photoshop, "kernel security check failure"

[mirkor6]

good evening i had this problem when i open photoshop, "kernel security check failure" with a blue screen, i just check the hdd and the memory,i have this problem only with photoshop

thanks for the help

[kelvin lee]

Yep I've rolled back my NVIDIA graphics card driver and deleted sniffer.exe seems to have worked so far. Hopefully it stays that way. Will update again if the same thing happens again.

[alrobles291]

sniffer.exe was never the problem. All it's doing is looking for a compatible GPU. With that particular nvidia driver, your computer (and all of ours) decided it no longer like our GPUs.  So removing the sniffer.exe file is basically telling your adobe program to no longer look for a GPU.  So you may lose performance from previously GPU accelerated features.  In which case I would recommend putting the sniffer back. Or your adobe program may have created a new sniffer.exe on its own when it noticed it missing in which case you are good to go.

[Dodgums]

I put sniffer back and my machine blue screen resets when I run Photoshop (as soon as it appears). And I tried setting NVidia Control to tell it to use the 980M GPU or the Intel - it did the same blue screen reset. Removing sniffer 100% works for me, not had a crash since.

[Dodgums]

To be sure, I just updated to the latest "2016113.r.355 x64" which of course puts Sniffer.exe back, ran photoshop and instant blue screen. Booted up, deleted sniffer.exe, ran photoshop and fine again. My machine MSI GS60 2QE.

Hey Adobe - do you read your forums?

[alrobles291]

‌which nvidia driver are you on? Have you tried rolling back your driver? Or only removing sniffer?

[Chris Cox]

Removing sniffer just means you are running without any safety.  That is not a solution, just a step in diagnosing the actual problem (the video card driver).

The cause is a bug in the Nvidia video card driver that you updated recently.

Contact Nvidia and see if they have an updated driver that fixes the bug, or if you need to roll back to an older driver that doesn't contain the bug.

Remember: a BSOD, system shutdown, system reboot, or whole system freeze cannot be caused by applications.

Those behaviors can only be caused by bugs in the OS, bugs in low level drivers, or defective hardware.

[Brad Shoemaker]

How can you roll back a driver when it doesn't seem to exist anymore? The rollback driver button is greyed out.

[alrobles291]

If it wont let you rollback, just uninstall the driver completely.  Same place where you find the rollback option that is greyed out for you should be an uninstall option. Then go to NVIDIA Driver Downloads - Advanced Search and search for your particular setup. For me I have a GTX 970M 64bit system so it was geforce, 900m series, 970m, W10 64 Bit, english and all. Then hit search and install the the second last one. Should be the one from 12/01/15. That or any older ones should work too. Just dont install the 12/21/15 driver, that seems to be the bad one.  

[Digital Michael]

Hi all,

Thank you all for your support on these forums. I too had a huge issue with Photoshop and Premiere bombing and Blue screening with Kernel_security_check_failure. I searched high and low and tried many things. I am running the latest Adobe software with a rand new Dell Alienware 15R2 Win 10 home, 10586.36 build, Intel core i7-6820HK CPU @2.7GHz 2.71GHz, 16BG RAM, 64BIT with NVIDIA DeForce GTX 980M with driver version 10.18.13.6143. I contacted DELL for 2hrs, Adobe and then NVIDIA, we checked the hardware, power, heat, drivers (latest) and considered a reinstall. But, I first cleaned the registry of multiple driver attempts and ADOBE installs, de-installs using CCleaner (Can use other FREE software). I then spoke to NVIDIA. It turns out the latest drivers are good for gaming, but may have an issue with other software using the video board/Win10. It may change in the future when they do an update to the driver. However, they suggested the following:

Please click on the link below to download and save the file on the desktop:

http://international.download.nvidia.com/Windows/359.12/359.12-notebook-win10-64bit-international.hf...

Once the download is completed, please perform the following steps:

1.Run the installation
2.Choose custom installation, and click next.
3.Check all the boxes in the custom install options windows and also check the box which states "Perform clean install"..
4.Restart your computer.

You don't have to rollback, just follow the steps and make sure you perform a clean install. It should work. I worked for me. If you are unsure, contact NVIDIA as they were great help. Hope this helps someone. I have wasted a few days on this and I hope it helps others. Mike

[Fiorentino]

Im having the same issues with my alienware 15 R1  this is dreadful

Edit- Tried what you did but now i am getting a TDR NVIDIA OpenGL driver error code:7   This is happening with all my Adobe products. (Photoshop , after effects and premiere)

[Digital Michael]

Sorry to hear that. It is a pain. I spent a while on this and it is not easy. Looking at this issue there seems to be a lot of conflict between NVIDIA cards, latest OS's and software. Try contacting NVIDIA with their LIVE chat. They may have a slightly different setup. When I was trying to de-install and re-install software and drivers I found a full de-install of adobe helped as well as cleaning up the registry. Then re-install adobe then follow the NVIDIA install. Hang in there. Each computer may be different. I feel your pain.

