Bridge Crash - "Bridge is no longer working"

Question

I have been using Bridge in CS3 for months now with no problems, it now crashes as soon as I open it "Bridge is no longer working".  I have reloaded my software but I am still having the same problem.  It looks like it is impossible to find a real person with Adobe to ask for technical assistance.  This is my first real issue with PS and am seriously looking at another package.  Any help out here???

Answer 1

The problem encountered in the original post may have been the result of a problem with the SmugMug plugin and, for many, the ensuing problems with Bridge are not fixed by resetting preferences or deleting Bridge cache or resetting the workspace.  The further solution is detailed in another thread, which related to Mac OS, but in which a Windows user posted his solution (which also worked for me on the Mac).  That forum thread is here (if this forum accepts links, if not it is thread 2423516): http://forums.adobe.com/message/2423516
Here is the fix posted by the Windows user:
"One of two files is corrupted.  I don't know which it is, but the system rebuilds them the next time you upload and everything is fine.
Steps:
1)  In bridge, select "Edit", then "Preferences".  Select the "Startup Scripts" tab.
2)  Click the "Reveal Scripts in Explorer" button.
3)  An explorer window will open.  Navigate to "Adobe", "Online Services", "Adobe Creative Suite 3.0", and then "Cache".
4)  You should find one or more  files with the extension .dat in this folder.  Delete them.
5)  Navigate further down the tree to "Adobe", "Online Services", "Adobe Creative Suite 3.0", "Clients", "Adobe Creative Suite", and then "sessions"
6)  Once again, you will find one or more .dat files.  Delete them.
Close and restart Bridge, making sure that you have "Photoshop Services" checked in the startup preferences.
You probably will have to let bridge rediscover the online services, but once that is done, you should be golden.
This worked for me using CS3 on an XP machine.  I assume it would be similar in Vista and/or CS4, but you may have to be a bit creative."
Note: if you can't get Bridge to open at all (my experience), then just omit the first two steps and go straight to finding the relevant files indicated, using Explorer.
(I personally had this error on Mac OS X, and the same solution worked, the only difference being the location of the files that need to be removed, which is detailed in the thread referenced above.)