I am running Carlson 2016.
This is the Advice I got from CARLSON support about a year ago.
"In the meantime, try manually opening Google Earth BEFORE running the image routine. If this doesn't work, you can uninstall your current version of GE and install the 6.2 version - be sure to click on “advanced setup” on that page (below the license window), then click on “direct installers page” and select version 6.2.
https://www.google.com/earth/download/ge/agree.html "
I still get the error message sometimes if I just run the Google_image command. However, I have been pretty successful as long as I manually open Google Earth first and as an administrator. So I right click on the Google Earth icon and select "Run as Administrator". I make sure Google Earth doesn't have any error messages or notifications. Then I invoke the Google_image command in carlson. Everything goes pretty smooth from there for me.
That being said I do get a notification that Google Earth will quit supporting GE versions 5 and 6. Does anyone know if Carlson will issue a patch to be able to continue to use the Google Earth command in 2016?