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Powerdirector 18 (part of 365) becomes unresponsive at launch
Cuddlywolf [Avatar]
Newbie Joined: Nov 02, 2016 14:26 Messages: 5 Offline
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A while ago, all of a sudden my PD stopped allowing me to open it. I have uninstalled/reinstalled many times with different setups (firewall/av off, as admin, blah blah). I did try booting up in safe mode and the software launches. This means I have a conflict somewhere in my hardware/drivers/something that loads normally. Since there are really no logs and support has not been very useful I thought I would see if anyone one here had an idea to try.
optodata
Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline
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What you're describing sounds a lot like PD is trying to open a problematic project. Although reinstalling seems like it would reset the option to always load the previous project (assuming it was checked before the problem happened), it's possible that the personalized settings were kept in place and it's still getting stuck.

An easy way to test this is to download the attached empty project and save it anywhere you can easily find it. Double-click on it to have PD launch and open it, and see if there's any change in behavior.

If it still gets stuck, please attach the DxDiag file that you sent to support. Maybe there's a clue or two in there.

It's also possible that a recent Windows update didn't go perfectly. The quick and easy way to check your system's health is to run sfc /scannow from an Admin-level command prompt (Google for more details if needed). That will check Windows' crucial system files and will repair many kinds of errors if they're present. You should run it again if it reports that it found errors, but couldn't repair them the first time through.

You also might want to try running dism /online /cleanup-image /scanhealth in the same window. This goes beyond the checks & repairs that sfc can perform.

Please post back with your findings.
 Filename
Empty project.pds
[Disk]
 Description
empty test project
 Filesize
7 Kbytes
 Downloaded:
336 time(s)


YouTube/optodata


DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°
Cuddlywolf [Avatar]
Newbie Joined: Nov 02, 2016 14:26 Messages: 5 Offline
[Post New]
Thanks for the reply. Tried opening the blank project and same issue. I had already ran sfc but good call on running dism, had not thought of running that. Turns out it didn't improve my situation. Still having same issue. I attached the dxdiag.

--Adam
 Filename
DxDiag.txt
[Disk]
 Description
 Filesize
117 Kbytes
 Downloaded:
330 time(s)
optodata
Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline
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Thanks for the DxDiag, and I'm sorry that neither of the system utilities had any impact. I'm concerned that the last section of the report shows PDR crashes along with many crashes of Dell.D3.WinSvc.exe along with two LiveKernelEvents.

This page is basically an ad for an uninstaller app, but it lists some details on the Dell app. You can try uninstalling it and reinstalling it from the Dell/Alienware webpage, although the official updates seem to be limited to Win7, 8 & 8.1.

The LiveKernelEvents might be caused by a problem with the video driver. One thing you can do is to uninstall the 441.87 nVidia driver completely, and then reboot. Run the installer again, and do a custom installation without the GEForce Experience, and uncheck everything except for the video driver itself. You'd probably want to reboot even if you're not prompted to. See if that allows PD to fully start.

If you're a gamer and need other options, run the nVidia installer again and try adding one component at a time while confirming that PD still works.

YouTube/optodata


DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°
Cuddlywolf [Avatar]
Newbie Joined: Nov 02, 2016 14:26 Messages: 5 Offline
[Post New]
Thanks for the info. I am trying to work through all your suggestions. So far no luck but still trying things.

Quote Thanks for the DxDiag, and I'm sorry that neither of the system utilities had any impact. I'm concerned that the last section of the report shows PDR crashes along with many crashes of Dell.D3.WinSvc.exe along with two LiveKernelEvents.

This page is basically an ad for an uninstaller app, but it lists some details on the Dell app. You can try uninstalling it and reinstalling it from the Dell/Alienware webpage, although the official updates seem to be limited to Win7, 8 & 8.1.

The LiveKernelEvents might be caused by a problem with the video driver. One thing you can do is to uninstall the 441.87 nVidia driver completely, and then reboot. Run the installer again, and do a custom installation without the GEForce Experience, and uncheck everything except for the video driver itself. You'd probably want to reboot even if you're not prompted to. See if that allows PD to fully start.

If you're a gamer and need other options, run the nVidia installer again and try adding one component at a time while confirming that PD still works.
JL_JL [Avatar]
Senior Contributor Location: Arizona, USA Joined: Oct 01, 2006 20:01 Messages: 6091 Offline
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You might try a more conventional config with that laptop and your two monitors (currently hung off Nvidia GPU), unplug, reboot, and just run off your iGPU and see what you get with PD.

Jeff
Cuddlywolf [Avatar]
Newbie Joined: Nov 02, 2016 14:26 Messages: 5 Offline
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Thank you for everyone's help! Nothing was working so last week I wiped the os and reloaded from scratch. This resolved whatever was going on.
optodata
Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline
[Post New]
I'm glad you were willing to try that. Although an OS reinstall is a big lift, it's almost always fixed the most stubborn PD issues I've run across that weren't caused by known PD bugs or hardware/driver incompatibility issues.

YouTube/optodata


DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°
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