Photoshop Elements 2021 on Windows 10 was slow, I uninstalled and reinstalled and now will not open

Report · May 08, 2022

For the last week Photoshope Elements 2021 began to be VERY slow to open and had to wait minutes before I could make a menu selection. I uninstalled it tonight and re-installed. Now it will not load at all. Windows 10 PC 64-bit, tons of memory. I thought about upgrading to Elements 2022, but have seen some posts that it has problems too. Please help. I also have Adobe Creative Cloud, Photoshop 2022, Lightroom Classic, and Adobe Acrobat DC.

Report · May 09, 2022

What happens when you click on the icon to start the program? How did you unistall it?

if you created your own shortcut to start the program and bypass that pretty start screen with al lthe ideas on it, whate file, exactely are you clicking on to start the program?

Report · May 09, 2022

After many more tries, I used the Adobe uninstaller and then successfully reinstalled Photoshop Elements 2021. Whew ... it was a long night. Thank you so very much for your reply. Hope you have a great day 🙂

Report · May 09, 2022

But it's still S L O W !!!!!!!!!

Report · May 10, 2022

It could be due an old hard drive-- -I have a SSD- takes about 6 seconds from icon click, to editing.

It may be due do a silly setting for your scratch disk.

I've got a nothing fancy dell and it's lickity split fast. When I switched to an SSD I had quite a bit of a jump in performance.

Report · May 10, 2022

My laptop is a year old, so that is not the problem. What do you mean about scratch disk settings?

Thanks for your reply. I have heard directly from Adobe and they said 2021 is no longer supported on Win 10 64 bit and I could upgrade. Hmmm .. that sounds fishy to me. They suggested I download the 2022 trial version. It performed just the same.

This above all; to thine own self be true.
William Shakespeare

Report · May 12, 2022

Your guidance from "Adobe" Simply is not correct: they support the newest version, and the previosue version.

use EDIT>PREFERENCES to mess with the stuff you see below.

Scratch disk is a chunk on your hard drive which is reserved for the program to use when it requires lots of memory to do stuff.... more that what you have set up in the performance tab-- It's temporary, and erased when you close the program.

You would have to have "a perfect storm" of things going on for the software to run slowly on such a new computer.

Your cpu fan could be acting up- cpu gets hot- system bios throttles the cpu speed down to create less heat sorta deal.

I've tried to get the program to run slowly i nthe past- and I just can't make it happen--- I once left my computer on, not rebooting, for 30 days once- the program didn't like that very much.

Sometimes just turning the computer off-- -getting a cup of coffee, and coming back in 10 minutes and turning it back on does wonders.

Report · May 12, 2022

Thank you so much for the explanations. Yes, Adobe's "no support" line didn't seem right to me. I have restarted my laptop many times, as I know that is needed. I have a huge genealogy database that I work on for hours at a time and when it slows down, I know to close it and restart my computer. Re: Elements, I increased the memory usage to the highest recommended and the history cache to the highest allowed. Still no improvement. I also have a subscription to Lightroom Classic, which I am learning to use and Photoshop 2022, just have not found it PS very easy to learn, so I keep going back to Elements when needed. Guess I'll just have to live with it . You are so kind to have resonded to me. Thanks very mch. Hope you have a great summer 🙂

Report · May 12, 2022

Do you have any third party plug-ins installed? If so, try holding the Shift key while you are launching the program and the following message will come up:

Click Yes and see if it makes a difference with the speed of loading.

Do you use the Organizer? If you have a large catalog, try turning off all Media Analysis in the Preferences dialog (Edit>Preferences>Media Analysis). Heavy media analysis can interfere with the operation of the Editor.

If you are continuing to have problems, you need to contact Support again. You are absolutely entitled to have them provide you with help for Elements 2021.

Report · May 13, 2022

I tried your suggestion (and I don't use organizer) and it made no difference. I will be travelling the next few days, so will contact them again when I can. You are great and I thank you so very much!

Report · May 13, 2022

I have the same problem. Photshop Elements takes over a minute to start. Previously it only took two seconds. Computer is I9 with 64 GB of RAM, two terrabyte SSD, and Windows 11. If I disconnect the network cable it starts in two seconds. Can also make it start fast by using Defender to block Adobe access to the internet. I normally use Photshop Elements 11 but tried 2022 and it does the same thing. Do not have anything in the organizer. Photoshop must be phoning home to Adobe and spending a long time doing it. This is a new development so it must be something they changed at Adobe Servers. I don't mind them calling home but they should do it in the background and not lock up my computer for over a minute when they do it. Have also tried this on a second computer and it does the same thing. Also tried creating a new Adobe account and it still does the same thing.

Hope they fix this soon. I am getting so frustrated with this that I am thinking about using a different photo editor.

Jim K.

Report · May 13, 2022

I disconnected from the internet, opened a photo and immediately had full function of the program. I think you have found the temporary fix! Hopefully Adobe will get this fixed without the need to disconnect from the internet. As I menitoned in earlier posts, the same problem exists on Photoshop Elements 2022.

Report · May 13, 2022

Someone figured out that disconnecting from the internet solves the problem, although it is not an acceptable fix. Hopefully they will get things resolved, as the same problem exists on the newer version PSE 2022.

Report · May 13, 2022

@Jim24438904qtfa, that's an interesting finding. What country are you located in? I would have thought that if it is a server problem, we would be seeing more complaints. I will report this issue to Adobe.

Report · May 13, 2022

I have the same problem and disconnecting from the internet made the program work perfectly. I am in the USA. Please get this fixed for all of us.

Report · May 13, 2022

Found out that in my case the real problem was that Photoshop Elements was trying to connect to my default printer over the network to get the color profile. I only turn the printer on when I want to print so it could not get it. It hangs the computer for a little over a minute trying. It should give some kind of message to let people know what is going on. Any event the fix for me was to manually set the default printer in Windows to Microsoft Print to PDF. That printer is always available. Have to manually set it to real printer just before printing now. Photoshop Elements now always starts really fast.

Hope this helps. Thanks.

Jim K.