Hi there forum,
When closing a Captivate 5.5 project today, it asked if I wanted to save the file. I said yes. The procedure the save the project commenced and the Captivate progress box appeared as it was going through all its compression techniques etc to close the project. It finished the save, and closed my project file and the progress box disappeared, but just before the actual Captivate shell completely closed off my screen, all of a sudden my laptop 'blue-screened'.
No problem, this laptop has had some CTD's before over its lifespan, (not many, but it has happened) and then everything reboots and starts ok. Only this time, Captivate 5.5 won't start. Big problem! Just to confirm, I have been using Captivate 5.5 for a few years now, never had any PC memory issues or the like and Captivate 5.5 has run seamlessly on the this laptop for the same amount of time. I also have Admin rights.
OK, so rebooted the computer ok. Went to open my project file, and within 2 seconds of opening my .cptx file I get an Adobe window error saying, "Adobe Captivate has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience." Also on this message box is the standard "Tell Microsoft about the problem", a debug button, send error report button, don't send button, and also "To see what data this error report contains, click here" --> So I Click Here and open another window with then gives me the error signature.
The error signature window says AppName: adobecaptivate.exe AppVer: 5.5.0.257 ModName: cpdatabase.dll ModVer: 5.5.0.257 Offset: 0002c3f6. Then there's an option to find out all the technical details about the problem which just opens up strings and strings of information like a log which really means nothing to me. OK, so I closed all of that. By the way, the debug button doesn't do anything, so not really sure why that exists... it's like a false hope, lol.
OK, so first of all I thought I thought my .cptx file must have been damaged during the save/close process when the PC crashed. So I went to open a different .cptx project file to see if that worked, but unfortunately it didn't, same error popped up. Then I navigated to c://Program Files/Adobe/Captivate 5.5 and tried to hard launch the adobecaptivate.exe file from there. Nup, still the same error.
OK, so then I rebooted my pc a couple of times to see if that would refresh any of my directories and tried again, still, same error on any .cptx Cap5.5 file.
Then I thought I'd find a suitable System restore point and try that. Went back one, then two days of system restore points, to no success. Same error when opening my .cptx files.
Then thought to reinstall Captivate 5.5 over the existing install, thinking it might be damaged program file in the executable directory, and hopefully a fresh install would rectify the problem. Did the install, rebooted, and tried to open my .cptx project file. Still the same error appeared.
Was really struggling now. Hit the forums. Then the only other thing I could find via a brief search was a solution to remove all the deletable fonts from c://Windows/fonts directory as previous problems had reported problems with third party fonts. OK, so removed all the fonts I could, and then tried to open my .cptx file. Still, the same error occurred, only this time in a different font, ha! Restored all my fonts as that too was not the solution.
Then I tried to open my Captivate 5.5 .cptx project file with just Captivate 5. OK, Captivate 5 opens, but then I get the error about cannot open the file due to it being open elsewhere etc..... so I put that down to backward compatibility and that Cap5 won't be able to open Cap5.5 projects. But at least now I know for sure, Captivate 5 opens and works. Tried that numerous times just to make sure, so it's definitely a 5.5 issue.
Failing all of that, my last hope was to try to uninstall Cap 5.5 totally and then reinstall 5.5 all together, but I thought I'd check in here first to see if there's a much simpler solution.
So here I am now, hoping someone may have some ideas for me. I feel I've exhausted everything reasonable to my own PC skills and knowledge of dealing with these types of issues so I really hope I can get some support.
I'm happy to send screen shots, log files, or even join a remote desktop session to get this sorted. I'm using all genuine copies of Cap5 and 5.5 with genuine serials all on a genuine Work laptop, and yes, my problem is genuine 
I'm a little stressed as I have some deliverables by Monday and I know it's the weekend!!
Thanks in advance!!
Cheers
Kurt