Suddenly my poser wont work. It's been fine for the longest time, then suddenly, boom.... what is happening is, every time i try to open it, it acts like its gonna open that it shuts down. I have tried using the short cut on the desktop, the regular exe in the metacreations folder and even going to start>>program files.... I have uninstalled this 3 times, scan disked, defraged, ran a virus scan, you name it it has been done. But yet i cannot get poser to work. I have installed the poser 4 update as soon as the program itself is installed. I have been trying tog et to the curious labs website, but it seems to be down for the last few days. Im running this on windows xp. i have only installed 1 new product since this has happened. And i have not tried to reinstall this product since i cant poser to open. I have been commsisond for a piece, and they would really like to see the first test image no later then tomorrow night. And it is almost done. Anyone have any idea what is causing this?

I've run into the same exact problem before. The cause and solution do not seem to make sense, but hear me out.

My wife's computer is networked to mine. My wife had the printer on her computer. I turned off my wife's computer to save electricity. I couldn't run Poser.

The solution in this case was easy: just leave my wife's computer turned on. In the end, I bought a cheap printer to hookup to my own computer. You don't need to leave the printer on!

This problem also affected MS Word, Adobe PhotoShop and Ulead PhotoImpact. It's some fluke where these darned programs think they need to see the printer port before they work.

Message edited on: 10/09/2004 16:18

That does sound weird. But i think ig ot it after hours of hair pulling. I enedup shutting nortons AV off through the task manager. So far so good. It did put me behind, and i have been under the weather today. But the item is almost done. Thanx for that input bobbie....i'll keep that inmind for the future.

I've used Norton (Symantec) Products since 1995, and have never experienced Norton causing any of the symptoms you've described. I'm just happy you appear to be functional again!

well i am running 2003. and it not only protects my recycle bin, but also my registry. but it could have been one of my other security software too that i shut down. But i wasn't going to shut down one at a time, install and then try it. so i shut everything down. but doing some research, i did fond sometimes nortons, mainly 2003-04 willprotect the registry so sometimes even legal software doesnt add anything to it.

You have the wrong definition of "Protection" of the Recycle Bin. Norton is just making it easier for you to reclaim the stuff if you discover you've made a mistake. Norton/Symantec stuff isn't invasive, and doesn't screw up your computer. On the other hand, I've saved many people's screwed up computers with Norton's stuff!

Screwing up a computer isn't the right term maybe. But when I bought my first PC it had Norton installed ( with a lot of other things one doesn't need) when I wanted to update Norton by installing the new bought Norton antivrus I had to remove the old stuff. It never did unless I wanted to end up with a computer that did not start. So I had no antivirus at all till the motherboard went up in smoke and I bought a new motherboard and cleaned out the harddisk completely, then I bought and installed McAfee. Norton prevents viri having control of your PC, but also prevents me having control it looks... thank you very much.

That is strange. I've had Norton all these years, and have uninstalled Norton without any trouble. In fact, I recently uninstalled Norton Antivirus to try my ISP's firewall and antivirus programs. Everything uninstalled just fine, and my computer works just fine. On the other hand, I've helped people uninstall McAfee, only to see McAfee hanging on like some evil force. Then I've had to talk them through how to exterminate any remains of McAfee.

It was a computer ( Packard Bell ) I bought in 1999. By now only the housing and the harddisk ( a nowadays meagre, at that time an extravagant 10 Gig) are not replaced. It serves well for internetting.

Packard Bell?! That explains it.

Message edited on: 10/18/2004 11:34

I have the same problem. I cant get my poser 5 to work. I tried reinstalling, scan disk, defrag, closing services, turning on services, shutting down norton AV ( although I can only disable it. It wont shut down when i tell it to from the task manager- just freezes) I have emailed curious labs, never got a reply. I am really stuck guys. Any ideas would be very helpful. Thank you in advance. Kevin

Did you get the latest Poser 5 Service Packs?

Yes I have the latest 4.0.1 SR. I ended up getting ahold of techsupport at curious labs, but got their usual uninstall and reinstall advice. I was able to turn-off, actually prevent norton from starting to see if it was the culprit, but poser still won't run. I configured my computer to run with only what it needed, and disabled all services that werent microsoft. That didn't work. Then I did the exact opposite, and turned everything on in case poser relied on another program, and that didn't work either.

Let me make a wild guess based on my own experience. Are you on a network? If so, did you recently turn off the computer that has a printer hooked to it?

I ran into that problem when my wife went on vacation and I turned off her computer, which had the printer attached. BAM, Poser, PhotoShop, PhotoImpact, and MS Word would not run.

PS: It's always a big help if you give some more info up front:

1.) Computer Hardware & Operating system
2.) Whether or not you got the latest updates for your software, and operating system.
3.) What has changed since the last time the program worked.

That's a good start at least.

