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Photoshop CS5 12.1 Eventually Won't Open Files or New Documents

Community Beginner ,
Jun 28, 2012 Jun 28, 2012

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I have been experiencing a problem with Photoshop CS5 12.1 in which, after a variable amount of time from a system restart, Photoshop will no longer open files or create new ones.  It is very difficult to search for and/or explain the nature of this problem, but I will try my best.

Photoshop behaves completely normally after a fresh reboot of Windows until this problem presents itself.

The problem has manifested itself during use and before use.  If it occurs during use, it seems that various features of Photoshop stop working.  For example: I can't save files that are open.  Photoshop will go through the motions of doing a "File > Save as...", but nothing happens on the file system.  Restarting Photoshop at this point does not resolve the problem.

If Photoshop is already in this non-functional state upon opening, files cannot be opened nor new files created.  Here is what happens during an attempt to open a file:

  1. Click "File > Open..."
  2. Open dialog is shown, I browse to select a ".psd" file to open
  3. Once file is selected, click "Open" button on dialog
  4. Dialog disappears, but document never opens

If I try to use "File > New...", the New dialog never appears.

Once in this state, the only way to use Photoshop normally again is to do a full system reboot.  This seems to indicate that something is slowly happening on my system (such as RAM usage) that eventually renders Photoshop inoperable.  However, at the time of failure, there appears to be ample resources available for Photoshop to use.  It has been difficult to troubleshoot this problem beyond this point.

Please let me know if I need to clarify any of this further.

System Information Dumps:

PS Sysinfo (post failure) http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=9N53jGQC

DXDiag (post failure) http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=x5euCLqn

If it would be useful to include information from a fresh restart (pre failure), please let me know and I will provide those too.

Thanks for your help!

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Adobe
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Jun 28, 2012 Jun 28, 2012

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How much free space do you have on your hd?  Should have 10-20% free space.

You also have an old ATI driver, but that is probably not problem.  The best is not latest. Get the 12.2 version.

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Community Beginner ,
Jun 28, 2012 Jun 28, 2012

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I currently have approx. 30% free space on the installation drive (37GB of 111GB).

Regarding ATI driver versions, I have been experiencing this problem through many versions of ATI drivers.  I have probably had this issue for more than 6 months now.  I upgraded to 12.3 last week, and the problem existed before and after the upgrade, unfortunately.

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LEGEND ,
Jun 28, 2012 Jun 28, 2012

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Is your Photoshop scratch drive pointed somewhere else?  37 GB free isn't really enough free space for scratch use.

-Noel

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Community Beginner ,
Jun 28, 2012 Jun 28, 2012

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True, sorry.  I didn't realize that Curt might've been refering to the scratch location.  I currently have approx. 27% free space on my scratch drive (255.9GB of 931.5GB).  Here is all the drive-related information from Photoshop's sysinfo dump (linked in pastebin-form in my original post):

Application folder: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS5.1 (64 Bit)\

Temporary file path: C:\Users\justin\AppData\Local\Temp\

Photoshop scratch has async I/O enabled

Scratch volume(s):

  D:\, 931.5G, 255.9G free

Primary Plug-ins folder: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS5.1 (64 Bit)\Plug-ins\

Additional Plug-ins folder: not set

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Community Beginner ,
Jun 30, 2012 Jun 30, 2012

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I've updated to the latest ATI driver (12.6 now) which has not had any effect on this problem.  Any ideas?

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 02, 2012 Jul 02, 2012

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As I seem to have fallen into an unfixable problem, perhaps there is another path to solving this issue.

  • Is there a mid-commitment upgrade path for PS CS5 subscribers to CS6, now that the old subscription method is dead?
  • Would CS6 solve my problem?
  • Should I switch to GIMP and eat my year-long commitment?

Thanks for any help you can provide.

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New Here ,
Jul 04, 2012 Jul 04, 2012

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I have the same problem. The problem remained with the beta cs6.

