Droplet couldn't communicate with Photoshop

[JOEY!!! 【ツ】]

When I try using a droplet it pops up and says "Droplet couldn't communicate with Photoshop".

I'm running Windows 7, Photoshop CS5, and I am the administrator.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

[Mylenium]

Do you use DEP? Anything with UAC? Anything up with firewalls and virus scanners? If they can't communicate, then the socket is being closed, which usually is an external influence...

Mylenium

[JOEY!!! 【ツ】]

DEP is turned on for essential Windows programs and services only.

UAC is turned on and set to default.

The Windows Firewall is on.

I'm using Avast anti-virus.

[Mylenium]

Do the respective log files (Windows Event Viewer --> Security) show anything? If the socket connection is terminated due to DEP or UAC, it should trigger an entry. Do the droplets run if you turn all that (temporarily) off? might also be worth to download Sysinternals' process Monitor and monitor the droplets. This may reveal some more details...

Mylenium

[JOEY!!! 【ツ】]

I couldn't find anything in the logs about it.

I am going to try turning all that off but there isn't a way to completely turn off DEP. Do I just turn on DEP for all programs and services except Photoshop?

Also, I downloaded the Process Monitor. Can you tell me how to monitor the droplet?

Thanks!

[Guest]

Solution

I had this same issue and I figured out the solution. I am running Windows 7 and Photoshop 11.0.2. You have to run Photoshop as an administrator before you create the droplet. You must create the droplet when Photoshop has been run by an administrator. It's really easy:

1. Right-click Photoshop, click "Run as administrator"
2. Create your droplet

That's it!

[monstredeminuit]

Thank you tremendously for posting the solution!  I encountered the problem today while trying to do my very first droplets.  I was really wondering what I was doing wrong when I got the error message.  The solution above worked for me.

Thanks again!

[JOEY!!! 【ツ】]

It is still not working correctly. I ran Photoshop as administrator, created a droplet, and tested it and it said the same error. I then decided to try running the droplet as administrator also and it worked. It worked great for that 1st image. Then I tried to drag another image on the droplet and the error came up again. After messing with it forever this is what I found out. It will only work if both Photoshop and the droplet are set to run as adminstrator, Photoshop has to be open, and it will only work for the 1st image. I have to close out of Photoshop and reopen it if I want to use that droplet again.

Obviously that is not working right. Help!

[JOEY!!! 【ツ】]

Can someone please help? I'm clueless.

[Noel Carboni]

People in the know often disable UAC entirely (drag the control all the way to the bottom) and use an account with administrator privileges.  Of course, this means you must manage your usage of your computer all the more carefully, as you are then a full-time administrator, and anything you run (e.g., by downloading from the wild internet) is running with all privileges you can possibly give it.

Thus the advantages of full-time administrative access (apparently needed by Photoshop to do what you want) come with some downsides.

To anticipate your next question:  Click Start, then type UAC into the search box.

-Noel

[JOEY!!! 【ツ】]

I disabled UAC, restarted the computer, ran photoshop as administrator, created my droplet, dragged and dropped an image onto it, and it successfully executed. It worked for all the images I dropped onto it. I closed out of Photoshop and tried the droplet again. It worked. So it seems to be working great. One problem is even though it's not set to run as administrator it still has the shield on the icon. Why?
Now how do I get it to work this good while UAC is on? The only way I can get it to work is already have Photoshop open and running as admin.

I really want to know why the icon has the shield when it's not set to run as admin.

[Noel Carboni]

I don't profess to understand how droplets and Photoshop communicate, but I do know this:  An application has to be designed to work within the limitations of UAC (i.e., to be able to be run by a non-privileged account).  By contrast, applications that date back to the days when there was no real security and every piece of software just freely accessed anything it wanted often require reduction of the UAC limitations to work properly.

I'd certainly suggest reporting the problems you're seeing as a bug to Adobe via:  https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

-Noel

[JOEY!!! 【ツ】]

Thank you Noel.

