Unable to start a new project.

Question

I have just installed Premier Elements 8, When I click New Project, it gets up to a loading stage called Hurdy Gurdy.dll and then comes up with a Can't load Module: Soundbytes Midisense. I click ok then it says Can't load Module: Caption. I click ok then it says Can't load module: Soundbytes Touchsense.
I am running this on a HP Dual core  2.6GH, 2 GB Mem on Vista home.
Elements Organizer works and I have updated to version 8.0.1
I have tried loading the program onto the laptop and it does work but it is unstable and keeps freezing or shuting down.
Does anyone have any idea about Can't load Module?
Olddad40

Answer 1

That's good news! I have not heard of Hurdy Gurdy, but it sounds like a music/SFX generator program, like Magix Music Maker, or similar.
As stated in the article, there are often VST's, that not only cannot be used by the NLE program, but will halt loading, or otherwise mess things up. These seem to involve "instruments" most often. I have Magix Music Maker, and it has one VST, SampleTank2.dll, which PrPro will load, but cannot use. On the first launch, after installing MMM, I got a message to the effect, "PrPro cannot use SampleTank2.dll, but will continue to load it." It does, and I only got that message once. In this particular case, the loading of that VST does not negatively affect PrPro, so all is well with it on my machine. Others are not so benign. Two known problem programs are, SoundFlower for the Mac and Native Instruments. I am certain that there are many, many more, but those two have been proven to cause issues.
As of CS4, PrPro has one neat feature on launch. It will halt on the loading of a problem VST, and write that info to a "blacklist." Next attempt to launch, will result in that VST being skipped, and with the next problem one, the blacklist will be updated. This goes on through all installed VST's, until all with a problem are blacklisted. Unfortunately, this "feature" is not documented, and there is also no message to inform the user what is going on, and urging them to continue to re-launch, until the blacklist is complete, so the poor user is in the dark. They do not know to keep trying, until the blacklist is full. That would be much better, IMHO. Fortunately, we know to instruct them to just keep launching, until the program comes up, but that is not 100% intuitive, as the user only sees the program hang, and does not know why. It's a step in the right direction, but incomplete, if you ask me. I do not think that a message has been added to CS5, but maybe Adobe has expanded the functionality of that feature.
I do not believe that PrE handles things in the same way, but could well be wrong. Remember, in PrPro, this feature is not documented, and it took one Community Professional, Jeff Bellune, months to find out the details on it. Maybe PrE is the same, and none of us has re-launched it enough times to get all VST's entered into the blacklist? Maybe Steve can comment, as he's much closer to Adobe, than the rest of us are. He also has had more looks "under the hood," than we have. I will do a bit of research and see if someone at Adobe can shed some light on PrE and how it might have similar. If I get an answer, I will report.
If there is such a feature, this would allow one to have some of the offending VST's installed, and after a number of re-launches, the VST's would just be bypassed.
More to come, if I can get some answers,
Hunt