"Could not complete your request because of a program error" pops up constantly

For what it’s worth, and I’m not sure that it gets any closer to a proper resolution, I tried something different.

I was getting the "Could not complete your request because of a program error" after having opened a gif file in CS2 then trying to create a new blank image file in CS2.

I tried a few of the fixes suggested here and none worked.

I then took a screenshot (ctrl print screen – windows) and opened a new image file in CS2 and pasted in my screenshot. This seemed to clear something and I am now able to create a new blank file again!!

No stupid error message.

I’m running on 10.5.4 & this happens to me all the time. It’s a real pain. But I have found that if I quit and reopen the app, then what I was trying to do (usually creating a new file from the clipboard then saving it) it now works. So I’m constantly opening & quitting Photoshop.

And I have come to the forum to see if anyone else has this problem & if it can be fixed.

"I had the same problem. went through many calls till we figured out the solution. When a font is intalled, no matter how, Photoshop creates a file that it references all fonts on the computer. They are called adobefnt files. If the font is corrupted then the adobefnt file is also. You have to remove those files. You have to go to search and type adobefnt then under the search enter window click the + button and select system files from the the dialog box and then include. the adobefnt files will show up then. select all then delete all. this solved my problem. "

This worked for me as well. But I did make sure to NOT delete the .db files.

Font AgentPro does a very good job of ferreting out both corrupted and duplicate fonts.

Neil

I too am running 10.5.4 and it happens to me all the time as well. I have tried everything and still no luck. It will run ok for a few days then BAM the same program error. It’s ridiculous!!

Gina,

It’s ridiculous!!

If you’re just venting, fine. But if you’re looking for guidance, we can’t suggest anything if you don’t give specifics. But if they match a problem in the current discussion, you should first look for and try suggested troubleshooting previously posted.

Neil

Ah yes… a fresh reinstall WILL work… however when I updated to Photoshop CS3 10.0.1 (the latest update) the problems began yet again…. program error!!! It’s not just associated with font usage… it happens when simply opening a file or toggling through opened files! Nice.
It appears that the update isn’t such a good idea. I have since reinstalled PS CS3 from the original installer and the program runs free of program error!

Thanks for the Update Adobe!!!

C,

I don’t think I’ve heard others here having problems with this update. What system maintenance did you do when you updated? Have you tried resetting Photoshop’s preferences?

Neil

Neil,

Not sure if it’s an actual problem with the update or not… it just seems to be one heck of a coincidence that the errors occur after the update… and not when original CS3 installer is run.

I have reset the preferences but no other maintenance beyond that. I’m running OSX 10.5.5 on a G5.

What other maintenance are you referring to? I get by on my MAC and no a lot of the "surface stuff" but I’m by no means a MAC guru.

Thanks,
C.

C,

Running your Disk Utility (repair disk permissions; repair disk). Running Alsoft’s DiskWarrior.
Running Onyx or Cocktail.

Neil

Thanks for the diagnostic info…

I hope I didn’t throw anyone else off with that MAC thing.

p.s. I had run the disk utility a little over a month ago… perhaps I should do it again.

I thought meant MAC = Mothers Against Canada

Good one Buko… got me laughing!

C,

I just meant the MAC &#8800; Mac as a point of information. I don’t think anyone was thrown off by it. It’s in the same mildly annoying category as saying "nu-cyu-ler" for nuclear. <g>

Neil

C,

The 10.0.1 update is essential, especially when printing.

Routine maintenance is imperative.

I still advocate Repairing Permissions (with Apple’s Disk Utility) before AND after any system update or upgrade, as well as before AND after installing any software that requires an installer that asks for your password.

I have seen software installations go sour because the installer did not find everything as and where it should be.

I have also seen software installations go bad because the installer did not clean up after itself properly and did not leave everything as and where it should be.

This is just my own personal opinion and practice based on my own observations. Others may disagree and that’s OK. I can only base my routines and my advice to others on my own experience and conclusion. I don’t pretend to know why others believe otherwise.

Repairing Permissions after the fact (i. e. not immediately before and after an install) seldom helps.; Try it anyway, though.

