P: Silverfast Ai 8.8 plugin gives "Could not complete your request because of a program error" in PS

[brian_mk]

I have been using the Silverfast Ai 8.8 scanner plugin with Photoshop CC for some years.

It was an expensive piece of Software but it worked ok to begin with.

Since PS CC 2017 it has exhibited a problem that still exists even using the latest version of PS.

If I use the PS plugin to carry out a normal scan using 'Import from Silverfast', it works fine.
However if I quit the Silverfast application (without scanning) and then try to exit Photoshop, Photoshop reports an unhandled exception message:-
"Could not complete your request because of a program error".
Once this happens, the only way to exit Photoshop is to kill the process from Task Manager.

I'm guessing this may be some sort of file permission or memory access problem.

The problem happens in several versions of PS CC I have tried including the latest 2021 versions.
However, it does not happen if I go right back to PS versions before PS CC 2017.

That suggests there was a PS change in 2017 that introduced this problem.

I have reported the problem to Silverfast but received no response. Silverfast support appears to be non-existent these days. Their forum has not been updated since 2018.

I do not want to upgrade to Silverfast Ai 9 because I don't use my scanner that often and the upgrade is expensive, I don't want or need the other changes that were made in Ai 9.

The compatibility information on the Silverfast website indicates that Ai 8.8 should work with ALL versions of PS CC.

I have tried updating the GPU drivers and disabling GPU support in PS - it made no difference.

I have tried installing the PS diagnostics plugin but no error information is written to the clipboard.

Has anyone else seen this problem?

Is it a configuration issue?

Is it a bug or change made in PS 2017?

Is it a change in a Windows 10 update that has upset file permissions etc?

In my view the way PS reports multiple errors as "Could not complete your request because of a program error" is bad programming. It leaves the user without a clue as to the underlying cause of the problem.

There should at least be an event log or trace facility of some sort.

I've run out of ideas.

[brian_mk]

Instead of sending me 3 emails giving me a 'badge' for posting in the forum, why not actually fix some of the problems!

[brian_mk]

After some trawling around I discovered a log file:-

C:\Users\<UserName>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop 2021\Adobe Photoshop 2021 Settings\PSErrorLog.txt

After 'Import->Silverfast 8 x64...' followed by 'Exit' on the silverfast startup window (without actually starting the main silverfast scanning application), the following errors are appended to the log file:-

2021:08:31 08:27:22 : Version : : Adobe Photoshop 22.4.2 20210602.r.242 a4f6042
2021:08:31 08:27:22 : : 3735 : REQUIRE failed
2021:08:31 08:27:22 : Stack : : 0 address: 0x00007FF6668C409B base: 0x00007FF6627F0000 module name: 'Photoshop.exe'
1 address: 0x00007FF664FA6F2F base: 0x00007FF6627F0000 module name: 'Photoshop.exe'
2 address: 0x00007FF664FA68B2 base: 0x00007FF6627F0000 module name: 'Photoshop.exe'
3 address: 0x00007FF662F4646E base: 0x00007FF6627F0000 module name: 'Photoshop.exe'
4 address: 0x00007FF66500584A base: 0x00007FF6627F0000 module name: 'Photoshop.exe'
5 address: 0x00007FF662C5CB44 base: 0x00007FF6627F0000 module name: 'Photoshop.exe'
6 address: 0x00007FF662EB458D base: 0x00007FF6627F0000 module name: 'Photoshop.exe'
7 address: 0x00007FF662C4ECEA base: 0x00007FF6627F0000 module name: 'Photoshop.exe'
8 address: 0x00007FF662C6403C base: 0x00007FF6627F0000 module name: 'Photoshop.exe'
9 address: 0x00007FF662ED80B4 base: 0x00007FF6627F0000 module name: 'Photoshop.exe'
10 address: 0x00007FF662C50A0B base: 0x00007FF6627F0000 module name: 'Photoshop.exe'
11 address: 0x00007FF662E9C282 base: 0x00007FF6627F0000 module name: 'Photoshop.exe'
12 address: 0x00007FFD5B3A7034 base: 0x00007FFD5B390000 module name: 'KERNEL32.DLL'
13 address: 0x00007FFD5C022651 base: 0x00007FFD5BFD0000 module name: 'ntdll.dll'

This must give a clue to someone?

[brian_mk]

I should add that I have also tried resetting PS preferences to factory defaults and dsiabling the Generator as suggested in other threads that report a similar problem when opening or closing files.

It made no difference to the error.

[brian_mk]

Am I right in thinking that no one from Adobe technical support responds to problem reports/questions in this forum?

If so then I am wasting my time reporting what I am convinced is a long standing PS bug here.

Is there another forum or problem report webpage where I might actually get a response from Adobe software support?

[brian_mk]

Thank you.

[brian_mk]

Excellent! Thank you so much!

[J453]

OK. I'm seeing the same thing. I'll have engineering investigate.

[Tom Ruark]

Thanks for the stack trace. Photoshop is reporting that it thinks it is in 'modal' mode. A dialog up somewhere, and closing a document in that state is not something we like. So an ASSERT is occuring. We are working with Silverfast to figure out what is going wrong.

[brian_mk]

Photoshop is reporting that it thinks it is in 'modal' mode. A dialog up somewhere, and closing a document in that state is not something we like. So an ASSERT is occuring. We are working with Silverfast to figure out what is going wrong.

Interesting.

The ASSERT is not triggered in PS 2017, it only happens in later versions.

The Silverfast Ai 8 plugin has not changed since 2014.

That suggests something must have changed in PS 2017.

PS refusing to exit because of an ASSERT doesn't seem like a sensible way to handle such an error condition.

Surely logging an error, then closing any open document(s) and exiting is preferable to PS putting itself in a state where Task Manager has to be used to kill the process. When the process is killed, any changes made to open documents will be lost in any case.

Does anyone know if the same problem exists in Silverfast Ai 9 or did Lasersoft make some changes to avoid the problem?

[brian_mk]

There has been no follow up on this issue, so I assume that Lasersoft have chosen not to respond?

I can only assume they want to force existing customers to pay for the Ai 9 upgrade.

No one on this forum has responded to the question whether or not Ai 9 has the same problem.

In my view, this issue is not all down to Lasersoft.

It used to work with PS 2017. Now it doesn't.

PS introduced a change that has broken the interface.

Neither Adobe or Lasersoft appear to care. Existing customers are left with something that they paid for but no longer works.

Good customer relations? I think not.

[nikunj.m]

Hi all,

We're happy to announce the April 2022 release of Photoshop 23.3. This update includes the fix for this issue.

To update Photoshop to 23.3, click "Update" in the Creative Cloud desktop app next to Photoshop. More detailed instructions for updating

Let us know if the update resolves the problem for those affected and share your feedback with us.

Thanks,

Nikunj

[Kukurykus]

There are 2 different links to this thread on Fixed issues in Photoshop list:

• Silverfast Ai 8.8 plugin gives this message - Could not complete your request because of a program e...
• Could not complete request because of program error with Silverfast plug-in installed