[Fiorentino]

Everything works with my graphics amp (gtx 980sc) plugged in, Must be something wrong with the "M" Cards. After further looking into it i did what you said but i switched in the nvidia control panel to use maximum performance and that removed the error i was having.  Im guessing we must wait for a new NEW driver for the m cards hopefully this can get fixed. dell came by and switched my motherboard twice! and my ram! so its gotta be a issue with the driver or OS.

Edit- i chatted with nvidia and they said its adobe but this issue happens with older versions they said just stay at this driver (the one on this discussion for the 980m) until they release a new update for video drivers.

Edit again- still getting the error code 7 open gl driver error

[Colwer]

Here is another possible solution by disabling the N card.

Adobe problem solved

[Dodgums]

Same problem, been crashing 9 out of 10 times to blue screen on my MSI GS60 2QE Nvida 970M and Intel 5600 machine. Since the latest Photoshop update. Latest drivers for all, Windows 10.

Managed to see a dialog for a microsecond before it reset last time which said "can't read new documents preset file" that led me to this page:

Photoshop errors on start up read: Can't read new documents Preset file. It goes to a blue screen an...

Which led me here.

Anyway, I'd had already been trying NVidia control panel to use the NVidia card (worked once or twice). Tried changing it back to Intel too (nope).

I also uninstalled Creative Cloud and all Adobe apps and reinstalled. Same instant blue screen crashes.

Got here. Read the top of this page about moving Sniffer.exe out the folder and hey presto Photoshop works. Switched with NVidia control pannel between Intel and NVidia and still works. Put Sniffer.exe back in the Photoshop folder and instant blue screen death. Took sniffer.exe out again and Photoshop is working again.

Take from that what you will.

Side note - now Creative Cloud is constantly telling me there are updates to Photoshop and Premiere Pro - which it errors on so I assume that is just broken too.

[kelvin lee]

Was having these problems with PS,Premiere and AE as well. Will try rolling it back. Anyway does anyone know if the issue has been fixed by NVIDIA yet?

[alrobles291]

I'm not sure. And besides for minor security updates they may have implented, there is very little reason to have the latest nvidia driver since most of the updates are game related. It does look like a new driver launched yesterday 1/27/16 but I have yet to try it. I'm not really looking to interrupt my workflow at the moment but if anyone wants to try it and let the group know that be great. 

[jeremy_werst]

I got this error today, as well. It was on a fresh install of both Photoshop and Windows 8.1, but not the latest driver for my 750m nvidia card.

First, I tried rolling back to the driver from 12/1/2015, and it did actually prevent the BSOD from being triggered when photoshop tried to use the driver. Instead, it simply disabled the driver and was running with the integrated intel card. Not ideal, because then you're missing out on all of the power of the nvidia card.

Then, I quit photoshop and updated to the latest nvidia driver, released 1/27/2016: 361.75. I performed a clean installation and did not install the physx engine.

After that, I launched photoshop again, and it still had the video card disabled in edit > preferences > performance. The button to change it was grayed out, too.

So I launched the nvidia control panel, and explicitly set the graphics card for photoshop to always use the nvidia card. The next time I launched it, no immediate BSOD, and the nvidia card was enabled automatically in the performance preferences.

Haven't played around with it much, so other people's mileage might vary.

[jeremy_werst]

Nevermind, I might have been a bit too hasty. While it says that the card is working, when I went to enable "advanced drawing mode" it disabled the card again. Was able to get back to the same spot displayed here, but still got a warning about it. So I'm not sure if it's actually using the card or just saying that it is...

[Vicorice]

I suddenly started having this kernel_security_check_failure BSOD when opening Premiere, and certain other art/animation software.

I rolled back my Nvidia driver to the version originally installed on my laptop (Lenovo Y50) : Nvidia GeForce GTX 860M, driver version 354.35.

However, I'm still getting that same BSOD.

I'm really not sure why rolling back didn't work for me... wish there was another possible workaround/solution.

[alrobles291]

try this driver NVIDIA DRIVERS GeForce Game Ready Driver WHQL (driver 359.06) its the one im on and is working fine.  First uninstall the previous driver (reboot maybe) then install the new one.

[trishas78260744]

Anyone have tried 361.82 driver - http://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4026

Worth to give a try.

[webtrade_design]

I was having the same issue, geforce graphics card installed and PS only ran a few seconds before crashing out.  Nvidia have since released new drivers (27th Jan 2016 - 361.75) which have fixed the problem!

[jeremy_werst]

The driver doesn't totally fix it, though. Photoshop doesn't crash, but... It's using onboard graphics and not the nvidia card.

[webtrade_design]

No.. its not.  I have mine set to use my Geforce card.

[shoungi88071203]

Check this tutorial: kernel_security_check_failure and irql_not_less_or_equal - YouTube