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"unable to set maximum number of files to be opened"

New Here ,
Jan 17, 2010 Jan 17, 2010

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I just installed Adobe CS4 Master Collection on a MacBook (4 GB RAM, 250 GB HD, 10.6.2). Everything runs except Adobe Illustrator CS4, which crashes with the error "unable to set maximum number of files to be opened."

I have no idea what this means or how to fix it. There's nothing on Google or the forums about it - I found one other person who had this error but no solution was posted.

Already I've:

1.) Uninstalled AI CS4 using the uninstaller.

2.) Reinstalled.

3.) Uninstalled entire CS4 Master Collection.

4.) Reinstalled.

5.) Copied the AI folder from a working install of CS4.

6.) Used a USB hard drive with an OS X partition and Adobe CS4 to test if the machine a had problem. AI worked on the USB drive, but not on the hard drive.

7.) Searched the MacBook's hard drive for all files named "Adobe" including System and Library and Users/~/Library.

I'm out of ideas. Is this a conflict with some other software?

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

New Here , Feb 03, 2010 Feb 03, 2010

SMART found a fix for this issue.

You need to modify (or remove) /etc/launchd.conf. The entry that is causing the problem is the "limit maxfiles" line. If you remove that line and restart the problem will be fixed.

You can also remove the whole file but if you have other settings modified in that file then they will go back to the system default.

You will also need to have root access to make this change.

Hope this helps.

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LEGEND ,
Jan 17, 2010 Jan 17, 2010

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Try repairing your permissions.

Second try logging in as a new user and see if installing will work and Illustrator will run fro that new user. If so could be a corrupt prefernce folder or a font or font cache.

if that does not show progress then deactivate your master collection, then uninstall it then do an archival reinstall of the system then do an install and I think all will be fine.

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New Here ,
Jan 17, 2010 Jan 17, 2010

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It's a fresh copy of 10.6.2 - I wiped the drive and installed a fresh copy of OS X. Repairing permissions didn't fix the issue. I'll call Adobe on Tuesday.

Thanks

Jason

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New Here ,
Jan 20, 2010 Jan 20, 2010

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Adobe India Tech Support was no help - they simply refered me to http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/401/kb401028.html

I've tried all the steps in that document, and Adobe Illustrator won't run. Now Photoshop, which was running, isn't any more, saying I have licensing issues and Adobe Acrobat often crashes when printing, spilling courier error text across the page.

I found one other guy on the message boards who had this error, and no one answered him. I guess it's back tot he drawing board - wipe the hard drive and install everything again. Yuck.

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LEGEND ,
Jan 20, 2010 Jan 20, 2010

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Did you simply try an archival reinstall of the system first?

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Guest
Jan 21, 2010 Jan 21, 2010

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Hi there,

One of the users in our office today experienced this error as well after launching AI CS4 (from Creative Suite Design Premium) for the first time after updating his MacBook Pro from Leopard to Snow Leopard. He is currently running 10.6.2 and had performed a system upgrade and not a system reinstall.

Curiously, I have upgraded three other machines in the office (an iMac, MacBook, and MacBook Pro all with Core 2 Duo processors) to SL without any problems to AI CS4. On a side note, we have noticed that several CS4 apps have a tendency to crash fairly frequently upon qutting the app in SL (particularly with Fireworks, Illustrator, and sometimes Dreamweaver).

AI preferences were trashed and permissions repaired so far with no luck. I will try some additional things but this is definitely a bummer as the person experiencing the issue is the principal designer who needs Illustrator. If I have any success, I will report back here.

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Guest
Jan 25, 2010 Jan 25, 2010

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Well, no luck here. Even setting up a new User account still produced the error. Our only recourse was to perform an archive and install of Snow Leopard. Then after re-installing CS4, Illustrator is finally back up and running. Still no idea what triggered the issue with SL on this machine but at least there did not appear to be any data loss of any kind.

If anyone is curious, I have attached the Crash Report from the system following the error notice. Good luck to any who encounter this error in the future!