====

Additionally, if your machine does not run 24/7 so that it runs the daily, weekly and monthly Cron Scripts in the middle of the night as intended by Apple, run Cocktail (shareware) as well.

Cron Scripts are maintenance routines designed by Apple to run on a daily, weekly and monthly basis in the middle of the night.

If you don’t run them, you WILL run into trouble, sooner rather than later.

Here’s an excerpt from the Apple tech doc <http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107388>

Mac OS X performs background maintenance tasks at certain times if the computer is not in sleep mode. If your computer is shut down or in sleep at the designated times, the maintenance does not occur. In that case, you may want or need to run these manually.

Mac OS X periodically runs background tasks that, in part, remove system files that are no longer needed. This includes purging older information from log files or deleting certain temporary items. These tasks do not run if the computer is shut down or in sleep mode. If the tasks do not run, it is possible that certain log files (such as system.log) may become very large.
Also, from: <http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106978>

The disk activity generated by find is a normal part of file system maintenance, used for tasks such as removing invisible temporary files that are used by the system. It is scheduled to occur early in the morning at 03:15 everyday, 04:30 on Saturdays, and 05:30 on the first day of each month.

NOTE: There have been comments to the effect that Apple "fixed" this in 10.4.2 and later versions of the OS, but I have not been able to verify this to my satisfaction. The reference in the 10.4.2 release notes are far from explicit on this subject.

= = =

If you have DiskWarrior, run it regularly too.

Has a real solution been found for this problem yet?
Turning off all extra fonts has not worked (not a realistic workaround anyway). Running Cocktail has not worked.
Deleting all Photoshop prefs has not worked.

I am about to lose my mind — Photoshop is nearly useless to me at this point as I cannot open any of my client-supplied files without immediately receiving the "program error" message, and having to force quit.

Running CS3 on OS 10.5.5

Someone help, please!!

Turning off all extra fonts has not worked (not a realistic workaround anyway). >

But what about Managing your Fonts properly?

Have you tried downloading and using FontAgent Pro to sort-out your fonts, and quarantine damaged and duplicated ones, as has been repeatedly suggested in this thread?

Klick on this link to another thread:
Ramón G Castañeda, "PS CS3 gets "Could not complete your request because of a program error"" #3, 23 Sep 2008 2:47 pm </webx?14/2>

And please don’t post the same question in more than one thread.

Ann Shelbourne, ""Could not complete your request because of a program error" pops up constantly" #137, 23 Sep 2008 2:41 pm </webx?14/137>

Yes, thank you, but my fonts are managed.

I only cited turning off all extra fonts, as nothing else has worked and that was one of the suggested solutions.

And my apologies for posting in more than one thread, but I am at my wit’s end to find a solution.

Yes, thank you, but my fonts are managed. >

perhaps. But with what? Therein probably lies the difference?

Hi there – I originally started this thread and I am exactly in the same boat as Marci Fermier all these months later. My fonts are managed with FAP, which I bought specifically that it was recommended in this thread. While FAP did find some corrupt fonts and isolated them, it did NOTHING to solve that error box that keeps coming up when i boot photoshop cs3.

I too feel really frustrated. I’ve done EVERYTHING recommended on this thread and there’s been no change. It’s pretty frustrating as photoshop CS2 runs fine on my machine.

Is there anything else I can try?

Click on this link to another thread:

Ramón G Castañeda, "PS CS3 gets "Could not complete your request because of a program error"" #3, 23 Sep 2008 2:47 pm </webx?14/2>

In the past I have always run disk utility or diskwarrior and the problem goes away.

An Archive and Install will also help.

Go here to the adobe.com supportcenter:

< http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=33 1627>

It is about CS2 but can probably be applied to CS3 as well.

Thank you everyone, but my fonts are managed using FAP, I have tried all the solutions on the Adobe support page (referenced above), and have tried all the solutions suggested here.
All to no avail.

I am not new to font management; I must deal with sometimes hundreds of customer-supplied fonts on a daily basis, for an average of 10-15 different projects every day. I am fully aware that corruption occurs (often), and have fallen victim to snags using both Suitcase and FontExplorer.

