"Server busy" error message

[LocalHero1953]

Prompted by John2's problems with CS6 and Bridge, but I don't want to hijack his thread.

I recently took out the photographer's subscription to CC, and have installed the CC versions of LR, PS, Bridge and the CC manager program. I use Windows 7 on a well powered PC with 12Gb RAM. I still use LR for most of my work, jumping to PS when I feel the need.

Since CC installation, and after starting LR I got frequent lock-ups with the "Server busy - Switch to/Retry/Cancel" window (a Windows error message). Clicking on any option failed to clear the lockup, and I had to resort to a forced shut down of LR, and then a forced shut down of the PC, followed by a restart in Safe Mode - any choices short of this left some basic windows functionality (e.g the Start button) not working.

I thought I had sorted it after checking and updating all my Adobe installations (some didn't seem to have happened), although I had to run the CC manager in Safe Mode for this to happen. The problem went away till yesterday, when it happened when I tried to switch to the LR Develop module. Although some random clicking and repeated hitting of the Retry button seems to clear it, there is clearly still an issue. Forced shutdown of the PC also briefly flashes up a message about "too many 16bit programs" (or something similar - it flashes too quickly to read).

I hesitate to blame Adobe (it could be a Windows bug), although it is clearly linked to installing CC and the latest software. Googling the issue turns up lots of the same error occurrence with other Adobe products (e.g Dreamweaver), but without a clear explanation or solution - just a lot of frustration. I am sure there are plenty of fully-working installations though, otherwise there would be more noise out there.

So, my question is: has anyone else had the same problem, and if so, how did they solve it?

My speculation is that with the introduction of CC, Adobe hasn't yet smoothed out the communications between the different CC elements, and that some are clashing. Does anyone have any experience of switching off any of the running CC processes, but still retaining a working system that Adobe still recognises as a valid subscription installation?

I'm happy to say that none of these issues left me with a corrupt LR catalogue or lost data, so let's leave the issue of what software I SHOULD have installed to one side

[DanK]

Paul,

I am no expert, but this sounds like a bug in your installation of LR. I also use LR for most of my editing, switching to PS or Zerene when needed. I've been a CC subscriber for months, and I have never seen anything like this. However, I got my copy of LR on perpetual license and on a CD, not via the cloud. Since subscribing to CC, I get notifications from both CC and LR of LR updates, and updating entails downloading the new software and installing it as I used to.

AFAIK, LR operates without accessing the server at all. if you bought it via CC and don't have a perpetual license, I think it will go to the server just to validate your account once a month, just as CC does.

Do you have a perpetual license version of LR 5? If so, it might be worth trying uninstalling LR and reinstalling from disk. However, if you do that, you may have to reinstall PS CC to get the edit-in menu back (which disappeared in in LR after a recent CC upgrade on mine until I reinstalled PS.)

[LocalHero1953]

Thanks, Dan. Having spent some time exploring this on the web, I don't think this is necessarily an on-line server that the error refers to, but I can't find more detail; I haven't, yet, found anything helpful on the MS website either.

I had v5.5 installed as a permanent licence, but it updated to 5.6 when I took out the CC sub. How many of the components were actually changed, I have no idea. I didn't uninstall and reinstall.

[loosecanon]

I have a full CC subscription and a fast 100mb internet connection
I was surprised by just how slow and how long it took - several hours - to download just some of the apps, and even worse they then wanted to update and kept failing. All working now ok.

[Colin Southern]

When it's occurring, can you get into task manager (ctrl + shift + esc) and see if the CPU is maxed out on any particular task? It almost sounds to me like LR and PS aren't communicating properly - like some kind of process from one is putting a lock on data for the other (even is PS hasn't been started - they usually add stuff to the autostart areas of the registry that "pre-start" stuff in the background) (it might pay to have a look in the registry and temporarily disable any Adobe stuff pre-starting).

Out of interest, I've also recently moved to a 100mb/s internet connection and found the experience "interesting" - it seems pretty clear to me that a LOT of providers are throttling their connections - I can kinda see why they'd want to (somewhat of a safety valve for them). Generally with big CC updates I'll just start the process and "leave it to it" - it's usually done before I know it.

On the subject of performance, the only thing I've noticed is since the 2014 CC Photoshop Suite update is Bridge takes about 30 seconds to start up each day - once it's up and running it's fine - and if I restart it same session it's fine too. I did have a brief look around the net - a few others seem to have the same issue(s), but I'm not too worried about it.

[LocalHero1953]

Thanks for the suggestions. I checked task manager. The surprising big resource user was Dropbox, which I disabled yesterday as a startup (I didn't stop it earlier, as I couldn't see how it could be the cause). At the same time I did a full Chkdsk (no problems) and did a spring clean of caches, redundant files, temp files etc. I've hade one recurrence of the problem, but it cleared quickly (pressing Retry) without problems.
Following your suggestion to John2 I have looked at the Event Viewer, but I couldn't see anything related to Adobe or Dropbox. The event that looked most relevant appeared to involve failed calls for an address to the network card - I don't know if this represents a symptom or a cause. If it happens again, I'll check the event viewer more quickly to be sure I'm looking at the right thing.

Edit: I should have added. In Task Manager, the Creative Cloud application is always there as a startup; I tried disabling it, but it got reinstated. Also, I didn't want to disable any element that was responsible for the "call home" that validated my software as a subscription installation.

[LocalHero1953]

The end of the story: I've just spent 2 days rebuilding my system from scratch - a reinstall of Windows
Whatever I tried I was just getting progressive deterioration: freezes, loss of functionality etc. I tried using a restore point but bizarrely I found that none were left earlier than a few days old. I guess that could have been human error, but can't think how - I had checked and they were there previously.

Before reinstalling windows I deleted as many Adobe components and folders as I could find. Interestingly, there were two files that I couldn't delete even in safe mode, because they were still "in use": CoreSync.exe and a component associated with Acrobat Reader. I removed both those after booting from the Windows installation disk.

Much of the time it took to reinstall everything was spent downloading and installing Windows 7 updates. Lesson: make a new Windows install disk.

I have reinstalled LR, PS and Bridge, and have no problems with them. Like you with Bridge, Colin, I find LR is slow starting on first use after booting, but thereafter it starts OK.

One tentative lesson out of this for others is to totally uninstall your original copy of LR (and perhaps Elements) before installing the CC version. Although it is supposed to install over the top, I have seen reports elsewhere that this can cause problems.

I lost no images and edits from all this. I backed up the all files before reinstalling windows but needn't have bothered. The originals were still there, and the new LR found them and the edits. I had to do some restoration of backed up presets, printer and custom camera profiles. LR seems to scatter these indiscriminately across your hard disk, but I have tried to keep them in folders where they will be backed up with the catalogues.

[DanK]

Sorry that it turned out to be such a pain for you. A fresh OS installation is about as bad as it gets, in terms of time lost. However, I installed CC without uninstalling either LR or CS6, and I never noticed any effect on LR at all. I don't think it actually installed LR again. I guess I will find out when LR6 comes out and my old copy of LR5 can't update to the new one.

[LocalHero1953]

Thanks, Dan. I really don't know the root cause of the problem. A few people have had problems with CC installation, but I know most people haven't.