Elements Auto Creation 2021 Crash at machine shutdown

[tempuseristemp]

So I just installed Adobe Elements 2021 on a brand new Windows 10 Pro (20H2) with 128GB of free memory and 32 core / 64 logical core threadripper cpu.  When I shutdown my machine "Elements Auto Creations 2021.exe" crashes trying to dereference a null memory address every.single.time.  It puts up a dialog noting the memory corruption and halts the machine shutdown. I have no other 3rd party software on this machine and I am not actively running Adobe Elements.  I imagine it's a background process that always runs when Elements is installed.

I'm surpriseed this product shipped in its current state.  It shouldn't crash 100% of the time when I shutdown my machine on a clean, fully patched Windows machine, with ample CPU and RAM resources.

[tempuseristemp]

Looks like there is an update but Help > Update is greyed out and disabled on my Elements Organizer 2021 app.  

[Greg_S.]

The Autocreations process that you reference is indeed always running in the background and is fairly intensive if your computer is otherwise at rest.  If you installed the program from a recent download, you already have the latest update which is why the Update is greyed out in the Help menu.

Since this is not a commonly reported problem, I suggest you try contacting Elements support. You can start a chat session by clicking on the blue Contact Us button under the Support menu at Adobe.com. Or you can contact Support by telephone using the numbers listed here: https://helpx.adobe.com/contact/phone.html.

[tempuseristemp]

Thanks, I have a hard time believing this isn't a common problem.  The repro step is literally:

1. Install fresh copy of windows 10 pro (20h2)
2. Install Adobe Elements 2021
3. Import pictures and close Elements
4. Shutdown machine.  

Every subsequent shutdown results in a null-derefence error.  It's likely prematurely unloading dlls before properly terminating the process.  The latest update acknowledges trying to addresss crashes at shutdown, albeit unsuccessfully,  here.

Between the crashes at shutdown on a clean machine, UI glitches for multi-monitor setup, and 20 background (creative cloud) processes running all the time it's really not doing paying customers any favor. I don't get why it needs to install creative cloud on a non-subscription based software using perpetual license.  This is right up there with mcafee in terms of how invasive and unstable the product is.

[MichelBParis]

Thanks, I have a hard time believing this isn't a common problem.  The repro step is literally:

1. Install fresh copy of windows 10 pro (20h2)
2. Install Adobe Elements 2021
3. Import pictures and close Elements
4. Shutdown machine.  

Every subsequent shutdown results in a null-derefence error.  It's likely prematurely unloading dlls before properly terminating the process.  The latest update acknowledges trying to addresss crashes at shutdown, albeit unsuccessfully,  here.

By @tempuseristemp

I don't see how your answer can be considered as a correct answer.

It's true if you are not the only one to get systematically the same result.

It's so common to for people having (real) issues to pretend that everybody else has the same problem. If you have some experience on forums like this one and in the Adobe feedback forum, you'll know that in the case of a widespread bug, the forums are immediately filled with a number of post. I don't believe this is a general issue because I have never met the problem on 3 different Windows computers. I am not a statistically representative proof? Yes of course; just like your own experience. I have never seen similar complaints in this forum, in Adobe feedback forum and other independent PSE forums. If you find some similar complaints, that's worth more investigations because your issue is real and not so surprising with the way PSE manages so many background tasks. So, many users want to know more about what is happening to you.

About the dual monitor issue, I am sorry, but PSE has never been created for that kind of use. It's mainly an operating system feature which is only very marginally used : now, the sad trend is using only laptops. I don't understand why you have chosen to use such a powerful computer with PSE, the 'consumer' product and not the pro solutions. Indeed, I have only low specs computers with only 6 or 8 GB RAM and no SSD drive and I am happy without your problems. That does not mean I am not interested in your problem. Troubleshooting this needs patience and sharing more information.

[tempuseristemp]

It's reproed on 3 seperate machines (one of them was an older i7-5820k cpu with 64gb of ram) so my suspicion is the crash on shutdown isn't annoying enough to gain traction on the forums.  The user is only one additional dialog box away (to dimiss the null-deref message) to shutting down.  It's probably more hassle to start a thread than to ignore the issue entirely.  

This issue unfortunatey isn't so ignorable when I'm trying to shutdown the machine remotely.  

