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Photoshop Bug: Sliders getting stuck to mouse after release (Mac OS)

Explorer ,
Apr 01, 2011 Apr 01, 2011

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When dragging various sliders in Photoshop CS5, very often these sliders get "stuck" and move with the mouse even though you have released the mouse. Say you are dragging a slider to set the brush opacity to 50%. When you have set it to 50%, you release the mouse and move it away from the slider, only to find that the opacity still increases or decreases as you move your mouse. You have to click again to fix this, but then of course you have to go back and do it again.

Below is a small illustration (I can't take a screenshot of my mouse) of an example of when this happens:

lower-opacity copy.jpg

  • This happens to me around once every 5 times I use a slider, i.e. extremely often. As you can imagine, it's very annoying and frustrating.
  • I use a Wacom Bamboo Fun tablet, and I never use Photoshop without it so I cannot confirm whether this bug happens with a mouse or just the tablet.
  • It doesn't just happen like on the above illustration, but also with any slider such as those in Adjustment Layers and Filters.
  • The bug does not happen when using tools on the canvas (thankfully). So the Brush tool, and every other tool, works fine and never gets "stuck".
  • I have the latest version of Photoshop CS5.
  • This is a bug that has always been in CS5 since the first version, and it has not been in previous versions of Photoshop.

Does anyone else have this issue? Anyone else with a Tablet?

I know there are large amounts of similar, extremely annoying bugs in CS5, but this one is just driving me crazy.

Late 2008 15" MacBook Pro

OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.7 (but the problem has existed way before 10.6.7)

Photoshop CS5 version 12.0.2

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Apr 10, 2011 Apr 10, 2011

Have you installed the 10.6.7 update? (it fixes some OS event handling bugs).

Do you have any third party plugins installed? If so, try disabling them. (because some buggy plugins are known to eat/mangle events)

If CS5 is running slowly for you, then something is wrong with your system -- it could be the OS, or a third party plugin.

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Explorer ,
Apr 10, 2011 Apr 10, 2011

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I have a similar problem, although I've noticed it more with items in the Layers palette.  (e.g.  I click on a layer, then move my mouse away—only to discover that Photoshop is still "holding" on to that layer).  I wind up accidentally moving layers around a lot… and it's very, very, very frustrating.  I have the latest versions of Snow Leopard and Photoshop CS5 on my 8-core Mac Pro with 24 GB of RAM.  Photoshop (and the system) are both running from an SSD… and my scratch drives have hundreds of GB of free space.

I love Adobe software… but Photoshop CS5 has been headache after headache for me.  I'd be more understanding if I wasn't using such a powerful machine… but with this system, I should be flying—not crawling.

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Explorer ,
Apr 10, 2011 Apr 10, 2011

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Yes, I also have the problem when dragging layers. Do you use a graphics tablet by any chance? If yes, does the problem only happen with the tablet, or also with the mouse? I'm trying to figure out why more people aren't reporting this issue, as it really seems like a bug in Photoshop, so everyone should have the same problem. And it's so annoying that I would expect lots of angry people everywhere, but it doesn't seem to be the case.

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Apr 10, 2011 Apr 10, 2011

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I'm trying to figure out why more people aren't reporting this issue,

Because so far only 2 people seem to have seen your particular issue.

If others aren't complaining, then they probably aren't seeing it - which means it is most likely something specific to your system.

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Explorer ,
Apr 10, 2011 Apr 10, 2011

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I do have a graphics tablet, yes.  It's a WACOM Intuos (3, I believe… it's the anniversary edition).  However, I have removed my Wacom software from my system and I've unplugged the tablet as well—to no avail.

With respect to Chris's comment, the fact that only two people have commented on this issue in this thread is not an indication that only two people are having the issue.  I have been experiencing this issue intermittently for almost a full year, and this is the first I've posted about it.  Why?  In short, I've tried to be resourceful and solve the issue on my own, and now I've gotten desperate—having exhausted myself trying to find the solution.  I have spent more hours troubleshooting Adobe Photoshop CS5 than I care to think about.  I would have much rather spent that time using the products to create imagery and make my living.