Which is one of the reasons I tried disabling all non-system fonts, to see if I could get a "clean" Photoshop to work. No such luck.

This problem only popped up in the last week.
I have to assume there is something else going (I’ve run Disk Warrior, Disk Utility, and Cocktail, and both my drives have tons of free space), but I am at a loss as to where to turn next.

My next attempt is a clean archive & install of the last OS update, which won’t be pretty, but I have run out of ideas.

do you have this problem in a new user?

Having the same issue with PS CS3 on my G5 with OS 10.5.4, I tried two of the above suggestions and one of them actually worked (so far).

First I used Font Book to resolve duplicates and remove problem fonts, etc. Restarted my computer–no change in the PhotoShop situation.

Then I followed the advice originally posted by Scott Harden about deleting all adobefnt(x).lst files (BUT NOT adobefnt.db files-apparently that would be really bad). Messages #92 and 122 have step-by-step instructions. This worked for me.

Thanks, Scott. This took a little bit of time, but your recommendation seemed logical when I read it…and didn’t require more RAM or more software or anything else that cost more money!

I am having the same problem. Driving me nuts.

Am running Leopard 10.5.3 (should upgrade to 10.5.5 but corporate makes this difficult), Photoshop CS3 v. 10.0.1 and FontAgent Pro 4, and FAP’s sister app "Smasher" for deleting font caches.

It started a few weeks ago and seemed to happen primarily when trying to open just one or two PSD docs, but now its spreading to more and more docs I create. I use type in most of my PSD docs.

I tried deleting PSD preferences (think it helped me open doc once, but problem came back), deleting "adobefnt.lst" which fixed it but now it’s back, verified my FAP font library and deleted a "problem" font, told FAP to "Manage System Fonts", then unchecked "Manage System Fonts" all of which didn’t help. Also repaired permissions.

Any suggestions???

The above link to "Ramón G Castañeda, "PS CS3 gets "Could not complete your request because of a program error"" #3, 23 Sep 2008 2:47 pm" was not informative.

I would run Diskwarrior.

10.5.5 has issues 10.5.4 would be better.

I have this problem with CS3 on 10.5.3 so I use CS2 for those problem files and they open up but a window pops up mentioning missing plug-ins.

I thought the problem was related to missing plug-ins rather than a font issue. At our company we only keep the system fonts activated unless fonts come in with a customers job. So I find it hard to imagine that the few system font could be causing the problem. Also I have noticed by checking the problem files header info that it mostly happens when opening files created in photoshop on a pc.

I’m sorry I don’t have a real solution except for the a workaround of using CS2.

had this problem in photoshop CS3, on a mac with OS leopard 10.5.6.

this worked for me. thanks very much.

i’m back and this only worked temporarily. even reinstalled photoshop. no luck.

come on adobe. what’s up?!

come on adobe. what’s up?!

We are not Adobe.

It seems you missed the title "User to User Forums" at the top of the page.

If you wish to tell Adobe please call Tech Support.

This is the only solution I have found that worked for me….. Scroll down to where it says to go to File —> File info

< http://www.flickr.com/groups/adobe_lightroom/discuss/7215760 7023379578/>

Got at least 25% empty space on your computer’s main hard drive?

For anyone still having this problem, I’ve found that using a program called FontNuke clears the font cache and I can use Photoshop once again.

Sad to say, using FontNuke did not work for me. I am unable to use Photoshop CS4 on a particular psd document provided by a colleague. The document warns me that some text layers will need updating and then it goes into a tight loop informing me that it cannot complete my request because of a program error.

Aha, Photoshop CS3 successfully opens the document. That’s a relief. At least I can get my work done.

But this is an unimpressive start with Photoshop CS4.

Dave

Dave, After you resave the the file in CS3 do you still have the same problems?

After a Save As?

What happens if you open the file in CS4 and resave the file without updating?

Have you run diskwarrior? If I see a diskerror or programe error repairing my directory will usually fix the problem.

can you send me the file?

