PSP X5 Freezes

[whiterabbit62]

I love X2 but had a lot of issues that I couldn't resolve. I finally purchased X5. I'm not getting much use of it. Every time I click something in the workspace like a window in the materials palette or a layer in the layers palette, the program freezes. I've no idea what to do about this. Is anyone else having this problem?

[hartpaul]

How much RAM do you have ? Your stats at the side do not show this. Could be a RAM problem.

[merriang]

I have the same problem and have actually given up on it. Corel are absolutely no help and it seems PSP X5 is so full of bugs you would have to be an entomology expert to sort it out. My experience is that Corel will blame your system when it is their program at fault. Problems seem to more prevalent with fully updated Windows 7. I have several computers and it will run XP and a raw install Windows 7 Professional but not on Windows Home Premium that is fully up to date. Suggest you save yourself the grief and un-install it. Try the GIMP, its free and it works. I certainly won't be using Corel products again - it was a total waste of money!

[LeviFiction]

That's quite entertaining.

PSPX5 worked perfectly fine on WIndows Home Premium fully updated and everything just fine for me. It's true that the program will have issues depending on the system it's on in which case it's both the system and the software. There are bugs that only appear on some computers, and other bugs that don't even show up on a small number of computers even though most everyone else experiences them. Bugs of these sort are hard to track down. I've had GIMP, in all of its free glory, refuse to work on a computer before.

[DaveQ]

X5 Ultimate works fine on the 2 computers I have it loaded on...I use it daily for my work without a hitch. Both PC's are Windows 7 Pro 64-bit SP1, fully patched to date. X5 is SP1.

[Kathy_9]

FWIW I'm running X5 on Windows 7 Professional 64 bit fully patched with no issues.

[hartpaul]

XP and X5 running here on Windows 7 Home and also XP both fully updated. I still have only SP1 for X4 installed (gives it the colour) and no SP for X5 and both working well. I do not have any other programs that might conflict. Do not use Lightroom or later versions of Photoshop.

So how can it be the X4 / X5 program that is at fault if it runs correctly (apart from the well known bugs/ features) on so many systems. I believe there are conflicts with other as yet to be identified programs, video cards, drivers. But of course it is easier to blame the program that does not work because it will not run on 100% of the varieties of computers , hardware and software.

[whiterabbit62]

XP and X5 running here on Windows 7 Home and also XP both fully updated. I still have only SP1 for X4 installed (gives it the colour) and no SP for X5 and both working well. I do not have any other programs that might conflict. Do not use Lightroom or later versions of Photoshop.

So how can it be the X4 / X5 program that is at fault if it runs correctly (apart from the well known bugs/ features) on so many systems. I believe there are conflicts with other as yet to be identified programs, video cards, drivers. But of course it is easier to blame the program that does not work because it will not run on 100% of the varieties of computers , hardware and software.

Do you work for Corel or something?? No need to be defensive. Simple questions were asked. Simple answers were expected. And I have 4GB of RAM. I'm pretty sure I put that in my profile when I signed up for the forum. And I am aware programs like this take a lot of resources, but I don't think that's my problem since I have plenty.

[hartpaul]

Not working for Corel. Just critical of bad logic. In its simplest form it works as: A worked on my computer before, just today its does not work , therefore A must be crap.
Currently I use IE to load a Yahoo TV guide , it worked before, just yesterday it started to hang whenever I loaded it. Using Firefox all is good again. False logic would say that IE must be crap (guess I will get a lot of agreement there) . Rather than blaming IE (and possibly a microsorft update, I will disable all IE add ons as that is a common source of errors and see if it works then . If it does will slowly enable each add on to see if I can isolate. If it does not work with all add ons disabled will have to look further into other possibilities.
IN PSP the plugins can also be a source of conflict and failure. Cataloging and loading an image database also can be problematic. Start simple and work up to the settings you want til you find out what is causing the conflict.

[merriang]

Further update to my previous post. The bug is in PSP X5. On the initial run it seems it attempts to index all the associated file formats it can find on the hard drive without any indication that its doing it to the user. According to my understanding its only supposed to do this as you import files into the workspace. I have nearly 4000 photo files on the hard drive. Out of curiosity after reading a lot of forum posts here and elsewhere I started PSP and just let the computer sit with Process Hacker monitoring system performance. I found that PSP continued to draw significant CPU usage even though the actual program window indicated that it had initialized and was ready to run. After about 15 minutes it finished what ever it was doing and the program is running normally at the moment. This could explain the variation in performance experienced between users who seem to have similar systems. Suggest anyone having ongoing problems starts PSP and leaves it for an extended period. It seems if you try to use the program whilst its doing whatever it will crash and you are back to the start each time. If anyone has other ideas then please post them but so far this has got it working for me. If anyone at Corel reads this then maybe you can explain it.

[LeviFiction]

*Warning: I do not guarantee the factual-ness of any of the following statements. Some have been experienced and understood first hand, others have been heard directly from Corel, and still others have been read about on these and other forums. In other words this is a compilation of my understanding of the issues, nothing else. Please take all statements with a grain of salt. *

PSP tries to catalog the My Pictures folder right off the bat. It doesn't wait for you.

Large numbers of images have become less of a problem for x5 to catalog but still not the most efficient. So this can be a problem. Another problem can occur if during its cataloging process its run into an image it can't read properly or if the image database is corrupt. It can be an even bigger problem if you are working on a large image, have a lot of Undo steps enabled, and are using the scratch disk.

PSP's scratch disk functionality is very flawed, it only allows you to use harddrives that are hooked directly into the system or use a fast access port like firewire or e-sata. USB drives are not included in this list. And to use the scratch disk on the same harddrive that you're running Windows and PSP from is actually a performance killer. Pile on cataloging while PSP is trying to use its scratch disk and no good can come from that combination.

My recommendation is usually, if you don't run out of memory often then turn off the scratch disk completely. I also recommend that if you don't have an external harddrive that PSP can see it's best to turn off the scratch disk in that case too because it just slows down the system when PSP starts using it. However, even though it is terribly slow, if you're running out of memory while working in PSP the scratch disk is still useful.

Now, naturally this is also dependent on how fast your harddrive read and write speeds are. Though most harddrives these days are sufficient. But also depends on other programs and what they are doing to the harddrive.

Depending on how many images you have, and how slow PSP is acting. You can also turn off cataloging for certain folders and image types while PSP works. I have seen and heard of PSP chocking on PDF and PSD file types depending on what is inside them.

[teknisyan]

There are a number of reason why this happens.

Here are a couple of steps that you can take.
1. Just like DaveQ - I suggest that you download and install Sp1 - http://www.corel.com/corel/pages/index. ... id=5000003
2. Reset your work space - You can do that by pressing and holding down the SHIFT key then double-click on the PSP icon then when you received the message "DO YOU WAN TO RESTORE PAINTSHOP Pro TO ITS DEFAULT STATE?" just click OK.