PS CS3: "could not complete your request because of a program error"

IM
Posted By
Ian_M_Butterfield
Jan 29, 2009
Views
1629
Replies
11
Status
Closed
Hi,
I am using Photoshop CS3 on Windows XP Pro (Upgraded from PS v7.0 a few months ago) on about 10% of my images I’m getting an the error:

"could not complete your request because of a program error"

when trying to save the file after doing changes to it. Oddly enough I do NOT get the error when doing "Save As" even after the recieving the error on a save. Nor do I get the error if I open one of the affected files in PS v7.

I believe from searching on line that the problem is "something to do" with the format of the metadata in the images. I am not sure exactly what, nor am I sure why it only affects about 10% of my images – all of which have been processed, captioned and keyworded the same way. However it is noticable that I cannot open "File info" dialog box in PS CS3 for any image that won’t save. The error given is: "Could not complete the File Info command because of a problem with the File Info module"

Oddly, I CAN open the same File Info dialog box in Bridge CS3, I can change metadata via Bridge but then even after doing that the problems still exist when the image is opened in Photoshop.

At the moment, the ONLY work round I have is for each effected image, open it, do a "save as" – to save it under a different name delete the original image and then rename the image back to it’s original name to ensure that my DAM can still locate the image.

I am a professional photographer with over 25,000 PSD files. As you can imagine it is impractical to manually open every image to see is affected. Can anyone think on any automated method to locate which images have the problem?

Does anyone have a fix to this problem? The workround above has one MAJOR drawback. Like most/all DAM users I locate and open my images from within my DAM (IMatch in my case). If I use the save-as/delete/rename method while the DAM is open I lose the data records associated with the image in the DAM. (The data is lost when the original image is deleted).

Any help would be appreciated. This is becoming a MAJOR problem for me. Thanks,
Ian M Butterfield
www.imb.biz
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BL
Bob Levine
Jan 29, 2009
Search for psicon.dll and rename it to psicon.dll.old.

Bob
IM
Ian_M_Butterfield
Jan 29, 2009
Bob,
Thanks for the suggestion. Renaming psicon.dll didn’t make any difference at all. I even tried rebooting the machine afterwards to ensure the dll was still registered in memory.

Anyone got any other suggestions….?

Thanks,
Ian.
IM
Ian_M_Butterfield
Feb 2, 2009
No-one got any more suggestions on this one?
Ian.
RK
Rob_Keijzer
Feb 2, 2009
Ian,

Are the files you resave on a local drive? Do they accidently have the R/O flag set?

I only get what you describe when I open a file that comes off a CD or DVD, and then try to resave it.

Rob
IM
Ian_M_Butterfield
Feb 2, 2009
Hi Rob,
No they don’t have the R/O flag set. Good thought. But sadly no. And the images have never been on a CD or DVD.
Ian.
RK
Rob_Keijzer
Feb 2, 2009
Ian,

Next thing to do is a reinstall of PS. Don’t worry, it’s painless B-)

Do not uninstall first; just reinstall. That’s called a repair.

I remember having done that with CS3 that had this issue randomly. After the reinstall it disappeared. Maybe something updated/installed had knocked it about.

All your settings will be retained because they’re in a separate file.

Rob
IM
Ian_M_Butterfield
Feb 3, 2009
Rob,
As the problem exists with the same files when copied to my laptop on it’s installation of CS3 – Installed 1 week ago – I doubt an reinstallation will work. Especially as both installation were installed a) at different times and b) using different methods (One using the Adobe download, the other using the official media)

From the reasearch I’ve done into this I’m pretty sure that the problem is due to PS CS3 not handling a bit of metadata correctly (Because PS CS3 can’t open the file info dialog box) – but what I haven’t found out is which bit of metadata.

Ian.
RK
Rob_Keijzer
Feb 3, 2009
Ian,

If this meta data problem corrupts image files, I’d like to see such a file.

can you narrow this down to images from one particular camera? Does it happen with images from other sources? If I would give you a file with meta data would it happen?

Rob
IM
Ian_M_Butterfield
Feb 3, 2009
Hi Rob,
I’ve uploaded one of the images to my server….
<http://www.iphotos.co.uk/downloads/tmp/FA0309A-E02305.zip> (30Mb download).

I wouldn’t say that the "image" is corrupt – the "image" is fine and in fact "Save As" to a new filename corrects the problem altogether. What I would say is that PS CS3 isn’t handling the metadata in some of my images correctly. I use a lot of different programs to view/edit/update both image and metadata. PS CS3 is ONLY program I have found that has any problem with the files.

Anyhow, please download the zip file and extract the PSD to a suitable location. Then open the image in PS CS3 from that location. Make a minor edit to the image and you will see that PS CS3 can’t save the file. Quit. Open the image again and select "File | File Info" and you will see the other error message. If you open the file and do "save as" to a new filename and repeat the above step everything works as it should.

If this was just a single file that I was having problems with I’d put up with the work round of "Save as" to correct the problem. But with 25,000+ PSD files and at a guess a random 10% of my files being affected you can imagine how frustraiting this is.

Thanks,
Ian.
RK
Rob_Keijzer
Feb 3, 2009
Ian,

I downloaded the file, and I get the same errors as you do. Both on CS3 and CS4. It must be something with the file, but I don’t know what.

Nothing wrong in the metadata as far as I can see in Bridge and in Lightroom.

It simply won’t save.

I think someone should analyse this file to see what it is.

In the meantime check a PSD file of mine. See if it has errors on your side.

<http://www.faces-and-stuff.nl/Forum/sample.zip>

But I suspect the files, since they cause errors on two computers.

Rob
IM
Ian_M_Butterfield
Feb 3, 2009
Hi Rob,
Your image opens, edits, views and saves with no problems on my system. It would be good if Adobe would analyse the image and tell me what it is that PS CS3 (and 4) doesn’t like about it. I’m pretty sure that it is something in the metadata but I have no way of know with such a useless error message from the software!

Re your edit – No it really was f13 (just double checked it on the original raw file) – it is a big spike and quite a curve on the umbrella and a 105mm lens which when put together makes the depth of field appear smaller than it is.

Ian.

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