I have the problem in both CS3 and CS4 if I have Photoshop in the background doing nothing at all with no document open. After a time (varies; usually at least half an hour or so), Photoshop will throw up the alert.

My reaction is to raise an eyebrow and wonder what I did that caused Photoshop to think I’d requested it do anything at all. I take it as a sign that Photoshop is unable to sit quietly in the background, so I swear a little and quit from it.

Dave

I’m using Photoshop CS4 on a Mac Mini (2Ghz Core 2 Duo 1GB RAM) using OS 10.5.6 and plenty of space on the hard drives. I do regular permission and font maintenance as well.

Here’s what annoys me when I get, "could not complete your request because of a program error": like Dave in the previous post, we’re doing NOTHING!

Even when no other app is open — save the finder, of course — I can just walk away and, sooner or later, the PS icon starts bouncing in the dock, waiting to tell me I just "requested" something.

I want to hear from someone what Photoshop is doing when it’s supposed to be just sitting there. What possible request is it talking about and why does it have the need to do this all the time?

Thanks guys,

-Tom

Photoshop does things while idle: like creating font previews, paging out image data to the scratch disk (so you won’t have to wait later), cleaning up memory allocations, and responding to events from the operating system (otherwise it couldn’t draw correctly, or handle requests to open documents).

The most likely cause if it happens soon after launching Photoshop would be Font previews being calculated in the background. A corrupt font could cause an error, and if it’s some bizarre error that hasn’t been seen before, it’ll get a generic "program error" message.

The next most likely cause would be file IO errors when writing to the scratch disk (also can happen when idle). Again, most likely something unexpected or a more detailed message would be reported.

Check your preferences folder for a file called PSErrorLog.txt — that provides information that (sometimes) Adobe can use to identify the cause of the error.

Thanks Chris,

FWIW, this has happened to me only on Leopard on my iMacIntel. Leaving PS3 or PS4 idling on my iMacG5 under Tiger has never caused this error.

Right at this moment, I’m updating that machine to Leopard, so perhaps I’ll have more to report then. However, it could be that I have one or more dubious fonts on the iMacIntel.

Dave

Dave,

Do you have FontAgent Pro (or similar) to review your fonts for corruption?

Neil

Neil,

Nope. I have a minimalist approach to font management. I don’t do it.

With my mix of work, it’s not that much of a hardship to quit Photoshop when I don’t need it.

But that error message surely could be more helpful. Photoshop must know what it was trying to do when the error occurred.

Dave

A minimalist would definitely want to use a font manager.

I’m not insisting you do it, it’s your box. I’m just pointing out that your assertion is a non sequitur.

"Photoshop must know what it was trying to do when the error occurred."

My suspicions are confirmed. At that very moment it ratcheted up unreality, crashed. At a later unsuspecting moment, boom, you’re befuddled. Ready for CS5?

If not many other users are seeing, it can’t really be blamed on CS4.

I have Photoshop 11.0.1 running practically 24/7, and I often leave the program running in the program, as when I’m posyting here, checking mail, tending to my calendar, etc., and I have never, ever seen the "program error".

Among the various custom settings I use to help my older machine cope, like totally and permanently disabling the intrusive and useless Spotblight and the Dashboard, I maintain my fonts with FAP and I have set my Photoshop preferences NOT to Export the clipboard.

Dual bootable, DP MDD 1.25GHz G4 (2004), maxed out at 2GB of RAM, both Spotlight and Dashboard disabled, Photoshop primary scratch disk on dedicated 160GB internal drive, at least 100GB available on each of the four internal drives, up to 300GB on some. Counting external FW drives just over 1TB of drive space available. nVidia GeForce 7800 GS 425MHz 256 MB graphics display card. Processor napping enabled through CHUD 3.5.2.
.

Dave, don’t forget to clone your Tiger OS before the upgrade. Just incase you need to go back.

I use FontAgent Pro and get this problem A LOT!

I still get this dreaded message even though I have FontAgent Pro 4.02, Photoshop CS3 updates, and just ran Disk Utility to repair perms & disk (no errors there) and just updated to 10.5.5.

