Organizer crashes or shows broken thumbnails for camera raw files (Photoshop Elements 6 on Windows)Products affected

Issue

When you import camera raw files into the Organizer in Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 on Windows, on a computer that has multiple processors or a processor with multiple cores, the thumbnails for the photos do not display. Instead, the broken thumbnail icon displays or Organizer may crash while trying to generate the thumbnails (no specific error messages are displayed).

Solution

Do one of the following solutions:

Solution 1: Remove the Multiprocessor Support plug-in.

1. Quit Photoshop Elements. (Both the Organizer and Editor, if open.)
2. Navigate to the C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop Elements 6.0\Plug-Ins\Extensions folder.
3. Move the Multiprocessor Support.8BX file to the desktop.

Note: This solution will also disable multiprocessor support for the Editor. It is recommended that you only remove this plug-in before you import a large number of camera raw files, then replace the file to the original folder when you are done.

Solution 2: Change the processor affinity for the Organizer.

This solution should be performed when the Organizer is running, but before you import large numbers of camera raw files.

1. Press Control+Alt+Delete to open the Windows Task Manager.
2. Click on the Processes tab.
3. Right-click on the PhotoshopElementsOrganizer.exe process, and choose Set Affinity.
4. Disable all CPUs except for CPU 0. (Or choose a different CPU, but only one CPU should be enabled.)
5. Click OK.
6. Close Task Manager.

Solution 3: Create a shortcut that starts the Organizer with single processor affinity.

You can create a shortcut that will restrict Photoshop Elements to one processor. You should always use this shortcut to start Photoshop Elements. If you start Organizer from the Welcome screen or from the Editor, the processor affinity will be unaffected and the problem may occur.

To create a shortcut in Windows Vista:

1. Right-click on the Desktop and choose New > Shortcut.
2. In the text field, paste the following text:
   C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start /affinity 1 "" "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop Elements 6.0\PhotoshopElementsOrganizer.exe"
3. Click Next.
4. Name the shortcut PSE 6 Organizer (Single processor)
5. Launch Photoshop Elements by double-clicking this shortcut.

To create a shortcut in Windows XP:

1. Download PSTools from: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897553.aspx
2. Create a folder in C:\Program Files called Sysinternals
3. Open pstools.zip and copy the file psexec.exe to C:\Program Files\Sysinternals\
4. Right-click on the Desktop and choose New > Shortcut.
5. In the text field, paste the following text:
   "C:\Program Files\sysinternals\psexec.exe" -a 0 -d "c:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop Elements 6.0\PhotoshopElementsOrganizer.exe"
6. Click Next
7. Name the shortcut PSE 6 Organizer (Single processor)
8. Launch Photoshop Elements by double-clicking this shortcut.

To regenerate thumbnails:

1. Choose Edit > Select All
2. Choose Edit > Update Thumbnail

Additional Information

Products affected