Premiere Elements runs on laptop with 2nd monitor but not on laptop alone

[karenj0858]

Hi, I have a very odd situation where I have installed Premiere Elements 2018 on my Dell XPS15 laptop with Intel i7-6700 HQ CPU @ 2.60 GHz, 16 GB RAM, OS Windows 10 Home, 64 bit.  For my home set up, I use a Dell D3100 Dock and connect both the laptop and a Dell P2415Q monitor and use the separate monitor as my primary display.  Both displays have a resolution of 3840 x 2160, the laptop display refreshes at 59 Hz and the Dell monitor at 30 Hz.  The laptop monitor is connected to Intel HD Graphics 530 and I also have Nvidia GeForce GTX960M (not sure if this is too much info but not sure what is relevant).

When I am at home, I can open Elements without issue, add media and play that media in elements before making any adjustments with the external Dell monitor as primary display.  I can even drag the entire Elements window over onto the laptop monitor and continue to play the media.  The programme will also close without a problem.

The issue arises when I am away from home and just have the laptop, I can open Elements and import media files but when I click play, nothing happens.  Also, the programme will never close down properly, it always crashes and sends an error report.

I am totally bemused by this and out of my depth so hope someone in the community can help.

thanks, Karen

[Peru Bob]

Go to the Dell support site and see if there are other graphics drivers available for your laptop.

[karenj0858]

Hi.  Did that, there were a number of updates and have installed all of them however the problem persists.  Interestingly, I started Elements when the laptop was still connected to the docking station but the external monitor was turned off.  Elements worked fine on the laptop monitor.  I closed the pc down, disconnected from the dock and restarted, back to square one, Elements opened, I was able to add media but it would not play and Elements would still not close down.

Any other ideas?

thanks, Karen

[Bill Sprague]

Karen,

Anything happen when you click on Window > Restore Workspace?

[karenj0858]

Hi, I didn't notice anything change on the screen and doing this did not resolve the issue.

thanks, Karen

[karenj0858]

Hi, I tried again and got a different result

Opened Elements as per normal, added media, then  clicked Window > Restore Workspace, this was the result:

Tried clicking on both Play buttons but no response, had to crash out of Elements again.

Any ideas?  thanks, Karen