Premiere Elements 15 has stopped working... Windows message

[Duke_Green]

Hello, I have been using PE14 for over a year without a hiccup. I took advantage of reduced pricing on PE15. I get the above message right after double-clicking the icon. It doesn't even try to run. The same for the Photoshop Elements 15 that came with it. PE14 still runs just fine.

I tried some of the old fixes, setting my BIOS to Default, I also notice another post here saying to disable Lavasoft, I did so. I have the latest NVidia driver, and with Win10, you just can't get away from updates.

I have Win10Pro 64bit, Intel i7 3770, 16GB RAM, over 70% free on a 4TB disc 0% fragmentation, and I haven't cussed it yet. Any ideas?

Thanks much

Duke

[Steve Grisetti]

What graphics card do you have?

I would definitely contact Adobe Customer Care via Chat about this one. Something very unusual is going on here if you can't even launch the program.

Contact Customer Care

[Duke_Green]

Hi, Steve. It is an NVidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti BOOST. I have the latest driver downloaded and installed. PE15 did the same thing w/ the previous driver installed, probably 6 months old. PE14 still works fine. I will try the Chat.

Thanks

Duke

[Duke_Green]

Update. I just spent over two hours with Adobe Chat. Wore one rep out, was handed to another by way of screen sharing. First thing was to remove anything like Lavasoft (renamed the .dll). That got us to the splash screen of PE15. After that, it was a blinding blur of the rep changing one setting after another, all with the same effect, that being the Premiere Elements splash screen hanging up during initialization. The rep installed Google Chrome, that required a reboot, assuring me the connection would be restored. After 30 minutes of re-establishing my internet connection, thank you Chrome, I got back in touch with the rep. After several attempts to do the screen sharing again, continually blocked by some unknown Windows force, I gave up. Some of us have to work in the morning.

I'm scared to try PE14. If it doesn't work now, there's a lot of effort that will need to be re-done. My next plan is to try rolling back video drivers to see if an old one works. I'll give it 3 tries, then will try to get my money back for PE15.

[Duke_Green]

I do need to say one thing. The reps were kind and courteous, as was I. I was a bit jarred by the changes they were making, though.

[Steve Grisetti]

I know it's of no consolation, but yours is by no means a typical experience with this program. Something is definitely up that's unique to your computer.

But I don't blame you for cutting loses and moving on.

[Duke_Green]

I tell ya, guys. If you get a notion to get on chat w/ Adobe, think twice. Have a lot of paper and SLOW THEM DOWN AND WRITE DOWN EVERY CHANGE THEY MAKE. My experience with them was less than stellar. After 4 hours of work, I've just now gotten my graphics driver back. PE 14 is not even working now. Even my printers aren't recognized. I know, they wouldn't do any of that, so I guess it just isn't happening. But it is. They got in, with my permission, and started clicking. I followed it pretty well. Then they wanted to install Chrome and that's when things fell apart. They couldn't even get back into my machine.

It's no skin off their noses. Something doesn't work for them, they go on to the next call. You're left holding the broken bag. You get much better, if slower, advice on this forum.

As I mentioned before, they were nice. But it's kinda like letting a rock concert take place on your lawn.

There's a question in here somewhere, but I don't even know what to ask. I have a vacation coming up. I think I will turn off my anti-virus, connect to the internet and leave the machine on for a week. I'm sure it will be all good when I get back. I'm sure I will keep trying to make it work, I am just mad right now.

g'nite

[Duke_Green · Accepted solution]

Hello, all. I seem to have a resolution. To recap, PE15 installed, would not start, checked here, got w/ Adobe Chat (see above), then prior versions of PE would not work, then gave up.

After a vacation, I needed the computer. After the Adobe chat crew were finished, there were a LOT of things that were crapflunkated. Some came back slowly, but the print spooler would not start, I could not use any printers. Uninstalled/reinstalled, no luck. Did not even try PE. I run AVG anti-virus, keep it updated. It didn't find any problems. During troubleshooting my print spooler, I found a program, part of MS Windows, System File Checker. Ran that, no problems. Found another forum and discovered another MS tool, MS Safety Scanner. It, too, found no problems.

Success here: I saw a repeated mention of an AV program, HitManPro. Since I was on the verge of buying a new hard drive w/ a new set of Windows pre-installed, I decided to give it a go. It found one piece of Malware (I can't find the log on it or would supply the name, sorry), fixed it and all the printers came back to life.

I decided to try PE, version 14, which before was not working. It came right up, but wasn't able to open any projects. I did a couple of re-boots, then opened PE14 and did a File/Open for a recent project. There were a couple of assets missing, but I was able to do a Clip/Replace Footage and things were just fine. I worked on PE14 for a while, then decided to re-install PE15 again. It seems to be working fine, though I haven't used it much yet.

It's strange how PE is so susceptible to some minor piece of malware. That seems to be the first place to look when PE doesn't work right. PhotoShopElements 15 was doing the same thing, but I have not tried to re-install yet.

Happy editing, all. Thanks Steve, for the replies and patience shown to so many.

Thanks

Duke