What to do when PaperPort crashes, hangs, or fails to start - delete metadata with CheckPPFolders
Posted on
22,790 Points
5:24
Joe Winograd
50+ years in computers
Development•Sales
CIO•Document Imaging
EE — FELLOW 2017
MVE 2015,2016,2018
RENOWNED 2018,2019
CERTIFIED GOLD 2020
Development•Sales
CIO•Document Imaging
EE — FELLOW 2017
MVE 2015,2016,2018
RENOWNED 2018,2019
CERTIFIED GOLD 2020
If you are (or ever were) a Mozilla Firefox user, I suggest that you immediately head over to this Experts Exchange article:
What to do when PaperPort crashes, hangs, or fails to start - popular fix for Mozilla Firefox users
The problem discussed in that article reached epidemic proportions in July 2018. The solution proposed there is very likely to solve your problem, but if it doesn't, come back here to try the idea in this video.
Please read the paragraph below before following the instructions in the video — there are important caveats in the paragraph that I did not mention in the video.
If your PaperPort 12 or PaperPort 14 is failing to start, or crashing, or hanging, it may be because of corrupt metadata (likely) or corrupt data files, such as bad PDFs (much less likely, but possible). This video Micro Tutorial shows how to use a utility called CheckPPFolders that ships with all releases of PaperPort 12 and PaperPort 14. CheckPPFolders is able to remove all PaperPort metadata, as well as identify problem files that may be causing PaperPort to crash, hang, or fail to start. PaperPort will rebuild the metadata, but there are two caveats. First, Folder Color and Folder Notes are in the MaxDesk.ini files, so you will lose those — and there's no easy way to retain the colors and notes. Thus, if you make heavy use of Folder Color and Folder Notes, you may want to uncheck them in the metadata cleaner dialog (see the third checkbox in the last screenshot in Step 2 below), especially since it's unlikely for those metadata files to be the culprit. Second, rebuilding all of the metadata is fast, except for the SearchVerity folders, which are the indexes for All-in-One Search. Rebuilding those can take a very long time, so you may want to try not removing them, at least the first time that you run CheckPPFolders (see the fourth checkbox in the last screenshot in Step 2 below).
What to do when PaperPort crashes, hangs, or fails to start - popular fix for Mozilla Firefox users
The problem discussed in that article reached epidemic proportions in July 2018. The solution proposed there is very likely to solve your problem, but if it doesn't, come back here to try the idea in this video.
Please read the paragraph below before following the instructions in the video — there are important caveats in the paragraph that I did not mention in the video.
If your PaperPort 12 or PaperPort 14 is failing to start, or crashing, or hanging, it may be because of corrupt metadata (likely) or corrupt data files, such as bad PDFs (much less likely, but possible). This video Micro Tutorial shows how to use a utility called CheckPPFolders that ships with all releases of PaperPort 12 and PaperPort 14. CheckPPFolders is able to remove all PaperPort metadata, as well as identify problem files that may be causing PaperPort to crash, hang, or fail to start. PaperPort will rebuild the metadata, but there are two caveats. First, Folder Color and Folder Notes are in the MaxDesk.ini files, so you will lose those — and there's no easy way to retain the colors and notes. Thus, if you make heavy use of Folder Color and Folder Notes, you may want to uncheck them in the metadata cleaner dialog (see the third checkbox in the last screenshot in Step 2 below), especially since it's unlikely for those metadata files to be the culprit. Second, rebuilding all of the metadata is fast, except for the SearchVerity folders, which are the indexes for All-in-One Search. Rebuilding those can take a very long time, so you may want to try not removing them, at least the first time that you run CheckPPFolders (see the fourth checkbox in the last screenshot in Step 2 below).
Video Steps
1. Find the CheckPPFolders.exe file
Use Windows/File Explorer (or whatever file manager you prefer) to browse to this file on 64-bit Windows:
c:\Program Files (x86)\Nuance\PaperPort\Che
or this file on 32-bit Windows:
c:\Program Files\Nuance\PaperPort\Che
It's a good idea to make a shortcut to it via right-click/Create shortcut. Windows will say that it can't create a shortcut there and will offer to place it on the desktop instead.
2. Run CheckPPFolders.exe to remove the metadata
With PaperPort closed, run CheckPPFolders.exe and select the "Remove PaperPort meta-data..." button.
Check all of the metadata boxes (but see the two caveats to this in the opening paragraph above) and then click the Analyze button.
Click the Clean button and when it is finished removing the metadata, see if PaperPort works.
If so, you're done; if not, proceed to the next step.
3. Run CheckPPFolders.exe to look for problem files
With PaperPort closed, run CheckPPFolders.exe and select the "Search my PaperPort folders for problem files..." button.
When it is finished identifying problem files and taking action on them, see if PaperPort works.
If so, you're done; if not, the problem goes beyond corrupt metadata or bad data files.
4. Look elsewhere for the problem
If you've reached this step, CheckPPFolders is not going to help in your case. Other ideas are in this Experts Exchange article:
What to do when PaperPort crashes, hangs, or fails to start - with a popular fix for Mozilla Firefox users
If you find this video to be helpful, please click the thumbs-up icon below. Thank you for watching and have a great day! Regards, Joe
0 Comments
Suggested Videos
In over 20 years of working as an IT Professional fixing computers, I see the same problems posted again and again which can be prevented by just doing some regular maintenance on the Windows operating system. This article explains what you should b…
- Microsoft
- Software
- Windows 10
- Miscellaneous
- Windows OS
- Hardware
Generally, a Service Code of SC899-00 will be caused by incorrect drivers on a Windows computer. Ensuring you have correct drivers installed and are not using Microsoft IPP Class Drivers and are not using a WSD port, are the most common solutions. …