Here's what I've done thus far in the last 2 days alone—without success:

- turned off OpenGL completely… un-checked all unnecessary options in Preferences (e.g. menu colors, font preview size, etc.)

- opened the Preset Manager, and deleted everything (e.g. brushes, styles, patterns, custom shapes… everything)

- reset my settings (both manually, and by holding down Cmd+Opt+Shift as I launched PS-CS5)

- removed all extensions via the extension manager

- removed all plug-ins—both 3rd party and native—from the Adobe Photoshop CS5 application folder

- performed a deep clean of cache files (local, system, all users)

- repaired permissions (several times)

- ran several maintenance utilities (Onyx, et al.), including daily, weekly and monthly scripts

- ran hardware test on my system, including on the RAM

- disabled FontExplorer Pro plug-ins for all Adobe products

- uninstalled my Wacom tablet, unplugged it (and all peripherals) from my system.

- uninstalled all applications that I could think of which might be getting in the way (e.g. growl)

- deleted my custom color-pickers, my QuickLook plug-ins and lots of other stuff from my user library

- removed everything from my start-up items list

- reinstalled Photoshop—both on my own user account and on a new user account

- updated the new Photoshop installs fully; verified that my OS was up to date (10.6.7)

- booted into safe mode

- spent about 4 hours reading through these forums and searching all over the internet, hoping to find a solution.

…which brings me to now.  I'm not sure what else I can do, short of stripping my machine down to it's basic components, installing a new version of the OS on a new hard drive, and then installing Photoshop to see if it would work. I did that about 3-4 times last summer, and I'm not doing it again… not because I wouldn't be willing to—but because I know it probably wouldn't solve the problem.

To the engineers at Adobe, here are a couple thoughts:

1)  First let me say this:  I recognize that you guys work your butts off, and on the whole—your products are amazing, brilliant and irreplaceable.  I am no less frustrated than some other users, but I think the way people interact on these forums (i.e. the rudeness with which people criticise and retort) is really unnecessary, and I'm sorry you have to put up with that.

2)  As my old boss used to say:  "it may not be your fault—but it's your problem."  I think Adobe would be wise to take that concept to heart.  Your brand is suffering from this piece of software—big time.  I say that as an Adobe evangelist and loyalist.  I have been using Photoshop since 1995 (3.0, I think?).  I spend about 18 hours a day between PS and AI.  I honestly don't know how I would continue my life if I didn't have these tools—they are that important to me.  (That is why I invested nearly $6,000 into the best system I could afford to run them.  I have an 8-core Mac Pro, with 24 GB of RAM, all current software, fast hard drives, an SSD boot drive, etc.)… and I feel like I'm running Photoshop on an old Powerbook G4 or something.

Maybe it's true that Apple is at fault for x, y, or z—but it's not Apple who's taking the PR hit—it's Adobe.  I don't know what your options are, but if I were making decisions over there, I'd have someone up their you-know-what on an uncomfortably-regular basis—showing them how their shortcomings are affecting your brand/company/customers/bottom-line.  Maybe it's true that the Open GL drivers are the reason that CS5 can't perform as well as CS4 (as is my experience), but it's Adobe's end users who are suffering, stressing, losing business, missing deadlines, getting frustrated, angry, etc.  It doesn't matter who's fault it is, it matters that it gets fixed.

Just my $.02.

Cheers,

-J

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Mentor ,
Apr 10, 2011 Apr 10, 2011

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This may be a long shot, but here it goes:

Are any of the users experiencing this issue by any chance running a utility called iCopy in the background?  If so, quit it and see if it makes a difference.