Message edited on: 11/16/2004 08:29 Also, you mentioned troubles with the Norton Software. What version do you have? Have you updated it? Have you tried to uninstall and reinstal Norton>

Message edited on: 11/16/2004 08:31

I do have a small wireless network with 2 laptops hooked up to them, but nothing has changed. Same equipment, computers etc. As for my hardware and software setup: Windows XP pro, p4 3.2, Gigabyte 8IK1100, 2 gigs of ram, Radeon x800, Norton internet security and anti-virus. You mentioned a printer being the culprit in your case, I have a HP psc 2410 that is still connected. Many things have changed since i last used poser. I have switched internet providers from SBC DSL to Comcast, but my computer wouldnt know that because of our Netgear firewall router. I did install the comcast software but promptly removed it because it had spyware with it. The reason we switched ISPs was because my GF and I recently moved. I dont see how that would make a difference to poser though. I also finally decided to take the plunge and download SP2. I held out for a while but i figured by now it must be safe. I have already tried uninstalling it to see if poser would work then , but to no effect. I have all the latest versions or updates on my software and drivers, and run a clean system normally. I am constantly screening for spyware and viruses, and run only the programs i need. I am not one of those people with like 20 icons in the bottom right of their taskbar. I have 3 at start-up. The fact that I can't get Poser to run on such a clean system drives me crazy.

Did you know that Poser tries to connect to any computers on your network to see if another computer is running a different copy of Poser with the same serial number? Did you know your firewall will report that as an attempt to connect to the internet? I do think your computers know more than you think, even if you have your firewall router. Your computers can see each other if you setup the network that way. Did you know that some programs have a way of hanging in your computer even if they're removed? You need to uninstall them, and sometimes you need to use a good utility such as Norton SystemWorks to get rid of any unwanted stuff. For example, I uninstalled ZoneAlarm Pro, and lost my internet connection. I used Norton to fix the problem and get back online. You spoke of downloading SP 2? Is that Windows XP SP 2? I've installed it and all works just fine. It's been my experience that uninstalling and reinstalling Poser never fixed the problems I've had. Is the computer that has the printer turned on when you're trying to use Poser? The best way to troubleshoot a problem is to look at each thing that has changed since you've last been able to use Poser. Then eliminate each item as the culprit, until you have found your solution.

Yes I meant Windows Service Pack 2. I didn't think that was the problem, it was just one of the things that changd since Poser stopped working. I have gone through and uninstalled everything I installed since Poser stopped working, and still couldnt get it to work. I am getting DSL hooked up tommorow to see if changing to cable was the problem. I am thinking of just installing another copy of windows on drive D: and installing Poser 5 on it. This way there couldnt possible be anything with my current OS configuration that is conflicting with Poser. I honestly feel that I have tried everything to fix Poser. I even cleaned house in the registry to remove traces of old spyware and problematic programs. I found a nice peice of adware (saie.exe) that causes serious problems. I removed every last trace of it and Poser still won't work. Oh well, if Poser doesn't run on a seperate operating system, I will know there is a hardware restriction. I was thinking of building a new computer anyways. Maybe this is the push I need.

I'm totally puzzled with this one. You have not answered some of my questions, so it is hard to make a really accurage diagnosis there. What about the printer? I've gone back and forth between cable, dialup and dsl internet, and Poser has never been affected by that. It would likely be a mistake to try installing another copy of Windows on another hard drive on the same computer. In some ways it sounds like you know advanced stuff, then in some ways it doesn't. Sometimes it's dangerous to try things that are perhaps beyond your own abilities or knowledge. It is really hard to judge such things when you rely solely on forum messages. I wish you the best of luck. It sounds like this is one time I haven't been of much help.

Thank you for all your help. I was FINALLY able to get it working on another installation of windows. Kind of a pain, but it will have to do until I figure out what is comflicting on this OS.

That tells me that something you did to "tweak" Windows screwed up your Poser usage. That's why I recommend the average person should be a bit more conservative.

You were right! THE PROBLEM Windows SP2 is deeply rooted into windows. Even after uninstalling service pack 2 the firewall settings stayed. The firewall settings were blocking a program from accessing the internet. The program runs as a process to check the validity of the Poser product key. (Poser can't start without it) THE SOLUTION I used the new installation of windows to compare to my old one. I reinstalled Windows Service Pack 2 and found the exceptions list for the SP2 firewall. I put Poser in the list and the firewall does not block the liscense server. NOW POSER STARTS. Yay. Now I can ditch my new install of Windows. But you were right. I had my settings too high for the firewall. I didn't get the message saying Poser was blocked because I turned the service that sends the message OFF. (duh) Too much tweakin. Thanks for your advice.

I probably sounded a bit "negative" in my response. Sorry about that. It's just hit me recently that some folks have been having big-time problems that didn't always make sense. Then, after a bit of digging, we find out the cause. I installed XP Service Pack 2, had absolutely no troubles or need to fiddle with it. There is a level of expertise that I am comfortable with. I rarely touch the Registry. I did go into Services and disable some stuff that others recommended be disabled. But I was very, very cautious. I'm very glad you're able to enjoy Poser once again.

The most recent SP's of Poser 5 remove the constant Internet checking. I think... I've also heard of many, many other programs having difficulties with SP2. So no SP2 for me.