Premiere Elements 8 crashes every time I load it

Question

I just purchased the combo of Photoshop Elements 8 and Premiere Elements 8.  Photoshop installed fine, but every time I try to open Premiere, it goes through the loading process and then crashes before it opens.  I uninstalled and reinstalled and the same thing happened.  I returned the software and exchanged for another disk and the same thing happens.  I updated my drivers, updated quicktime etc. and nothing works.  Any ideas?

Answer 1

One type of "plug-in" that causes a crash/hang when loading is the VST. These are often from audio-editing programs, and appear as .dll's in most cases. When the Adobe program encounters the VST's that it finds on the system, it attempts to load them, even if they did not install with PrE. There is a very quick and tiny line of text on the Splash Screen, indicating which are being loaded. One has to watch very closely to see this text, and as it goes by quickly on a fast computer, can be tough to read. One idea is to set up your video camera and record the loading process, focused on the Splash Screen. Then, when the launch fails, just rewind that tape and shuttle through it, until the Splash Screen disappears. Go back one Frame and pause. What is the very last line in that text? It is likely that that is the problem - that, or maybe the next one - the one we have yet to see...
There are three things that happen with the VST's:
1.) The Adobe program loads them successfully and can use them.
2.) The Adobe program loads them successfully, but cannot use them. In PrPro, the user gets a one-time warning message to that effect. One only sees this message once.
3.) The Adobe program cannot load, nor can it use, the particular VST(s). In PrPro, the program writes a "blacklist" of the ones that cause the crash. If one has many of these # 3 VST's, the blacklist grows, on every attempted launch, until all are on the blacklist. Then, the program can launch. It will take one launch attempt for each of the offending VST's. On a DAW with tons of VST's (especially the "instruments" VST's), this might mean 20-30 aborted launches, before all are blacklisted. I mention PrPro here, because I have no idea whether PrE does the same thing. Possibly, but I just do not know. I did not realize that PrPro did the automatic blacklist until recently. Most people would only try to launch a couple of times, and then give up.
If one knows which VST's are getting in the way, they could address those. Hence, reading that little text line might be very useful.
Good luck,
Hunt
Message was edited by: the_wine_snob - Edited line 2