If it does, consider this:

"…there's a preference in iCopy called "capture mouse drags" that appears to be causing this (inability to drag Layers in Photoshop). When checked, it tries to copy any item you click and drag, system-wide. with this disabled, and icopy running, I am able to drag layers (in Photoshop) again.”

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Explorer ,
Apr 10, 2011 Apr 10, 2011

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Nope… but thanks for the suggestion.  Several months ago, I was experiencing this same exact problem (although to an even worse degree) in Illustrator CS5.  I discovered that the application "Right Zoom" was interfering somehow.  Disabling that app solved the problem, and I no longer have it installed.

Because of that experience, I spent a lot of time investigating whether there was a similar thing going on (now) with another app.  As best I can tell, there isn't.  As I mentioned, I uninstalled Growl, removed my QuickLook plug-ins, removed my Color-Pickers, a few custom preference panes, etc. I've checked Activity Monitor, but I don't see any processes that I recognize as apps that I've installed.  (If memory serves me right, Right Zoom wasn't hogging resources… it was just interfering with Illustrator… thus, I was/am willing to quit/disable any process that I can identify as "optional" or belonging to me).

Any other ideas?

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Community Beginner ,
Aug 06, 2012 Aug 06, 2012

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Thanks for the suggestion to look at Right Zoom.  I was having a similar problem in Illustrator and that resolved it!

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Apr 10, 2011 Apr 10, 2011

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Have you installed the 10.6.7 update? (it fixes some OS event handling bugs).

Do you have any third party plugins installed? If so, try disabling them. (because some buggy plugins are known to eat/mangle events)

If CS5 is running slowly for you, then something is wrong with your system -- it could be the OS, or a third party plugin.

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Explorer ,
Apr 11, 2011 Apr 11, 2011

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Hi Chris,

Thank you for your attention to this issue. Yes I have installed 10.6.7, and it does not fix the issue, and I do not have any 3rd party plugins installed. Photoshop CS5 is not running slow for me, everything is pretty much fine, except for this bug of course.

I have now switched Photoshop to 32 bit mode, and it seems to no longer be eating up loads of memory when I close a large document (maybe there's a memory leak in 64 bit?). I have only tested 32 bit mode for a few days, so I cannot say for sure, but as far as I can tell, I have not yet encountered the "sticky mouse" bug since then.

I suggest that everyone with the bug switch Photoshop to 32 bit mode by doing the following:

Applications Folder > Adobe Photoshop CS5 > Adobe Photoshop CS5.app > Right Click > Get Info > Check "Open in 32-bit mode"

And see if that solves the issue.

I will report back about whether this has really solved the problem or not.

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Explorer ,
Apr 11, 2011 Apr 11, 2011

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The only slowness I am dealing with is this "sticky" mouse when clicking in the various palettes.

Running CS5 in 32-bit mode does not eliminate (or even reduce) this problem for me.  I open a file, and in one move, can hide a series of layers quickly and flawlessly via the layers palette (as I can in 64-bit mode).  It's the 2nd click that doesn't "register" for several seconds after that.  This means I might click with the intention of un-hiding a layer (or a series of layers), but because of the lag, I may wind up moving a layer (or group) to a different location in the pallete… or dragging a layer (or group) off into the middle of the interface, etc.

In case it helps troubleshoot the problem, I want to mention one detail.  I actually turned off my mouse (Apple Mighty Mouse) during the lag behavior as I was testing it vs. another mouse vs. a trackpad, etc.  When I did that, the "hand/fist" icon (to indicate "grabbing a layer") remained in the "hand/fist" state.  i.e. It didn't revert to the "finger-pointing" state.  In other words, Photoshop seemed to still be reading or obeying a "mouse-down" command, (I am not a programmer…), and did so indefinitely—until I turned my mouse back on and clicked around a few times (at which point it regained its "mouse-up" mode, lagged around, and finally caught up).

Any ideas based on that?

