Application components missing...

[jkrm]

I am a fairly new user of CC. I have mostly used Lightroom but started up Photoshop a couple of times, though not for a few months. Yesterday I hit Command-E from Lightroom on my Mac to use Photoshop's content-aware fill, but got a box saying "Some of the application components are missing from the Application directory, Please reinstall the application." I found that if I just waited a long time (like five minutes or so), a box would eventually pop up that said "The file could not be edited because Adobe Photoshop CC could not be launched." But I also found that if I just launched Photoshop by double-clicking in the Finder, it would start up fine and would load the photo I was trying to work on.

So I used the Creative Cloud application to uninstall and reinstall Photoshop. Did this twice and still got the same behavior. Then I did a search and found an Adobe help page that said to remove the Locales folder and reinstall. I removed the Locales folder, but when I went back to Creative Cloud I could neither uninstall nor reinstall Photoshop as the CC application said "Waiting..." beside Photoshop. I waited for about half an hour and nothing happened. Then I discovered an uninstall application in the Photoshop CC directory so I tried that to uninstall. Now the CC app says something else (I can't recall exactly what and I had to come into work) but I still cannot either uninstall nor install Photoshop. I tried shutting down the CC app but when I restart it the situation is the same. I also tried signing out, but nothing happens.

Any suggestions?

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Have you restarted your computer?

 

[jkrm]

Yes, I have.

I posted the question in a Photoshop discussion over at Adobe, and got pointed to a "Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool" that I am going to try tonight. If it works I'll follow up in case anyone else gets a similar message.

Jim

 

[jkrm]

Well, I tried using the cleaner tool as the person in the Adobe discussion suggested. It didn't work. Then I decided to take drastic action and uninstalled everything - the Creative Cloud Desktop, Lightroom, Photoshop, and Bridge. Restarted the computer. Used the cleaner tool again to remove any remaining vestiges of those programs. It found some stuff apparently left over from old versions of Photoshop Elements, so I had it remove those as well. Even removed my preference files. Everything, so far as the cleaner tool could tell me.

Then I reinstalled the CC Desktop and used it to reinstall Lightroom and Photoshop. Launched Lightroom - it treated me like a brand new user but my catalog and photos were intact, as I expected. Did a Command-E to send a photo to Photoshop.

Same result: "Some of the application components are missing from the Application directory, Please reinstall the application."

Driving me nuts.

All other programs/plugins that I have tried start up just fine when right-clicking and choosing from "Edit in...". It's only Photoshop that does this.

 

[Jim Wilde]

Do you happen to have a Time Machine or other backup drive attached to your system when trying to use Cmd-E in Lightroom?

 

[jkrm]

I found a solution!

OS X has something called a Launch Services Database. I think it's new in the last version or two. It's supposed to make it easier for an application to launch another application, without using the Finder (I'm hardly an expert - I just did some looking after I stumbled on my fix). Unfortunately the database can get messed up. You can tell if it's messed up by right-clicking on a document, then selecting "Open with...". If multiple versions of the same application are listed (say, multiple versions of Preview or Photoshop when right-clicking on a jpeg), then your database needs repairing.

Anyway, I used CleanMyMac 3 to repair the launch services database, and the problem is gone.

I have no idea how the database gets corrupted or why uninstalling and reinstalling Photoshop didn't fix it, but everything is working fine now.

Thanks to those who tried to help.

Jim