reply. Seriously, I've opened up tickets online and had no response from Adobe on more than one occasion. Adobe double charged my credit card for my CS4 upgrade, and I had to open up numerous support tickets to get my money back, and it took over four months! So thank you for your snarky reply, but of course we've not only come here for support. Many of us came here for support when Adobe's main tech support channels didn't work or we got no reply.

[mhollis55]

I did not wish to come off snarky, but genuine.

Did you get on the phone with Adobe Tech Support (and I realize, I am in the US and support for persons in other countries may vary -- this is an international forum)? The issues I have had have been solved by a phone call. Mind you, I was on hold for a little while but I found Adobe support to be a positive experience, not the negative one you report.

And if you do have CS3, it does work on Tiger, Leopard and Snow Leopard. I do not know if anyone has tried testing it with Lion yet (but Lion is currently being sent to developers and the OS itself is described as "still buggy" so I certainly would not want to do any real production on it).

I think CS 5 offers a "better" WYSIWYG display in Design View, but I know I would want to not have a side-by-side Code/Design view by default. I hesitated in upgrading because I had too many projects in process and just did not have time to learn the new stuff in CS5 (not that I understand that version is "revolutionary," by any standpoint).

I did not buy the Adobe suite, so I can upgrade Dreamweaver separately from Photoshop which, like you, is essential to my workflow.

I have to wonder if there isn't something wrong with your installation on Apple's OS or if there is something really simple you can do to get things working well that a phone call to Adobe might fix. And describing yourself as a site licensee or as having several licenses for several computers might get you a better level of technical support.

[Guest]

I have gotten Adobe support on the phone for this. Yes. They told me to uninstall CS3, and CS4 and to reinstall from scratch. I did that twice. They had me do some other things that didn't work too. It was clear to me that whatever it is, it's a bug, and they're not talking, and no patches have fixed it.

The support calls were more stupid than Microsoft support calls in the past where they tell you to reinstall everything. The calls were also always in India. I'm in the US. Nothing against India, but everything about the calls was terrible. The voice quality was terrible, and I had many dropped calls. Support told me they cannot call me back, so for every dropped call I had to start all over again.

I've spent hours on the phone trying to get Adobe support, but even when I got someone on the phone, it was miserable and a total waste of time. Furthermore, they tell you on the phone to continue the ticket online, then they'll take days to reply, or never reply. Seriously, I don't have time for this nonsense. Also, they finally wore me down, and wasted so much time that I went past the 90 days or 30 days of allowed phone support. Total waste of time.

[Guest]

"...MAC to me means Media Access Channel and it's an acronym, not an abbreviation for Macintosh Computer. Macs do have MACs, but so do Pee Cees."

"...I did not wish to come off snarky, but genuine."

Somehow I highly doubt that. What does "Patronising" mean to you?

If you had bothered to take the time to read the entire post before replying with your not-particularly-helpful-reply, you would know that I at least have an open ticket (still open) with Adobe from years ago and had actually written to them. You would also know in what situation the crash occurs and what steps can be taken to reproduce the problem.

Since I no longer use FTP within Dreamweaver I only experience random crashes when I really tax Dreamweaver's program "logic", by entering text in to a CSS or HTML file, for example.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sarcasm

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/patronising

[jestep]

CS4 has been about the same for us as well. We've tried it using XP Pro and Tablet only, but on several different computers and laptops with the same lock-up results. Have not been able to find any application conflicts. We've tried it on: a custom Abit Workstation, a custom Tyan Workstation, a custom MSI computer, Dell Dim 9150, a Dell Precision M2300 laptop, Compaq V2000 Laptop, a Toshiba Satelite Tablet (XP-tablet).

Every installation has had major lockup problems. Several were on new OS installs. Same results whether it's a totally fresh install or 2 - 3 years of use. None of these have any plugins installed. Only message in error log is faulting module dreamweaver.exe.

Would love to figure out what's causing the problems. In our experience even the most recent version is Beta at best. Which means CS5 will probably be out in a week or two .

[Guest]

My boss needed to use Dreamweaver at home the other night. He informs me that it was really annoying him because it crashed many times when using the file tree.

I'm waiting on a response from Adobe Support. Initial response was, have you tried reinstalling it / working through the KB article they created.

Will post the next response here.