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 27, 2012 Jul 27, 2012

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I'm really at a loss here, still having the same problem.  I've done a lot of testing and made a lot of changes, to no avail.  This is the most impossible problem to troubleshoot I think I've ever encounted in any application.

My previous system had some instability which, after extremely thorough testing, I am 90% sure was due to the motherboard.  I had also felt very strongly that this would likely explain my Photoshop problems, since an unstable system can cause myriads of unexplanable issues.

I had a spare machine, so I transferred my PSU, GPU, 2x 120GB SSDs, 1TB HDD, and 1/2 of my RAM (2x4GB) to that machine (i7 2.8Ghz).  I reinstalled Windows and performed various tests to ensure stability (Pi calcs, memtest, benchmarks, etc.), and the system is stable.  No crashing, no memory problems/errors, nothing.  Even Photoshop appeared to be fine for the first few days.

Today, I've discovered the problem is back.  AWESOME.  So now what?  I am at an absolute troubleshooting loss here.  Photoshop gives me NOTHING to go on; no logs, no errors, nothing.  I can only attack this problem from the outside.  There are two remaining possibilities I can think of at this point:

  1. Some piece of hardware that I carried over (from the list above) is causing Photoshop problems.  The SDDs/HDD don't seem likely.  I would suspect either the GPU or RAM, but as NO OTHER APPLICATIONS have any problems, I find this unlikely as well.
  2. Some piece of software I install as part of my workflow is conflicting with Photoshop in a silent way.  This is scary, as I only install things I need and keep a fairly regimented system (I don't install random crap like toolbars or other spamware/malware).

Any advice?  I'm tired of trying to narrow this down when Photoshop gives me nothing to go on.  I've completely disrupted my workflow trying to figure this out.

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LEGEND ,
Jul 27, 2012 Jul 27, 2012

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Well, there is an error log, but it's usually pretty cryptic.  Not sure you've looked there yet...

On a Windows 7 x64 system, for Photoshop CS5 it's here: 

C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS5\Adobe Photoshop CS5 Settings\PSErrorLog.txt

For what it's worth I run my Windows 7 system for as long as it takes between reboots because of Windows Updates - often 2 weeks or longer - and I've not seen a failure to be able to do file operations in Photoshops CS4, CS5, or CS6, so at least it's not an inherent problem with Photoshop.

I wouldn't bet that Photoshop CS6 is going to solve this for you.

Besides the log I mentioned above, have you looked in the Windows event logs?

-Noel

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 27, 2012 Jul 27, 2012

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Noel Carboni wrote:

Well, there is an error log, but it's usually pretty cryptic.  Not sure you've looked there yet...

On a Windows 7 x64 system, for Photoshop CS5 it's here: 

C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS5\Adobe Photoshop CS5 Settings\PSErrorLog.txt


This log does not seem to have been generated on my system, which I suspect is because there is no actual "error event" happening.  Photoshop is not aware of the problem.

For what it's worth I run my Windows 7 system for as long as it takes between reboots because of Windows Updates - often 2 weeks or longer - and I've not seen a failure to be able to do file operations in Photoshops CS4, CS5, or CS6, so at least it's not an inherent problem with Photoshop.

I wouldn't bet that Photoshop CS6 is going to solve this for you.

I run my system for extended periods, only restarting if required by some application or other unforseen reason.  I agree, other versions of Photoshop don't seem likely to resolve this problem.  However, only Photoshop is exhibiting this problem.  All other applications I use are, as far as I can tell, running fine.

Besides the log I mentioned above, have you looked in the Windows event logs?

-Noel

The Windows event logs offered nothing of value, at least without having any idea what to look for.  There are no criticals at all for any reason.  I searched through errors/warnings/verbose for "adobe," but found nothing significant or specific to Photoshop.  If there is anything in there that relates to this issue, I don't have enough information to narrow it down.

I very much appreciate the response.

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LEGEND ,
Jul 27, 2012 Jul 27, 2012

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Coestar wrote:

The Windows event logs offered nothing of value, at least without having any idea what to look for.  There are no criticals at all for any reason.  I searched through errors/warnings/verbose for "adobe," but found nothing significant or specific to Photoshop.