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Explorer ,
Apr 10, 2011 Apr 10, 2011

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FTR, to clarify the exact behavior I'm experiencing:

When I open a file in PS-CS5, I can, for example, click on an eyeball in the layers palette, drag down, and have all the other eyeballs turn off.  However, on my second click (meaning, if I click on a place where an eyeball used to be to turn the layer visibility back on), the lag kicks in.  From that point forward… everything is click… wait… wait… ok.. I can click again… wait… wait…  etc.  It makes it impossible to build up any sort of working rhythm, and it totally drains creative energy.  My mind is 10-steps ahead of my hands already… and now I have to wait a second or two between every click of the mouse. Ugh.

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Explorer ,
Apr 10, 2011 Apr 10, 2011

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So… I've been digging and digging since my previous posts, and in the process, I've found a plethora of other examples in which users describe similar/identical issues.  This issue is absolutely not limited to "two people," Chris.  It seems very widespread, in fact.  Here are but two such examples:

http://forums.adobe.com/message/3050792

http://forums.adobe.com/message/3605556

In addition to those examples (which are right in-line with this thread), there are dozens of others describing various input-lag issues—whether while painting, clicking on menus, etc..  Surely there must be some effort underway to understand this problem, no?

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Explorer ,
Apr 11, 2011 Apr 11, 2011

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This happens to me as well but I've only ever seen it in the layers pallete, such as dragging a layer or changing visibility. It also does not happen often enough, maybe 2-3 times a week, to be able to tell if something would fix it.

10.6.6, CS5, Wacom Intuos 4

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Explorer ,
Apr 11, 2011 Apr 11, 2011

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Yes, that's mainly where I see it too (i.e. the Layers palette).  I notice it in the History palette too—as I attempt to undo the unwanted results that occur because of this bug.  On that note, the lag I see in the History palette may only be a continuation of the lag I experience in the layers palette.  Sometimes the lag even "sticks."   …meaning that when it occurs, I have to actively click, click, click around to  un-paralyze it. This could be what's going on when I click on the History palette (meaning that there may not be a problem with that palette).

You say that you experience this 2–3 times/week.  Are there any particular steps you take to deal with it when it pops up?

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Explorer ,
Apr 11, 2011 Apr 11, 2011

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I usually just need to click once anywhere to 'unstick' it, then undo whatever it just changed. I don't think it has ever required more than one click to get it working again.

I wonder if this could also be related to the other layer problem I have, where on rare occasions I try to drag a layer/background to another document and PS complains the layer is locked. I have to switch to another program and back to get it to work again. That probably happens about as often as the other layer issue.

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Explorer ,
Apr 11, 2011 Apr 11, 2011

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I must clarify that what my original post is about is NOT a "lag". I do not experience any kind of lag with the mouse, i.e. clicking or dragging that happens later than it should. What I experience is the mouse staying "clicked" even after I release it. It stays like that indefinitely, until I click again. Then it would get released and all is back to normal, until it happens again.

I don't think this has anything to do with the input device, as the problem never happens anywhere else but in Photoshop, and it also never happens when working on the canvas (i.e. it has never happened that I am drawing something with the Brush tool and the tool keeps drawing as I move the mouse even after I am no longer clicking). By "mouse" I mean "pen tablet" and by "clicking" I mean "when the pen is pressed onto the tablet".

By the way, I have also notices keys sticking, such as Shift and Alt. Say I'm doing an "Alt + Space + Click & Drag" to zoom in via the "Scrubby Zoom" feature. I release Alt and start to pan around with "Space + Click & Drag", I find that the canvas still zooms in and out as I move the cursor left and right, as if I was still holding Alt down. Pressing Alt again fixes the issue. This only happens from time to time, and it's probably off-topic actually, though it may be related.