[mike121]

go and delete the winfilecache .dat file. In 90 % this will solve the issue.

The cache file is located on widows vista at:

C:\Users\[user_name]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Dreamweaver 9\Configuration

In XP ist should be:

C:\Documents & Settings\[user_name]\Application Data\Adobe\Dreamweaver 9\Configuration

The file will actually be called something like WinFileCache-[some string of letters and numbers].dat

Also, delete all site cache and rebuild the site.

[Guest]

Hi Mike

Thanks for your suggestions, but as you will see above I've already tried removing the entire configuration folder that houses this file as well as re-installations over many different machines and operating systems.

I've currently got an adobe support case open - which has been pending their response since 17th July while it is escalated to a senior level.

Regards

Jamie.

[ITC2]

I also crash despite deleted config files. Thank you PZ, I use none of these programs listed in black (Norton for virus only). I have been using DW8 on same machines, runs stable with crashes once a week or so.

Patrick

[kartz]

I'm having the exact same issues as the other posters here.  It crashes while my cursor is in the file tree.  This problem began when I enabled the site for use with Contribute.  I ftp to a remote server if that's any help.

[kartz]

Stick to your guns, Jamie!  I'm having the exact same problem and it started as soon as I enabled my site to use Contribute.  I have the CS4 Web Premium package installed on a Dell Latitude running WinXP.  I'm getting sick tried of this.

[Guest]

There can't be any bugs in DW because their hasn't been any updates available for it since I've owned it. But I am starting to think that the many users who are reporting this problem can't all have faulty computers.

I'm not using contribute - only the file check in/check out facility so perhaps contribute isn't the problem. I don't know anything about contribute however.

I'm still waiting on an update from Adobe, I've sent them a prompt with a link to this thread.

You can stop the file browser crash by removing the remote site definition and working locally if that's an option for you. I suspect it's not in most cases since that defeats the point of the facility. Note I say you can stop the file browser crash. It has actually crashed a few times during normal operation for me, but not as much as it does when using it with a remote site setup.

[kartz]

Jamie, Contribute requires that you turn on the check in/out functionality. That must be where the problem lies. Yesterday after reading this I deleted the config file they kept recommending and it didn't help at all. I don't want to remove my remote site definition. I like publishing inside DW. Yes, I could use CuteFPT since I have it installed and mapped but what a pain it would be to use two programs when one should be able to do the job.

[ITC2]

Kartz, I also have DW8 loaded, which I've stepped back to until this issue is resolved -- slower than CS4 with some tasks, but works fine.

[kartz]

I also still have DW CS3 installed because I have many asp.net applications and all the controls were removed in CS4.

[kartz]

I'm still waiting for a solution or some help of some kind for this problem.  How about it folks?  Ever since I enabled the site to use Contribute it crashes several times a day while I'm moving through the file tree.

I need a solution!

Kim

[jestep]

I got sick of this, so I just made the switch to Netbeans http://www.netbeans.org/. It's totally free, and offers a better ftp or subversion integration. There a few lacking features, but I know that Netbeans is being furiously developed, and I like it much better than any other IDE out there.

Probably not going back to DW which I have been using for over 6 years. Adobe ruined the product, and there's obviously no bug fixing going on any more.

So long.

[Guest]

I've had a quick look, Netbeans is without a doubt fantastic. I was surprised at the wealth of features, including built-in MySQL DBA support, which is an application in its own right! This is probably aimed more at the coder than the designer which suites my needs.

I can't work out how to get code hinting to work automatically for PHP though. In DW if you type "fopen(" for example, you'll get a tooltip - not in Netbeans for some strange reason. You have to go to Source > Show Method Parameters each time. Although it does do it for class methods when you create them!?

More importantly I haven't yet worked out how to setup the equivalent of a remote site with check in/out facilities without setting up CVS/Subversion. Adopting them is probably the future anyway rather than relying on a proprietry system like DW uses.

...It also seems to be missing the "Netbeans has stopped responding" crash screen that Dreamweaver sports. Perhaps they will add it in future versions.

[kartz]

JamieBurchell wrote:

...It also seems to be missing the "Netbeans has stopped responding" crash screen that Dreamweaver sports. Perhaps they will add it in future versions.

Thanks so much!  It's early in the morning but you have already made my day. Every time it crashes today I'll think of that line and chuckle.