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New Here ,
Jan 26, 2010 Jan 26, 2010

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I've got the same problem, and I have neither the time nor patience to do an archive and install for just one application. Adobe needs to get its act together on this and issue a fix. And also an explanation for why an error like this cropped up in the first place so users can be on the lookout for conditions that might cause it again.

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New Here ,
Jan 31, 2010 Jan 31, 2010

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After uninstalling Illustrator and reinstalling, I can report that it did not help. I refuse to completely reinstall my OS to enable just a single application. If Adobe is monitoring this forum, I'd appreciate some feedback, or better yet, a solution that isn't going to require hours of my time.

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LEGEND ,
Jan 31, 2010 Jan 31, 2010

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I noticed that none of you trashed your adobe illustrator cs 4settings folder and com.adobe.illustrator.plist  which is required to do after you uninstall AI and then you can reinstall AI witho0ut doing this there will no change to your install or problems.

And it might not be required if you just try trashing those files by firswt quitting Illustrator and then trash and then relaunch.

Also have you checked your scratch dis is it full or has very little space? And if yoiu say it has 40 GBs of free space well that would have been plnety of space in 1997 not today. So let us know more about yo0ur system and perhaps we have a solution or guidance to offer.

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New Here ,
Jan 31, 2010 Jan 31, 2010

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Sorry, I trashed all the illustrator files repeatedly before posting but it didn't help. I have a 250GB drive on my MacBook with 101GB free, so while it's not 40GB, it should be enough for Illustrator's temp files.

Thanks for thinking of things to try!

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LEGEND ,
Jan 31, 2010 Jan 31, 2010

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Well you are not really telling us much about what you have installed or anything about your system and set up so if we guess and you come back and tell us that is not correct because your system and hardware are different then you are not helping anyone to assist you.

So if you tells about your system and fonts and hardware and software plug ins haxies and configurations etc.then someone might actually help you.

It is my feeling you did something in this strange approach to install it on an external drive withe the OS on that drive we know nothing of how you uninstalled it from there and if you are still using that drive and we now little of how you are running the other applications, perhas telling us something might help.

Would you not think that would be wise?

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New Here ,
Feb 01, 2010 Feb 01, 2010

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I don't think I'm running any haxies - not sure what those are. I did a clean install of 10.6.2 off the system disk after wiping the drive. I didn't install onto an external, but the hard drive itself. I'm running CS4 Master Collection, AVID, Final Cut Studio 2, and Microsoft Office. There's additional media editing applications like FFMPEG2, MPEG StreamClip and all the players, like WMVPlayer, RealPlayer, VLC and MPlayer. I have SmartBoard Tools installed as well, the 10 version that's snow leopard compatible. (I teach media and technology.)

My MacBook isn't a Pro model, just the white MacBook, with 4GB RAM and a 250 GB HD. I haven't installed any addtional fonts beyond the ones that Adobe, Apple, and Microsoft did.

I think the confusion about the external drive is that I have CS4 on an external drive with OS 10.5 - that booted up and worked. Otherwise, it's a regular install running off the internal hard drive.

When I installed and deinstalled and installed and deinstalled and installed, I did not make any changes to the basic system configuration or use a custom install. In between each install, I would follow the deinstall procedure on Adobe's website, including trashing the application preferences and the plist file.

Thanks,

Jason

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Guest
Feb 01, 2010 Feb 01, 2010

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Hi Jason,

What you have reported is interesting. The last thing that was installed on our MacBook Pro in 10.5 several days before the Snow Lepoard upgrade was the Smart Board drivers (drivers only downloaded directly from the SMART Technologies website - v. 10.6.48.0 ) to test drive a Smart Board (an interactive whiteboard - http://www2.smarttech.com/st/en-US/Products/SMART+Boards/Front+projection/). None of the other computer in our office with Snow Leopard installed and AI CS4 launching correctly have those Smart Board drivers installed. Since the OS reinstall of the affected machine, we have not re-installed the Smart Board driver and AI CS4 has been launching just fine. Coincidence?

I don't know what else you listed would load into the system and have resources that are always running in the background (other than some of your additional video codecs). Our machine also did have WMV Player and FFMEPG2 installed. Before when launching AI, the "Unable to set mavimum number of files..." error would pop up almost immediately before any AI resources would start running (i.e. before getting to the splash screen and displaying the AI resources that are loading). That to me would imply some kind of a system level conflict with the app.