I have two book covers as layered Photoshop files that I CANNOT OPEN at all. Days of work unavailable! Even after restarting my Mac (which used to sometimes flush the problem out). When I F0rce Quit Photoshop I notice that it it still "alive" in teh dock. The app won’t really quit unless I restart or sometimes force a shutdown.

Fairfax,

Did you use FontAgent Pro to find any corrupt or duplicate fonts? Did you reset Photoshop preferences upon launch? Did you try logging in as a new user?

Neil

The current version of Leopard is 10.5.6.

Thanks for all your suggestions but none of them have worked (or be an option such as 10.5.6 due to corp policy)…

Did you use FontAgent Pro to find any corrupt or duplicate fonts? YES — ALL OK

Did you reset Photoshop preferences upon launch? YES

Did you try logging in as a new user? NO — will try but don’t want permissions issues

Have you deactivated or deleted Font Book? (You should not have two font managers active simultaneously.) — YES

At what point did you find you could not open the files in question? — Near end of the design

Were you able to open them previously? — YES

Did you try opening a backup? — They were my back-ups! 🙂 Don’t trust saving to Windows network

Are you saving across a network? — NO, save to HD then copy when done to archive

Did you run Disk Utility/repair permissions/repair disk? — YES TO ALL

Did you boot off and run DiskWarrior? — NO, don’t have a recent version

Did you clear your caches, including font caches, with Onyx or Cocktail? — YES with FAP’s SMASHER — clears font caches daily

Did you upgrade to Mac OS X 10.5.6? — NO — Corporate won’t support above 10.5.5

Did you uninstall (do not drag to the trash) Photoshop, and reinstall off the original media or download? — NO, not recently –this has been happening to me since shortly after installing second time, uninstalled CS3 Design Standard with Adobe Tech — Am on 6 mos. old Mac Pro! Shouldn’t need to….

corporate is stupid because 10.5.6 fixes some serious errors that affected Adobe apps

i’m having this same problem in CS4…also tried CS3 again and it did the same thing. i didn’t have this problem until i upgraded to leopard from tiger (on 10.5.6). so the .6 doesn’t fix anything. i even upgraded to photoshop 11.0.1 and that didn’t do anything either. i don’t see the correlation of the font issue bc sometimes i’m not doing anything with fonts or i’m doing nothing at all. and sometimes it gives the alert when i just go to the desktop. i can’t get through a project without force quitting many times. troubleshooting this one is a royal pain as it incapacitates photoshop – it’s basically unusable. one thing to note is that i’m on a G5 but it’s not intel. my hard drive is also mirrored with another drive.
hardware overview:
Model Name: Power Mac G5
Model Identifier: PowerMac7,3
Processor Name: PowerPC G5 (3.0)
Processor Speed: 2.5 GHz
Number Of CPUs: 2
L2 Cache (per CPU): 512 KB
Memory: 4.5 GB
Bus Speed: 1.25 GHz
Boot ROM Version: 5.1.8f7

other suggestions?

Diane,

The worst problem with that error message is that it’s too generic to be of much help —as many error messages are. :/

That being said, fonts can indeed be a problem even when you’re not using them.

Other than suggesting every routine maintenance procedure, there’s not much that can be suggested specifically.

one thing to note is that i’m on a G5 but it’s not intel.

Of course, otherwise it would not be a G5. 🙂

Nonetheless, it is interesting that Diane is using a G5. I’ve never seen the problem on my G5 but it happens on my MacIntel all the time.

Perhaps I should take a good look at my fonts, but that’s such an effort considering that this is little more than an occasional annoyance.

If the error message could just be a tad more helpful.

Dave

The message is general because it is the catchall "we don’t know what happened" message.

Indeed, but you must have some idea of what you were trying to do at the time. Even that would be helpful.

Dave

Or check the PSErrors.txt file in your preferences folder….

Perhaps I should take a good look at my fonts, but that’s such an effort considering that this is little more than an occasional annoyance

FAP (FontAgent Pro) is excellent at ferreting out problem fonts. 30-day demo is fully functional.