Adobe Premiere Elements 9 - Serious error message

[davengk]

After using Premiere Elements 9 for some hours and trying out various configuration and editing options in order to familiarise myself with the workings of the program, I clicked to 'Get Media' and a banner message was displayed reading 'Sorry a serious error has occurred that requires Adobe Premiere Elements 9 to shut down. We will attempt to save your current project'.

I've no idea what I did wrong and couldn't get the program to work again so I uninstalled it, deleted the contents of the Media caches (at C:\Users\myname\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Common\Media --   ) and then reinstalled it from the original disk (and upgraded it to V9.01).

Unfortunately when I ran the program again and clicked to 'Get Media' I saw the same banner with the same error message,

Can anyone please suggest what I can do to correct the situation?

TIA -  Dave.

[Steve Grisetti]

What operating system are you using? What processor do you have with how much RAM? Which graphics card do you have?

How much free space is on your hard drive?

[davengk]

Hi Steve,

I’m using Windows 7 Professional in a HP Elite 8300 PC. The processor and graphics card are as supplied, and there is 12GB of RAM available and 305GB free space on the C Drive.

This Elements 9 program was working (apparently OK) when I started using it again recently after many months, and I was able to successfully load and edit some short videos taken in *.MTS format.

I suspect that something I have done recently has caused the problem because the fatal error message only appeared today after I had ‘tidied up’ some working and test files by erasing them as well as the contents of the media cache files - but surely the caches would have been reinstated after a re-installation. You will by now have realised that I am not that familiar with the inner workings of the program – sorry about that.

I did buy the Elements 2018 upgrade recently and installed that but found it very difficult to use (as a ‘silver surfer’) even with the on-line tutorial, so I uninstalled it and reinstalled V9 for which I do have a printed User Guide and am more familiar.

I may well re-consider using the V2018 again once I’ve completed the present editing project and have more time to devote to learning about it..

In an earlier posting to this forum I asked about editing and combining two videos – thanks to Bill I have now found an acceptable work-around to enable me to use V9.

The only problem I have experienced when using V9 was that after I had downloaded a 30 minute long 3.5GB *.MOV file and started to edit it I noticed that towards the end of the video the sound track disappeared completely about 20 seconds before the end of the last scene.

To check the video I had downloaded I played the same *.MOV file on a media player which confirmed that the sound track was present right to the end of the video. Could that perhaps be an indication of what has caused the error message, or is it a different problem that I will need to resolve?

I really appreciate your help. Many thanks – Dave.

[Steve Grisetti]

I don't know for sure which processor your system has, but some 8300s have i5-3470 processors, so I'll assume that's what you've got unless you tell me different.

Try downloading the free trial of version 2018 of Premiere Elements and see if it gives you the same issues. Don't open a version 9 project. Start a new project and add some media to it. This will tell us if the issue is something system-wide or if it's unique to version 9.

Version 9 is a pretty old program and does not work well with a lot of the current video formats. I know you're using an older operating system, but you may just have hit the wall with it.

[davengk]

Many thanks for that useful suggestion which I’ll certainly try.

I know that Elements 9 WAS definitely working OK until a couple of days ago so am fairly sure that I’ve caused the problem by deleting a file that the program needs in order to run.

I thought that by uninstalling the program, clearing out the cache files, and then reinstalling it I would get a clean start but since the error occurs each time I do that I guess there must be a (hidden?) file lurking somewhere that the reinstalled program is finding which causes the error.

So, I’ve now got to try and find that file and delete it – but where to look is the problem.

[davengk · Accepted solution]

After creating a new Windows user profile for testing, and logging in as this new user, Premiere Element 9 didn't trigger any errors, which probably confirms that the problem was due to corruption or an accidentally erased file with that original profile.

I won’t be spending any more time investigating the problem since after upgrading my NEW Windows user account to Elements 2018 I have not, so far, experienced any further fatal error messages.

[Steve Grisetti]

Sorry it took such a major workaround, Dave, but I'm glad you were able to find a solution.

Please mark this question as answered. Thanks!