Hope this helps!

Frank

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Guest
Feb 21, 2010 Feb 21, 2010

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We might be getting somewhere here. I have the same problem. Last night my wife installed Smartboard onto her computer. She is an elementary school teacher.

I am horrible with computers. So if this is any sort of insight, (as it won't help me trouble shoot), please share. I just design lol.

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New Here ,
Feb 21, 2010 Feb 21, 2010

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Yes, we've solved it - see the marked posts for how to fix this issue. Step by step instructions are just a few posts above yours.

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Guest
Feb 22, 2010 Feb 22, 2010

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Thanks! I actually found it right after I wrote that message as it redirected my post to the bottom. I was so excited to find the cure that I forgot to repost a response. I have something due today, and had spent 2 hours on figuring it out already.

Thanks again.

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New Here ,
Feb 01, 2010 Feb 01, 2010

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I have a very similar setup to MFA's - I'm running a MacBook Pro 3.06 Core 2 Duo, 8 GB RAM, 500 GB HD w/ 125 GB free, running Snow Leopard 10.6.2. I also have the Master Collection, with everything loaded except Version Cue, which I don't need. I also have Final Cut Studio 2, MPEG Streamclip, Perian, Flip4Mac installed, plus some other graphics apps (ArtRage Studio Pro, Groboto, Blender, Unity, among others). I don't run any haxies (and they don't work on Snow Leopard anyway), but I have the usual Kensington and Wacom input device drivers. And I also have the SmartBoard software installed, so you may be on to something. I recently had to reinstall the SmartBoard software, and I suspect that may be the culprit. I will try an uninstall and see what happens.

I need the SmartBoard software, as I'm a teacher and can't do without it. It would be nice to see if there was a way to narrow down the conflict. This was never a problem before, since I've had both Illustrator and SmartBoard on my system and co-existing in harmony. Possible there was an update to the Smart software that brought this on?

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LEGEND ,
Feb 01, 2010 Feb 01, 2010

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This might be the root of the problem but do not jump to conclusions if you find it to be so. For instance it might simply mean that AI has to be either installed first or has to be installed after it might mean that a component of the software has to load after AI is launched or cannot be running when AI is launched.

So all may not be lost if this is indeed the problem.

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New Here ,
Feb 01, 2010 Feb 01, 2010

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Well, I removed both SmartBoard's drivers and software, rebooted, removed every bit of Illustrator I could find, rebooted,  reinstalled Illustrator, and still getting the error and crash. Back to the drawing board?

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LEGEND ,
Feb 01, 2010 Feb 01, 2010

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Perhaps a corrupt font or data base.

BTW did you try a new user account.

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New Here ,
Feb 01, 2010 Feb 01, 2010

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I did try a new user account - no success. I haven't added any new fonts for quite some time, so I can't see how that might be an issue - however, I use Font Doctor from time to time to check for problems, so I will try that. At present, no other apps are showing that kind of conflict. As for database, are you referring to a font database or something else?

If the message is "unable to set maximum number of files to be opened," wouldn't that imply that some kind of information is supposed to be written to some kind of file during the launch process - and for some reason, that information can't be written?

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New Here ,
Feb 01, 2010 Feb 01, 2010

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Ran Font Doctor - found some problems, had certain fonts moved or repaired. Illustrator still keeps throwing the same error.

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LEGEND ,
Feb 02, 2010 Feb 02, 2010

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I notice the users with this problem have similar software installed and a very similar set up.

I can't help think it is related to a corruption or conflict you all share.

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New Here ,
Feb 02, 2010 Feb 02, 2010

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You have a point, but what puzzles me is why it just suddenly appeared. It's not like Illustrator never ran from the day I first installed it. It was running fine, and only just recently did it quit working. Been trying to think about what changed about

my system and I'm not coming up with anything. SmartBoard had been installed for a while, and Illustrator was working all that time. It's too bad the logs don't divulge better information that I can use.

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