At any rate, I decided to uninstall Elements 2021 from my bare metal machine and install it inside an isolated virtual machine where it can't junk up my main machine.  So that was my rational for closing down this case.  I mean, one of the suggestion here was to never shutdown the machine, right?  Using a virtual machine to contain this software is probably equally valid?

[Abambo]

I don't get why it needs to install creative cloud on a non-subscription based software using perpetual license. 

By @tempuseristemp

You can have a free cloud account with 5 Gb of free cloud space. I do not know, however, if that free cloud services are per se installed with Elements as part of Adobe's programs. It may well be that some background processes are, however, needed to run Photoshop Elements. 

You should verify and confirm that you installed the latest build as indicated in your link.

I would also suggest you open a secure chat session with Adobe, so that an Adobe agent can eventually help you to resolve the issue. Adobe customer care can be contacted by beginning a secure chat session at https://helpx.adobe.com/contact.html?rghtup=autoOpen. If the chat window fails to open, or is non-responsive, use a different device to start the interaction.

(see also here: https://community.adobe.com/t5/creative-cloud-services/how-to-contact-adobe-support/td-p/11875703 or here
https://community.adobe.com/t5/account-payment-plan/how-to-contact-adobe-support/td-p/11843852)

[Phil Pickering]

The Elements Auto Creations application runs in the background when it calculates that doing so will not have a negative impact on your computer's performance, i.e. when there is plenty of RAM free and your CPU usage is low. Unfortunately, this situation is probably exactly the state your computer is in just before you shut it down, hence why you might be seeing this crash report.

How often the Elements Auto Creations application runs depends on how large your catalog is and how many images you have recently added to your catalog. If you have a large catalog and / or just imported a large number of images, then the Elements Auto Creations application will need to run for a little time whilst it analyzes and processes your images.

Here are a few options for you:

- You can learn to ignore the crash report.

- You can turn off Auto Creations by going to Edit > Preferences > Media-Analysis, and under Analysis Options uncheck the box next to Generate Auto Creations.

- Before you shut down Windows 10, you can open the Windows 10 Task Manager and under Processes, look for the Elements Auto Creations 2021 application and if it is running, right-click on its name and choose End Task.

- You can really ensure the Auto Creations application won't start again inadvertently by opening the Windows 10 Task Manager and under the Start-up tab, look for the Elements Auto Creations 2021 application, right-click on its name and choose Disable.

- You can let your computer run idle for a while to allow the Elements Auto Creations application to finish.

- Or do like I do, and just put my computer into Sleep mode and never shut it down 🙂

Re. updates: If your Help > Updates... menu option is greyed out, it means that there are no updates currently available and you are running the latest versions of Adobe Photoshop Elements 2021 and the Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in. You can double-check you have the latest updates by going to this page:

Updates for Photoshop Elements and Camera Raw

The current build number for the Elements Organizer is 19.0 (20210126.m.155261) and the current build number for the Elements Photo Editor is 19.0 (20210304.m.156367). The reason for the different build numbers is that the most recent Elements 2021 update (2021.2) only updated the Elements Photo Editor, whilst the Elements Organizer remains unchanged since the first Elements 2021 update (2021.1).

EDIT (after reading the excellent reply from @Greg_S. ) : Completely agree that this is not a commonly-reported error, and definitely worth following up with Adobe Support as they may well get to the bottom of it, rather than just using one of my suggested workarounds 🙂 

[Greg_S.]

@tempuseristemp, this is a user-to-user help forum.  Are you interested in getting a solution to your problem or do you just want to gripe?  Are you willing to contact Adobe's support as I suggested or not?  While you have given us a recipe for your shutdown problem, you have not given us any other information which might help in trouble-shooting your issue.  And as for your mention of the bug that was supposedly fixed in the 2021.2 update, I believe, but am not sure, that the problem was being experienced by Mac users, not Windows. 

[tempuseristemp]

I solved this by uninstalling Elements 2021 from my bare metal machine and installing it in a isolated virtual machine.  That way any instability introduced by Elements 2021 is contained. 

Going to Support > Adobe Elements takes me to the following page with:

1. Tutorial / User Guide
2. FAQ
3. Community Support (this forum)

I'll try to dig up the real support contact but it's not prominently featured on their support page.  I'll use the phone number you shared.  Thanks.