Photoshop Elements Organizer 11 Crashes at startup

After getting version 11 installed and the catalog conversion problem solved, I actually started to use the program. And that did not last too long... after adding some photos to the catalog, the Organizer crashed and continued to crash each time I started the program.

A search of the Adobe forums let me know that I was not the only one experiencing this problem but there were no real solutions posted there that seem to fit...so I used the Support Chat window to get a solution to the problem.

The tech I got for the chat window, was very good and quickly targeted the problem. The problem was a conflicting video file used by my Pinnacle USB TV tuner device. We renamed the offending file, and started the Organizer, and it now works!  See below for the details of the steps involved to solve MY issue... yours may be different.....but the approach below may help identify your particular problem...

Troubleshoot PSE Organizer crash issue.

1. See if there is an error event in the system log.

• On my Win7 system, start the event viewer. In the Windows search field, type   "Event viewer" then click on the Event Viewer program.
• Double click on "Windows Logs" on the left hand pane
• Double click on  "Application" in the middle pane to bring up the events for applications.
• See if there is a red error icon signifying an error event.
• If so, then click on the event and see if the faulting application is PS Elements Organizer.exe
• If so, then good news is that you are on the trail of the cause of the problem.

2. Read the error message for clues as to what may be the problem...

For me the error message was this:

Faulting application name: PhotoshopElementsOrganizer.exe, version: 11.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x503fdd1d

Faulting module name: H264Codec.ax, version: 2.0.532.0, time stamp: 0x4823ad4d

Exception code: 0xc0000005

Fault offset: 0x000244e6

Faulting process id: 0x1c18

Faulting application start time: 0x01cdb6d89b788dd4

Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Elements 11 Organizer\PhotoshopElementsOrganizer.exe

Faulting module path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Pinnacle\Shared Files\Filter\H264Codec.ax

Report Id: e86a87cb-22cb-11e2-8ef0-00027223b541

So the assumption was that the problem was with a video module installed on my system:  C:\Program Files (x86)\Pinnacle\Shared Files\Filter\H264Codec.ax 

3. What to do? OK so there may be a problem with module x... how to proceed....this is the "tricky bit".... it was assumed that Organizer was trying to load the H264Codec for possible viewing of a video file in my catalog and that the module was probably not needed.  I renamed the file to C:\Program Files (x86)\Pinnacle\Shared Files\Filter\H264Codec.ax_old

4. Started the PS Elements Organizers program, and now it works!

5. But, that's probably not the end of the story...perhaps the Pinnacle program needs the H264 file and now won't be able to find it??? Perhaps there is an updated module??? So just because the Organizer now works, I am not done, and there is yet another problem to smash...