After Effects just bounces in the dock but wont start

Question

Hi all,
Just installed CS4 production studio under Snow Leopard.  All works well and updated using the Adobe Updater.  All apps are fine except AE which just bounces in the dock a few times and then stops.  I read that this could be because Rosetta was not installed.  I installed Rosetta from the Snow Leopard DVD and still nothing.  Have restarted 3 times just in case (I also read that several restarts may be required to get it to work), but still nothing.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Regards
Dave

Answer 1

OK... Now I feel like Scott of the Antartic writing in his journal before the inevitable... I am writing this purely to help anyone else with the same issue to resolve it without the pain that I am still experiencing.  Hopefully the last entry will read "all solved" and not "I am about to pop outside... I may be some time..."
After using CS2 for the bulk of my work I thought I'd try and get this solved once and for all, especially as we have a DVCPROHD project coming up and need CS4 to do it.
OK... The so now I have the suite running, except Premiere is running under at trial without the presets and the updates fail when installing.  Contacted support this week, they wont re-open the original case because it has been over a month.  Fair enough, new case.
The adobe guy takes control of my machine, deactivates it, then from Finder deletes lots of folders.  He then asks me to re-install the products.  I do this (2 hours later) and run Premiere and it appears to work with presets.  I look a bit closer and notice that under the help menu of Premiere Register, Deactivate and Updates are all greyed out.  This is not the case in the other products of the suite.  OK, so not a major deal but does imply something is not installed right.  I run the Adobe Updater, Premiere updates, but AE, PS and several updates fail.
Call back to support.  This time the Adobe guy takes control of my machine suggests I deactivate the suite, run the un-install and then download and run the CS3 Clean script and re-install.  I do all this.  Another 2 hours later feeding discs into the machine... and... Premiere looks fine, presets all there... but wait for it... AFTER EFFECTS JUST BOUNCES IN THE DOCK BUT WONT START.
3rd call back to support and ask for the issue to be escalated.  This is difficult and I have to cause a fuss to realise that this problem is the same one that has been hanging around for months and that I am not prepared to spend more hours removing every trace of Adobe from my machine and re-installing - this doesn't work.  The support technician asks me to delete a hidden folder that has all the Adobe patches in it, manually download the AE 9.0.2 update and install it.   It installs but AE wont start.  I explain that I've had enough and want the problem escalated.
I finally get a call back from a 2nd level engineer this morning.  After explaining the that AE wont start and then answering the question "why is this a problem for you!" we do some quick troubleshooting.  This time I have to pull out the network cable, turn off Airport, create a new user account, log on to it and then see if AE runs.  Which it does.  Within seconds we get launched into the pre-determined script, "if it runs under another user account then there is nothing wrong with the applications and I should call Apple".  After being patronised for a further 5 mins I had to PROVE to the guy that it was also possible that the fault was Adobes.  I also know the moment I phone Apple, the response will be "Call Adobe".
The only example I could give him at the time was to image a piece of software I had written that allocated memory based on the screen resolution (this is a user preference) and if my code was badly written and crashed when encountering a screen resolution bigger than my code was expecting.  OK, is that Apple's fault, no it is my code.  Will it run under one user and not another, yes it will.  There are a million other posibilities.  Some I agree could be Apple's, but equally some could be Adobes and the big fat fob off as soon as you can is terrible.
I have also since realised since leaving this call with the technician, that:
1) This is a brand new iMac and the Adobe Suite was the 1st piece of 3rd party software installed on it.
2) The iMac is for video editing and nothing else.
3) This was working without presets before the Adobe guys deleted all these files and asked me to re-install.  It is more likely that they have deleted something they should not have rather than the a bug in the OS.  A bug in the OS is still possible but I suspect the problem is with a rogue bit of installation code from Adobe.
Finally incase anyone from Adobe is reading this:
I have paid thousands of pounds for this software.
I have been unable to use it for months.
A problem like this should be gold dust for you.  Here is the chance to get to the bottom of an issue that several people are having, understand the mechanics of what is going wrong.  Write a KB article as well as a patch and this would save the time/money and effort of an awful lot of people (including your own).
As a short thought experiment I would like everyone at Adobe to image the following:
You pay £1,000 of your own money for a tool to do your work on the promise that you can make this money back in productivity gains, new business, etc.
The tool you use every day to make a living won't work.  For the benefit of the experiment, imagine this is your email client, web browser or case management tool.
You have no IT group to replace your machine or to come and solve it.
You can't tell your customers that your software is down and you have to keep doing your job.
You have to spend an additional 3 days in your own time, working late or weekends to try and fix the software yourself.
You to keep downloading a Gigabyte of data 3 or four times and you have to pay for downloads.  Currently you are running up a bill of over £100 in downloads and phone calls.
You don't get paid the overtime and your customers start complaining you are late with your work.
You lose customers... you eventually get fired because you have lost too many of them.
...This is what it feels like for a small creative business to not be able to install the software they bought.