Comments on: Adobe CS3: More frustration with lousy software update process

By: Pierre Igot

Pierre Igot — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 12:55:34 +0000

Glad you managed to solve the problem, although the treatment by the Adobe tech support was predictably shameful. I am afraid dealing with tech support services for large corporations is almost always an exercise in frustration and time-wasting.

By: nitropilot

nitropilot — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 12:37:39 +0000

Well Pierre, it appears I have found a solution via the forums, I’ll add commentary on the experience after but here is the solution from Adobe’s site:

Adobe Creative Suite 3 products crash when you save, open, or place a file, after installing the Version Cue CS3 3.1.0 update (Mac OS X v10.4.x – 10.5)
ISSUE
After you install the Adobe Version Cue CS3 3.1.0 update, the following Creative Suite 3 products may crash when you attempt to save, open, or place a file on Mac OS X:
Adobe InDesign CS3
Adobe InCopy CS3
Adobe Illustrator CS3
Adobe Photoshop CS3
Adobe Flash CS3 Professional
Adobe Bridge CS3
REASON
The Version Cue update was not successfully completed and the installed VersionCueUI.framework file is damaged.
SOLUTION
Download and run the FixVCUIFramework application.

This is a little script that runs transparently and instantly without the need to restart your computer. You run it then simply open the applications and you are ready to go to work. Excellent.

Now for some detail. After posting my lament here on betalogue I called Adobe Tech support. From Australia that means talking to someone in India or a similar outpost of the empire. We went through deleting preferences and then hung the computer on a restart holding the shift key.

During this the guy hung up and left me high and dry. He would have had access to my email address on Adobe’s database but I haven’t received any emails – now come on, everyone stop laughing, one can be optimistic once in a while!

I then went through the tedious process of uninstalling Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator (a flawed process as well), then re-installing from my original disks, going back beyond the updates. It took three times the effort to check each time, clean up the uninstall and etc. I then came back to betalogue to check my previous comment and took your advice re the forums and with surprising speed found the above solution.

To check that it was not a fluke I then updated Photoshop with the stand-alone updater, restarted it and it would appear to be working fine. I now have to do the same for InDesign and Illustrator.

Interestingly, I do not have Version Cue installed because I work from a single computer and that is rarely ever networked. But that little script still worked.

By: Pierre Igot

Pierre Igot — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 15:36:02 +0000

Did you check the Adobe user forums? They can provide some help sometimes.

By: nitropilot

nitropilot — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 22:37:11 +0000

Looking at the comments here you guys seem to have had it easy – I went through all this pain and a little more only to find at the end of the misery that my key CS3 applications – Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign – now crash when I try to save a document, rendering them and any work I try to do completely useless.

Meanwhile Flash, Dreamweaver, Device Central and Bridge seem to operate normally. I now have to go through more pain trying to contact Adobe and trying to re-run the updater application again. Anyone had similar problems?

By: Pierre Igot

Pierre Igot — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 03:20:24 +0000

Actually, when I downloaded it again this morning, the installation worked, and it didn’t take forever. It took a bit of time, with some progress bar “uncertainty,” but it was over within a few minutes. So who knows exactly what’s going on here.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say that they are completely incompetent (although I am tempted!), because the applications themselves actually work reasonably well, at least on my machine, with far fewer crashes than the previous generation (CS2). But the updater sure is an utter piece of crap.

By: Eric

Eric — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 23:18:50 +0000

You’ve probably figured this out by now, but just in case: that 9.0.2 Flash update isn’t stuck, it just takes forever. It took several hours on both of my machines. Adobe is completely incompetent.

By: Pierre Igot

Pierre Igot — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 19:37:16 +0000

It does not seem to check for updates for other products several times on my Mac (although it certainly seems to go through the list in a completely random order), but it certainly checks for “updates for Updates for all CS3 products” several times during the cycle (which raises even more questions about the actual meaning of this phrase). Thanks for providing your interpretation of that particular phrase. Whatever its actual meaning, obviously the Adobe engineers need some help with their language skills!

But of course that’s not the only thing that they need help with… And I am not surprised it’s just as bad on Windows—although it does not provide any consolation! I guess this particular team of developers is just bad, period.

By: danridley

danridley — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 19:07:47 +0000

It’s just as bad on Windows, too, down to the strange processes launching in the taskbar and then closing for no apparent reason. Plus, sometimes it spawns interactive installers that you have to click through before it moves onto the next update.

The “Show Details” view seems to show all the updates that are available on Adobe’s servers, even ones that are already installed, which is why the total ends up being so much higher. This is useful to troubleshoot updates which fail to install, because you can often resolve that by reinstalling the older updates for the same product in the order in which they were released.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a way to get back to the “Show Details” view if it thinks all the updates are installed; so you can’t use this method to troubleshoot by reinstalling an update unless you are at least one update behind the leading edge.

“Updates to all CS3 products” appears to be where updates go if they apply to every product in the suite. I’ve always been amused by the phrase “Checking for updates for Updates for all CS3 products.”

I haven’t observed whether this happens on the Mac, but on Windows, it cycles through the product list several times when checking for updates. That is, you see “Checking for updates for InDesign CS3,” then Photoshop, Illustrator, Updates for all CS3 products, InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Updates for all CS3 products, InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Updates for all CS3 products. I guess it wants to be really sure.