Adobe CS3 Updater Constantly crashing

I recently went through this great ordeal of getting a copy of Adobe CS3 Design Premium installed. From not being able to find the install disk, to being over our activation limit, then sitting on hold for 45 minutes only to be told I am not able to do it. Between me and one of the other IT people at work, we got it installed.

I went to run the Adobe Updater today, and all the headaches started over again. The updater crashed repeatedly, and then just wouldn't start.

A Google search search yielded a long list of people that have the same issue. So I decided to do a bit of searching locally to see what was going on.

Here is what I found:

I had a trial copy of Dreamweaver CS4 that I had installed, but it expired, so I had uninstalled it. It left behind a folder:

/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Updater6/

and

~user/Library/Application Support/Updater6/

Since only the CS4 Applications use the versions 6 updater( you should also see an Updater 5 folder in these locations), I copied them
to another location, just in case they were causing some sort of interference.

Note: if you have CS4 applications on your computer, you probably want to leave these folders in place.



Unfortunately, the updater still did not work. It would not even look to see what/if any updates were needed for my machine. I also came across an Updater5 folder in each location(/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Updater5/ and ~user/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Updater5/).
My next step was to rule out an files that were still left in the Updater5 folder. It seems that the updater only cares about what is in the users Updater5 folder(~user/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Updater5/). Removing all the files in the directory works quite well. On the next run, the updater
re-created all the files it needed, and proceeded to to retrieve the update list from Adobe and begin downloading the updates.

I still had some problems with the updater while I was at work. Each time, the cycle would repeat - Crash, not start, I delete all the files in the users Updater 5 folder and it would get a bit further. After a few times, I wanted to know what file specifically was causing the problem. Finally, I was able to narrow down that it was the install folder
that was causing the updater to hiccup. Best I can figure, theis is the folder that stores the downloaded files while they are waiting to be installed.

I said earlier that even after I found the files to delete, the updater would hiccup. I am almost positive that it has something to do with our network setup at work I ran the updater again at home. As of this writing, the installer is just finishing up all the updates.

Recap:

~user/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Updater5/ is where the Adobe updater do its work. Appears as if the updater gets hung up on the Install Folder in that directory.


Good luck. and happy updating. I hope that this will help you out.

~Mark