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Engaged ,
Apr 11, 2011 Apr 11, 2011

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there was a bug in the OS that was supposed to have been fixed with a previous update 10.6.6/10.6.7?  Jesper Storm Bache (adobe) created a script to "unstick" keys. I'm now on 10.6.7 and still find that this little script comes in handy. So the question is whether this bug was fixed in the OS update or whether there is another bug around?

here's the link to the script, I wonder if it will unstick your sticky scrubbers?

http://forums.adobe.com/message/3296632

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Explorer ,
Apr 11, 2011 Apr 11, 2011

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This is all very much in line with what I'm experiencing.  Today, I've made more attempts at resolving this issue, including:

- reconfiguring the Airport and Bluetooth antennae in my Mac Pro

- reconfiguring my Airport settings (in case there was a Wi-Fi / Bluetooth interference issue)

- trying 3 different graphics cards (ATI Radeon HD4870, ATI Radeon 5770, NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT)

Getting ready to try out Jesper's fix, and barring a miracle,installing a fresh copy of Snow Leopard on a freshly formatted Hard Drive and crossing my fingers.

Wish me luck...

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Explorer ,
Apr 13, 2011 Apr 13, 2011

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I can confirm that the sticky slider issue is not solved by running Photoshop in 32-bit mode.

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Participant ,
Sep 01, 2011 Sep 01, 2011

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Yes - this problem has been haunting me for several months now. I do photoshop for a living and I can't tell you how many times my cursor "picks up" the layer that I am merely trying to click on. It'll just stick to the cursor and get dragged all over and end up in a different position in the layers pallette.

It is the most annoying and persistant bug I have had to deal with in a long time. I do have a Wacom tablet which I use almost exclusively but I recently was using the mouse more often and noticed it happens with that too. I have no third party plug-ins and have completely re-installed my entire system AND photoshop twice already (without transferring any of the old settings/preferences files) and it's still happening. Could it be caused by the Wacom driver? The only thing I haven't tried is installing an older version of that.

I beg for help to get rid of this behavior. I am on the floor weeping as I type this....

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Explorer ,
Sep 02, 2011 Sep 02, 2011

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Good to know I'm not alone with the issue. I would be very happy if Adobe tried to do something to address this, I would gladly provide them with any technical information they require to figure out what the cause is.

The stickiest slider I have found which reproduces the issue very reliably is the first slider in the "Shadow/Highlight" dialog. If I drag that and release it, it will often continue to slide with my mouse. This works while clicking with my trackpad or my Wacom tablet.

I have to stress that the issue does NOT happen when painting on the canvas with the brush. It ONLY happens when dragging things in palettes, such as sliders and layers.

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Sep 02, 2011 Sep 02, 2011

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We have investigated, and we can't reproduce the problem at all.

Something on your system outside of Photoshop is intereferring with event handling, specifically mouse clicks (mouse up/ mouse down).

But we don't know what that might be.

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Explorer ,
Sep 02, 2011 Sep 02, 2011

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Interesting that someone just revived this old thread because I just started experiencing this issue again this week (after a few months free of the torture).  Previously, I had been experiencing it using CS5 and Snow Leopard.  Now I'm using CS5.5 and Lion.  To my recollection, I was still using Snow Leopard and CS5 when I stopped experiencing it.

Just to be clear:  "this issue" (for me) occurs most frequently when selecting items in the layers panel (layers, masks, etc.)—and particularly when turning layers on or off (with the "eye" icon).  The simplest way to explain it is that Photoshop fails to respond to the un-clicking of my mouse, such that I often move my cursor over my work, only to find a "closed-fist" icon holding onto a layer from my layers palette.  No amount of time solves the problem.  In other words—if I leave the room and come back an hour later, the fist is still closed.  The only solution seems to be a bunch of clicks, which will eventually result in un-sticking the mouse click (followed, of course, by undoing whatever transpired in the document as a result of escaping this behavior).

