Mac OS X: Adobe suddenly doesn't load

[alanbloom]

>:-(

One day, I had Illustrator, Acrobat and Photoshop open and then suddenly, when I dragged a file onto PS, it said 'cannot open - program error' or something like that. So I tried a different file and it said the same thing.

I quite PS and tried reloading it, and it started bobbing up and down and then stopped. Ie it quit after 1s of loading. I restarted the computer, thinking that might solve it. Now every Adobe application quits after 1s. Gay.

I've reinstalled it, from fresh and it still does the same thing. Help!

Thanks

 

[jmgalvin]

Trash the preferences. They're under User/Library/Preferences.

Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4

 

[jmgalvin]

Forgot - Iassume you're not using CS2 versions that require activation.

Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4

 

[alanbloom]

Hi, thanks for replying.

Already tried that :-( No joy. I've tried getting rid (moving I should say) of just Adobe and then the whole folder....

 

[jmgalvin]

You could have some corrupted font caches or missing fonts.

Make sure you have Library/Application Support/Adobe/fonts/Req'd. and that the fonts are in there. Without them you can have some problems on launch.

To clear any corrupted Adobe font caches use Find under Finder and search for "AdobeFnt". Trash everything that comes up with ".lst" estension.

You should also clear any other font caches incase they're corrupted. The easiest way is to download Font Finagler (go to Versiontracker.com and search OSX for it). It will clear all font caches except the Adobe ones. Pay the guy the 5 or 10 bucks as Font Finagler can solve a lot of problems.

When clearing Prefernces try dumping everything with Adobe in the name. Then remove the programs from your Applications folder. Empty the trash, restart the computer, and reinstall the Adobe apps.



Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4

 

[alanbloom]

I'm gutted. I thought that the method you highlighted above (very nice by the way) was going to do the trick. But my heart sank when I had finished the complete reinstallation and Illustrator vanished from the taskbar the same way it had done before.

I can't think of absolutely anything left to try.

All the programs quit almost immediately. When I try to load them after trashing all the preferences, they do not have time to put in the new default preference files. Also, before it all went wrong, photoshop complained that it couldn't open a file because of a program error.

:'-(

 

[jmgalvin]

You could try using Find to locate everyting with Adobe in the name and trash everyting. I had not mentioned trashing the Adobe stuff under application Support folder - only if reinstalling fresh. Remember that you have Application support and Preferences in both the USER/Library AND the HARDDRIVE Library. You should clear everything. Also, you have not said what version you're using. I'm assuming you're using the OSX native apps and not older ones under Classic.

Some time ago I had the same problem with Word. Trashing prefs didn't help. I cleared everything to do with Word and reinstalled.

Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4