PSP X4 Trial - Freezes at Updating Cache Settings

[arkitekt878]

First of all let me say that I am an experienced Photoshop user but I wanted to try PSP with a view to putting it on my wife's laptop. Now I know I can't make direct comparisons, some features are different, but anyway I downloaded the trial last night and it was working fine on initial tests. PSP opened and I could edit images etc. Two things I did this morning. I pointed PSP to my Photoshop Plug-ins folder, and, as I wanted to try more advanced features, I started adding layers. The few plug-ins I tried appeared to be working but not as separate layers as they do in Photoshop, I'm sure I can get round that, eventually, when I get round to reading help and the manual. Now hears where things started going wrong. The clone tool, which was working last night, started giving what can only be described as funny symptoms. I'd click on the area I wanted to use as the clone, go to were I wanted it to clone, but nothing was happening. As I had just been using a plug-in I thought it might be because I was trying to clone over the top of the plug-in effect so I duplicated the layer and tried it again. Still nothing. As I was only trialling PSP I decided to start again from a fresh new image and see what happened. So I shut down PSP and re-started it. Now It hanging on the splash screen with the message Updating Cache Settings. A quick look in Task Manager shows PSP is running as a process using 51% of CPU resources and about 56,948K of memory which later drops to about 2384K after a few minutes. However I have left the splash screen on for about 30 minutes and PSP4 never starts.

Ideally I'd like to try and remove the link to the plug-ins folder, to see if that makes a difference, but if I can't start PSP I can't see how I can. Is there a "safe mode" start or maybe a reset, or anything like that for PSP that i can use. I've also been reading that in earlier versions of PSP Update Cache Settings had something to do with the image database. Should I be looking there for a solution...

Any help at this point would be appreciated.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi
And welcome to the forums.

I am also new to PSP and using the trial, also on the wife’s laptop, so I don’t have a direct solution, others more knowledgeable may have a solution.
I don’t have time at the moment to look into PSP, the garden is beckoning.

However I think I would simply re-install may do the trick, I don’t suppose that would cause problems?

[Kathy_9]

Can't help with the hanging splash screen issue but had a question regarding your cloning process. When you clicked to select the clone point, did you right-click to set it? You mentioned using PS and I believe the process is different (Alt+click). Also, I'm going on the assumption you were paying attention to which layer was active. FYIW, the clone tool works well for me in X4.

[arkitekt878]

Kathy...I did right click to set it, if I remember right I saw a circle with an X through it, which I presume is where the clone is going to be taken from. I then went to the area I wanted to clone and saw a circle which is once again I presume the size of the brush area I have selected. As I dragged to clone the circle with the X through it moved but the non x didn't. The active layer is the one I have selected, which I hope was the top one of all the layers. Problem is I can't check now because I can't start PSP...

Mike

[Kathy_9]

Mike,

It could be that you have a "wonky" (for lack of a better word) installation. You may have to uninstall/reinstall, but before you do that, try double clicking the desktop icon to launch PSP X4 while holding down the shift key. You will get a message stating something to the effect "do you want to reset your workspace" - say yes, and see if that helps.

Back to your cloning problem. The only other thing I can think of as to why a tool won't work is that you may have selection active and it could be as small as one pixel so you might not notice it.

Keep us posted.

Kathy

[arkitekt878]

In the end as i wanted to get on with trialling the software and not finding faults I de-installed it and started again. At the moment everything appears to be running OK but I will be doing more testing today.....I'm going to point it at my Photoshop plug-ins folder and see what happens. Next I will use the same plug-in and then try the clone tool again. Between each step I will save the image I'm working on, then shut down PSP and restart it. Basically I'm trying to replicate the problem but testing at the same time.

[arkitekt878]

Just an update. When I point PSP to my Photoshop plug-ins folder and then restart PSP it freezes at the Update Cache Settings as previously described. Using Task Manager I shut down the process nad then did a restart using the shift key as Kathy suggested. This worked and I was able to restart PSP.

The next step for me is to start installing the plug-ins to PSP and see what effect that has...

Mike

[Kathy_9]

Mike,

I'll just add that if you like the program, buy it and decide to customize your workspace, make sure you save your customizations through File --> Workspace --> Save. This comes in handy in the event you have "wonky" issues again and need to open the program using the "Shift key method". You will now be able to easily retrieve your customizations through File --> Workspace --> Load.

Kathy