I was thinking you should look for disk errors or maybe resources getting used up by the Workstation or Server services.  But I assume you've scanned through the recent entries in the System log and would have seen anything that seemed out of the ordinary.

You mentioned the GPU...  You took the same video card to the other system, right?  Did you check the manufacturer's web site for the latest display driver?  Display driver updates fix SO many wildly different problems.

-Noel

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 27, 2012 Jul 27, 2012

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Noel Carboni wrote:

I was thinking you should look for disk errors or maybe resources getting used up by the Workstation or Server services.  But I assume you've scanned through the recent entries in the System log and would have seen anything that seemed out of the ordinary.

Yea, there aren't any hardware related events at all.  I wish it were that easy. 

You mentioned the GPU...  You took the same video card to the other system, right?  Did you check the manufacturer's web site for the latest display driver?  Display driver updates fix SO many wildly different problems.

-Noel

I have a Radeon HD 6950, and am using the latest driver.  Unfortunately, this issue has persisted for me through many versions of CCC (6 months of versions).

The previous dxdiag and Photoshop sysinfo dumps I posted are outmoded now, so here are fresh dumps:

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 27, 2012 Jul 27, 2012

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One additional item that may be helpful, here is a screenshot (that I had to edit with MS Paint ) of my installed programs: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1727914/installed_apps.png

Not pictured:

  • VLC media player 2.0.3
  • XSplit 1.0.1206.0203

I share this in case someone knows of some application conflicting with Photoshop somehow.

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LEGEND ,
Jul 27, 2012 Jul 27, 2012

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Possibly more pertinent than what you've installed is what's starting up and running in the background.

From time to time I like to look over the list of software running on my system via a very cool free app by one of the Microsoft people called AutoRuns.  Maybe looking at the list of things started via the various Run keys, your Startup group, or as services might yield some ideas.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

You say Photoshop seems to save the file, but it just never makes it to the disk at all?  That's beyond weird.  It says that something is interfering with basic file system operations, which is scary.

-Noel

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 27, 2012 Jul 27, 2012

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Ok, I made an autorunsc dump as well: http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=fBcAehjf

I don't see anything obviously malicious or strange, looks pretty normal.

EDIT:

Noel Carboni wrote:

You say Photoshop seems to save the file, but it just never makes it to the disk at all?  That's beyond weird.  It says that something is interfering with basic file system operations, which is scary.

I don't believe this is a general case.  This is a state that Photoshop (and only Photoshop) gets in, once it stops functioning correctly.  Other applications and the OS itself have displayed absolutely no evidence of any issues with normal file system operations.

Message was edited by: Coestar

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 27, 2012 Jul 27, 2012

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Ok, I've now gone through every tab in Autoruns and examined the contents looking for anything out of the ordinary.  I saw nothing that wasn't either included with Windows or installed by me directly (intentionally).  If there is anything bad, it is either:

  • Disguised to look like something benign... seems unlikely, this is a reasonably fresh Windows 7 install from 2 weeks ago, and this problem has persisted over many Windows reinstalls now
  • Something non-malicious that causes problems anyway (my best guess at the moment)

I can provide dumps of the other significant Autoruns sections (services, drivers, codecs) if that would be helpful.

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LEGEND ,
Jul 27, 2012 Jul 27, 2012

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I guess I would suggest disabling most or all the stuff in the Run keys and giving it a try.  I don't think all of what you've got running is necessary, and maybe one of the programs is somehow using up resources.

I'm assuming you can reproduce the problem on demand.

If you do manage to resolve it, then you can methodically re-enable things until you find the program that causes it.

