Elements Organiser: face recognition will not start

Whether or not the auto function is turned on shouldn't have anything to do with this. Since a new catalog didn't work, the next thing to try is a new user account and/or disabling background processes that may be causing interference (see: Disable startup items, services | Windows

I have had problems with Facial recognition with every version of Elements I had. V9,10,11,12. One day it will work another day it will not. I have run this software on 3 different PC's running XP and windows 7. I would have to agree with Paul. Adobe get your act in gear and write your code to work in a resource intensive environment. I also play with other editing programs and don't seem to have problems Like I do with adobe. I am also a lightroom user. Try this and try that is not a desired solution as it is my time spent debugging your app. I would like to know who these normal users are, one I assume who do not use the facial recognition software. Clint

The "try this and try that" is not just for fun or to waste your time. On our side, things are working fine and we need to know why things are not working on your side. So testing needs to occur on the system that is encountering the problem. We'd need a lot more information to attempt to replicate your environment on outside to reproduce the issue. What does you mean by working "in a resource intensive environment". If that means you are running a bunch of other applications at the same time, do you not encounter these issue if the other apps are not running?

Why not mess with services? You can turn them back on just as easily as you turn them off. Everything we are asking you to turn off is not necessary for your system to run, they are all after market add-ons. No harm will come to your computer by disabling these items.

Additionally, without testing, how can you be sure that the problem you are encountering is not caused by some application you have installed on your computer? The facial recognition system works just fine for most of our customers. This particular behavior seems pretty unique to your computer.

None of them are necessary for your system to run. They are necessary for some applications to run, but the point of the test is to disable all applications. So we do in fact need to turn off all services to completely disable all applications. The Adobe Active File Monitor is used by Photoshop Elements to make Watched Folders operate. It's not needed by facial recognition.

Remember, this is just a test. Once the test is over, you just turn everything back on. Of course, the problem is, if facial recognition works with everything off, but doesn't work with everything on, we know that something running on your computer is the source of the problem. Then next step is more difficult: which application(s) is/are the source of the problem.

When something goes wrong only some of the time, that is definitely interference from a background application (because if it were truly broken within the application, it would never work). Background applications often have sleep and active modes, so they don't interfere all the time. This is especially true of anti-virus applications, they aren't always actively scanning your hard drive for virus files, but they usually turn on once in a while to do that.

As for the import problem: have you created another post on this website for that issue?

I have to say I am I impressed by your interest in my problem. To be honest I am being worn down by the number of problems. While trying to sort this out the machine is being dragged down by what seems to be the generating thumbnails process which seems never ending. The process uses 97 % of resources even when I close elements. Would this be interfering? As I said I did get a batch of photos where face recognition worked. When i have just a few photos selected it still goes on generating thumbnails even though they are all showing.

What is more likely slowing down your computer is the Auto-Analysis. Try disabling this by going to Edit > Preferences > Media Analysis and uncheck all of the options.

I did all that awhile ago thinking it was that but it has made no difference. As I write this even though I have closed elements the task manager is showing Photoshop Elements Organiser as a process using 50% cpu how weird is that. One thing I am not sure I mentioned is thatI am using Canon raw images. When I tried opening another catalog this time it just hung and I had to close it but when I restarted it it did in fact go into the catalog I wanted open. I also managed to go back to my original catalog ok. I have tried doing repair and optimize but it brings up nothing. Incidentally its still running in task manager at 50%

I just tried to go into organiser but it just disappears there is no running ants just closes. However it allows me to go into editor but not from there to organiser. It is still running in the task manager.

Its been an hour and I left things as they were and guess what task manager is still showing the same even though elements is not open.

It sounds like background process is holding onto the Organizer, preventing it from closing, which is probably giving you all the other problems of opening other catalogs as well.

I really cannot stress the importance of testing this with ALL applications, processes, and services closed.

I tested it with other larger catalogs and they are ok even those with raw images. I have tried to optimize problematic catalog and repair but everything seems fine. So suggests it might be the catalog. The others show number of images immediately. Incidentally though it says generating thumbnails on that catalog they can all be seen!

From the information you've been providing, it's sounded like it would have been an issue with background interference. But it certainly can be tied to the individual catalog. There are a number of support files that are generated per catalog for facial recognition. There could be a problem with these files, or with the catalog itself, or even with the files that have been imported into the catalog.

Try opening your catalog folder (if you are unsure which one this is, go to Help > System Info, it's listed under "Current Catalog"). Open the BreezeData folder. Rename the file "BreezeSession.dat" to "BreezeSession.old". Do this while Elements Organizer is closed. Then try facial recognition again....

If it is working while they are working with you, how is anyone supposed to assume that it is not fixed. If we cannot predict that will or when it will break in the future, what more can be done until it does break again.

If it starts working and then stops working again, the question is what is going on with your copy of Elements. That is not normal. For most folks this works just fine all the time, for others it stops working and then after some troubleshooting it starts working again and there are no future problems. But if it fails over and over again, there must be something else going on which is influencing this issue, causing it to recur.

Once you have performed the steps to get things working again, how long does it take before it stops working again? Is it so long that you would not be willing to test running PSE in a new user account with background items disabled to see if there is a user setting, permission issue, or background third-party interference that is really the cause of the problem?

Did you upgrade your catalog from a previous version of Elements? If so, can you start facial recognition there? If not, has facial recognition worked previously in PSE11?

The Update that came today did not help either (Core Version 20120923.r.32287)