Does anyone else know what is going on or what I should try?

PS I can record my screen and give you a link if you would like to see what exactly is going on.

[JOEY!!! 【ツ】]

I got it to work. This is what I did:

I just manually ran Photoshop as admin, created a droplet, then closed out, dropped an image on the droplet, and it opened up and worked just fine.

The shield icon randomly disappeared off Adobe Photoshop CS5 so that's good. By the way, the droplet isn't set to run as admin and neither is Photoshop.

If it ends up not working like this in the future then I will be sure to ask for more help.

Thank you!

[SHIMRAAN5EB8]

Exaxtly, this is the solution.. Worked for me.. Thanks a lot

[Coby Mier]

Thank you so much !!! It help me alot !!!!!

[christina999]

Help! It looks like Adobe still hasn't fixed this problem.  I was on the phone with Adobe "support

" ha, ha" for an hour and the tech finally said he thinks Adobe hasnt fixed the droplet bug for

Windows yet.  Anyone with a solution??

[Chris Cox · Accepted solution]

Photoshop 12.0.1 should have fixed the known droplet issues.

[christina999]

Chris, well I downloaded the update from adobe but there was no information about how to open it or where to put it, then the Adobe help guy in India spent an hour with me on the phone and taking over my desktop trying a variety of things and nothing worked and he finally said that he believed the update only fixed the droplet issue on a Mac.... arghhh. Please help me!

[christina999]

Yippee, found the solution in a different Adobe forum for PS CS4..,solved by poster "dytb2012", thank you. Saved me many hours!

[Jerry and Lois]

Here's a link (I hope) to the solution Christina99 referenced:

http://forums.adobe.com/message/2048535

However, things are still not working for me, even after applying the "run as administrator" settings to both droplets, and PS; still getting the same error.

Hoping for help and insights...

Thanks,

Jerry

PS - UAC settings are default (after installing Win7)

[Guest]

One add'l comment - also tried this after completely shutting down my AV and firewall.  No avail.

Thanks,

Jerry

[TransatlanticMedia]

Real Solution:

I also tried running photoshop as an administrator, this did not work for me. What I found to actually work is this: First create your droplet like normal, then right click the droplet icon and select "Properties", go to the "Compatibility" tab, under "Privilege level" mark the checkbox that says "Run as administrator", Click "OK" and now they should be able to communicate properly.

On a side note: One problem that I did run into as well. If you are trying to make the droplet save the file to the "Photos Library" (or any other Library), it gives an error saying "blah blah blah, cannot find file." If you simply select "..\Users\your username\my photos" it should work.

Happy Dropletting!

[Michelmnr]

Hello...Real Solution! When I saw this I was not holding my breath as I have seen so many solution that don't seem to work for most. Some are really hard work, some require to reinstall, which for many is not an option for a variety of reasons....

However and as far as I am concerned  and having tried most of the other 'solutions' in vain...This worked for me!

I gave a go to the compatibility check before with little understanding of it anyway so with no gain. 

So I gave a go at your real solution having no where else to go then and nothing to loose.

My compatibilty mode was unticked (for the droplet) and it had Windows vista. 

I'm running now this awfull W10 (Under duress!) but I come from W7 with my photoshop cs4 install. So I chose "run this pgr.in compatibility with W7" from the dropdown menu (saw some kind of logic in that choice?)

And as you said, ticked the Run as administrator for good measure (Although this chosen from the icon did not help me before)

*** And instead of getting the dreaded CAN'T COMMUNICATE.... It opened photoshop and executed the droplet***

So for me it is definitley the REAL SOLUTION Thank you very much. MM 🙂

PS: I also had the UAC set to zero before and reset it to 'normal' after this solution with no ill effect.

[Guest]

Just chiming in - I'd gone through several other posts before finding this one.  Running the droplet as administrator didn't work for me. Closing Photoshop and setting it to always run as administrator and then recreating the droplet after restarting Photoshop did work, however.  Thanks!! I'm much happier now.