-Noel

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LEGEND ,
Jul 27, 2012 Jul 27, 2012

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Oh, and remember to reboot after making changes, in case that's not obvious.  🙂

-Noel

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 27, 2012 Jul 27, 2012

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Sadly, it can't be reproduced on demand.  The problem doesn't present itself until an unknown and seemingly variable amount of "something" has been used and/or transpired and/or depleted.  It reminds me of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heisenbug

I'm going to approach this from the opposite direction of your suggestion, because there are some items I would not do without - this is the machine I work from, and have no alternative machine to use.  Eventually, if the problem presents itself while only those items are enabled, then I will be forced to test them anyway.

Either way, this process will likely take many weeks.  I will report back once I feel I've reached a conclusion using this method, good or bad.

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 29, 2012 Jul 29, 2012

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Thankfully, it didn't take weeks like I thought.  I reached the end of the list of start-up applications (apart from Steam) already, and the failure still presented itself today.  Here is a shot of the list: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1727914/all_apps_off.png

This should mean that it is not related to these apps starting up with Windows.  Any other ideas?

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LEGEND ,
Jul 30, 2012 Jul 30, 2012

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Not that I want you to run without games, but you should of course at least try temporarily disabling Steam.

I'm out of ideas on this one.  I can only think that you should start to suspect something basic, such as your antimalware software or hardware drivers.  I can only assure you it doesn't do what you describe on all systems.

Just to reiterate...  Correct me if I'm wrong here:  You try to save a PSD file, and Photoshop goes through all the motions of saving it, but then you can't find it on disk, with either Photoshop File - Open or by looking in Explorer. 

Please allow me to ask some more questions, since with a problem this sticky there's a possibility we missed something basic...

  • Are you sure of the folder you're saving into?  You don't have two, one on a main disk and one on a backup, maybe, that look similar?  Check all the way to the root.

  • Is the path where you're trying to save a hard drive path (e.g., that starts with a drive letter, not in a library or something)?

  • Does the drive controller activity light come on during saving?

  • When it occurs, it's then repeatable from then on?  Perhaps opening up the Resource Monitor application, Disk tab, and watching what's getting written (if anything) would be interesting.

  • There's never anything more written into PSErrorLog.txt?

  • Does the problem occur with multiple different file formats (Save As JPEG, PNG, PSD, TIFF,. etc.)?

  • Have you checked the disk file system structure with CHKDSK?

-Noel

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 30, 2012 Jul 30, 2012

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Noel Carboni wrote:

Not that I want you to run without games, but you should of course at least try temporarily disabling Steam.

Sure, I will test that as well, though I have strong doubts that Steam could cause this.

I'm out of ideas on this one.  I can only think that you should start to suspect something basic, such as your antimalware software or hardware drivers.  I can only assure you it doesn't do what you describe on all systems.

Certainly, this is a unique problem.  It is definitely due to something specific about my system, either the software I regularly install and use, or the hardware.

Just to reiterate...  Correct me if I'm wrong here:  You try to save a PSD file, and Photoshop goes through all the motions of saving it, but then you can't find it on disk, with either Photoshop File - Open or by looking in Explorer. 

This isn't the core of the problem, I probably shouldn't have brought it into the discussion.  What you've described only occurs if Photoshop starts having "the problem" whilst I am in the midst of using it.  Until that time, Photoshop can save/open files just fine.

The core problem: Photoshop is put into an unusable state by unknown causes.  Once in this state, Photoshop will not start new documents nor open existing documents.  It cannot be restored to a usable state.  This problem presents itself randomly and cannot be reproduced "on demand."

I've made a short video to attempt to better demonstrate/explain the problem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ehx9cFyw7A

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LEGEND ,
Jul 30, 2012 Jul 30, 2012

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Thanks for recording the video.  That fully expressed that the problem is beyond what I had perceived it to be.

When you have the situation noted occur, and you close Photoshop, do you find it still active in your Processes list in Task Manager?

-Noel

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 30, 2012 Jul 30, 2012

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No, it looks like "Photoshop.exe" closes out immediately upon exiting the application.  The "Adobe CS5.5 Service Manager" lingers, but I suspect that it is supposed to.

EDIT: Actually, it looks like the service manager eventually closes itself within a few minutes.

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