Because it's completely debilitating, I was forced to do extensive testing on it this week.  I tried many intermediate steps, but eventually ended up doing the following:

  • disabling Airport
  • disabling Bluetooth
  • removing all internal hard drives (except the boot drive, of course)
  • removing my internal eSATA PCIe card
  • disconnecting all peripherals except for a corded mouse and corded keyboard
  • removing both of my ATI video cards, and installing my stock NVIDIA 8800GT
  • turning off all Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices in my home, including my iPhone and iPad
  • removing half my RAM (leaving 12 GB of RAM, in matched pairs)

When all was said and done, I was able to boot into a bare-bones Mac Pro 3,1 (8-core, early 2008)—using a brand new, freshly formatted SSD, with a brand new installation of OS X 10.7 (Lion), and a brand new installation of Adobe CS5.5.  (I ran updates so both were completely current).  This is the starkest system possible—there were no other applications installed, no plug-ins, no peripherals (internal or external), no wireless anything, etc.

And I still had the problem.

Then began more testing—fiddling with Photoshop settings.  I turned off every nicety that I could find, including disabling Open GL, minimizing my history states and cache setting (20 and 4, respectively) trashing my Photoshop prefs and presets, etc.  Still no luck.

After extensive fiddling, I believe that I got closer to identifying the problem than ever before.  I am 95% confident that the problem involves layer styles, and here's why:

Both the file that reintroduced this issue to me this week, as well as the file that I recall working on at the time I first experienced this issue, contained numerous layers (arranged mostly in groups), and extensive use of layer styles.  As a designer, I make heavy use of layer styles—usually applied to Smart Objects which have been pasted as such from Illustrator—on a regular basis. Even so, these files were particularly rich with layer styles, even compared to my typical usage.  Of course, both of those files make use of lots of other things as well.  But the reason I think I've narrowed it down to layer styles is because when I was trouble-shooting this week, I stripped the problematic file of various parts—piece-by-piece.

  • I removed many layers—no luck
  • I ungrouped all the layers, leaving a "flat" hierarchy—no luck
  • I deleted all layer masks—no luck
  • I deleted all alpha channels—no luck
  • I continued removing layers—no luck
  • I rasterized all Smart Objects (leaving the layer styles intact)—no luck
  • I turned all layer styles off—suddenly, the problem seemed to stop… so I continued to experiment...

In the end, I got down to a very small list of layers ~6, with layer styles on all but one—and I was still experiencing the problem.  The problem seemed to stop when I'd disable layer styles (or delete them) and reappear when I re-enabled them.

I checked all of the layer styles, and none of them involved anything abnormal.  The layers that I had remaining used nothing more than drop shadows and inner shadows—and none of them used any funky contours or other settings.  It's also worth noting that I had almost nothing (if anything) other than the default presets loaded (patterns, styles, brushes, contours, etc.). That's as far as I got before deciding that I was at the limit of what I could discern and contribute to solving this problem.

In case it matters, my file is not particularly big; its a 2400px x 2400px PSD, and it was already under 300 MB before I stripped it of most of its contents.

By virtue of going to such extreme "hardware-purification" and "software-purification" measures—as well as by experiencing this issue on both CS5 / Snow Leopard, and on CS5.5 / Lion (not to mention the weeks of my life that I spent trying to solve this problem earlier this year)—I am virtually certain that this issue is caused by Photoshop, and Photoshop alone.  I am happy to supply any files, log reports or details to help resolve this matter, and I respectfully request to be informed of your efforts as it affects my ability to do my work (and thus, the quality of my life) very directly, and very severely.

-Jason

P.S.  Here is a link to the video I recorded back in April, which demonstrates this issue very clearly.

Message was edited by: jasonwarth (to add link to video)

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Explorer ,
Sep 03, 2011 Sep 03, 2011

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If this helps, the problem never occurs outside of Photoshop CS5. It never happened in Photoshop CS4 or previous versions either. It also never occurs when painting with the brush, only while dragging/clicking things in palettes. The problem happened on Snow Leopard and Lion as well.

If the problem is outside of Photoshop, how come only Photoshop CS5 is affected, and only certain parts of it?

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