Corel PaintShop Pro X8 Service Pack 1

[Joelle]

haven't had any problems caused by SP1.

Joëlle

Any notable improvements?

Not really, apart from the Burn Brush behaving as it should.
I don't use PSP for RAW conversion, and I only use Edit, so all that just for the Burn Brush is, for me, a little over the top.
but there might be something under the hood I am not aware of

Joëlle

[ADonahoo]

Not sure this is going to be helpful. I have SP1 on a Windows 10 Dell laptop with nVidia graphics card, and no technical problems with X8 SP 1. It did away with my customized toolbars; thankfully they came back when I reloaded my saved work space.

[trueblue]

Fixed a few things for me. Not as laggy using brushes and yes, it's behaving

[The Pathfinder]

Checking in to see if any progress has been made on resolving the missing text issue that appeared with the release of X8 SP1,

It would appear not as I see no solution listed here, have received no further communication from Corel, and find no new updates to the program on their website.

Simone any progress to report?

[Simone Corel UK]

@pathfinder

I have forwarded my results after having remote sessions with 3 customers. Sorry, it's a bit more complicate.

[ADonahoo]

Is there a way to get rid of the nag screen demanding to upgrade PSP X8? I don't like the changes, and I don't want to upgrade on my desktop computer. It has gone from telling me there is an upgrade available to actually downloading, now demanding to be installed.

[Heavysteel]

Corel's support has been sub standard since before they ever assumed ownership of Paintshop Pro or several other software.

Again, I can definitely understand where you're coming from here! This, as evidenced by the old newsgroups and the forum since it started, has been a legitimate complaint since version X and definitely an issue that has fuelled frustration among many, many users who have had PSP program issues over the years.

Hope you don't mind but, just taking into account very recent (the past few weeks or so) observations regarding several threads in this forum, I'd like to play a bit of devil's advocate. That is because, in the past several weeks or so, I have noticed a sudden - and to me unexpected - presence of Corel personnel replying in a couple of threads to recent PSP issues.

I did in fact notice the same.
Simone from the UK Corel support branch has been just great. She resolved my issue by doing little more than just listening and providing me with the necessary download to fix my problems. Basically she provided me with a recent full version download link which includes the SP1 update already included. 01/25/2016 I had to uninstall the original version 18.0.0.124 and then installed the newest version 18.1.0.67. Paint Shop Pro x8 now works as expected with no problems. The file which I downloaded via a support link from Simone included version 18.1.0.67 with Build date of 12/17/2015. It worked for me and I hope it works for you as well. I will be in contact with this forum should problems arise.

[JoeB]

Thanks for the update, Heavysteel. Glad to see that Corel helped you get it sorted.

[Simone Corel UK]

Maybe, I should explain a bit more so that you can understand why finding the cause is so difficult.

During endless sessions with 3 customers, I noticed following behaviour:

1. All of affected customers like pathfinder have noticed that when we use the Shift key while launching, the text box is stretched and the letters of the text go vertically instead of horizontally. This happens if you use Segoe UI as system font. Additionally, some letters are missing.
I switched the system font to Arial, and the text in Shift key - pop up box behaves more normal, but the box is still bigger than it should be. The text itself goes now horizontally, but still some letters are missing. The application itself has still no font. It uses its own font, doesn't rely on the system choice.

2. I started the system in Safe mode (means only a very few essential services are loaded).
The Shift key - pop up window looks like as it should be. Text is fine, and no letter is missing. Unfortunately, you cannot run PSP because the Corel licensing service isn't running.

3. If you use now the Diagnostic mode, Basic devices and services are loaded. The text problem appears again.
If you look into "Services" tab there are no services enabled, only "some secure Microsoft services" which are not named.

4. I enabled all services/start up program and only disabled Corel Common Framework.
At least, the box "Browse for more folders" in Manage mode works, but the font in the application and Shift key - pop up window are still corrupted.

5. I disabled Corel Licensing service and Corel Common Framework only, but the font in the application and Shift key - pop up window is still corrupted.

6. I disabled all services and enabled start up programs and versus versa - no impact, still the same issue.

7. It doesn't happen on Windows 8/10, and affects different kinds of graphic cards.

How many Windows 7 users here have confirmed they have no issue? I myself have no problem on my Windows 7 system.

The question is what is the difference between Safe mode and Diagnostic mode on those (all together) 15 customers' Windows 7 systems.

That's why it's so difficult.

[JoeB]

Maybe, I should explain a bit more so that you can understand why finding the cause is so difficult.

Thanks for that in-depth info, Simone. First, as you indicate, there really are not very many systems having these issues given the number of people using X8 SP1. And the troubleshooting you outlined do seem to indicate that, while the problem is system specific, it is so in such a way that it seems several variables could be involved. This one problem is really more unusual than any issue I have seen in the past with either PSP or other software programs.

That said (and if I were in charge of programming), I'd probably suggest that it might be best to start from square one. By that I mean start creating a patch from scratch, as if SP1 didn't exist, and without using existing SP1 coding as a baseline. The reason I would suggest that is because, while presently there are few people having issues, if the programmers are using X8 SP1 as the base for a future SP2 then whatever issues exist for a few with SP1 could become amplified with SP2 and start creating issues for more users.

Just a thought.

[Simone Corel UK]

@JoeB
That's why the development team took first reports very seriously and is investigating.

[Dr Bartolo]

I have gone through this thread quite carefully. The reason I did that is because I also have had exactly the same problem as Pathfinder (and I too am using Windows 7 Home Premium).

I contacted Corel support some weeks ago, and they wanted to take me through I do not know how many steps to investigate the problem, which I do not have the time to do. I am also now a light user of the program and it just was not worth the effort.

So I uninstalled the service pack and reinstalled the original program, and just like others on this forum the program works perfectly alright without the buggy service pack.

So this is really just to emphasise that the minority of people with exactly the same problem is probably nowhere nearly as small as some perhaps think,

If I remember I will check back to this forum occasionally to see if Corel have found a fix, but as it is now nearly two months since the patch was released it looks increasingly unlikely that they will. Which in turn means that I will seriously consider moving away from Corel (I also have been using this software since its JASC days).

[flagpole]

Seems like with access to the full change log it should be easier to work out...

[globeguy]

I have just joined this forum after finding this discussion. Add me to the list of those that have experienced the problem with the text disappearing from the menus within PaintShop Pro X8 after installing Service Pack 1. I am running Windows 7 Home Premium with an NVIDIA video card. The text does indeed reappear on the menus for me when running Windows in safe mode as Simone mentioned earlier. I have reinstalled PaintShop Pro X8 without Service Pack 1 to avoid this issue for now. Looking forward to any further updates about this problem.

[awm03]

Just wanted to say that I downloaded Service Pack 1, and so far, so good. No missing text, tools seem to work fine -- for which I'm grateful because I'd sure miss PSP if it stopped working right.
Running Windows 10.