Could not complete your request because the file is not compatible with this version of Photoshop

[imfrustratedtothemax]

Hey all, I have a single user who's PS (CS6) that seems to always (or atleast, a great majority of the time) corrupt large .psd documents. It doesn't seem to matter if she is working with previously created files, or starting from scratch. If she saves a file that is larger than about 900MB, it corrupts and nobody can open it anymore. I've tried removing the entire CS6 design suite, and reinstalling it, but the issue persisted. I have about 10 users on identical systems that have never had issues, and she never had issues until about two weeks ago. As far as I know, nothing major changed on the system when this started happening. Does anyone have any ideas on how I can stop the file corruption?

[Chris Cox]

Could be a bad hard disk, bad RAM, a buggy disk utility, or saving to a buggy network file server.

[imfrustratedtothemax]

Saving locally, and there are 0 other indicators of failing hardware.

[Guest]

Have you tried saving as a .psb or .tif? Or saving to a different drive on the suspect system (like to a thumb drive or other attached hd)?

[imfrustratedtothemax]

They have tried it as a .tif, with no luck. I'll try giving her a flash drive and will let you know.

I just got back with the user, and she found that if she saves it as a .eps, or a flat .psd, it seems to work fine. It's just with the layers that it doesn't save correctly.

[Noel Carboni]

Is Photoshop up to date?

-Noel

[imfrustratedtothemax]

It is now. Doens't seem to change anything.

[imfrustratedtothemax]

Saving to the flash drive makes no difference.

[imfrustratedtothemax]

Any more ideas?

[Noel Carboni]

Replace that user's machine.

Nuke the problem from orbit.  It's the only way to be sure. 

-Noel

[imfrustratedtothemax]

It's a $1,000 computer that's less than 2 years old, not really the best of options mate

Still having the issue. I would be a little more willing to agree with hardware issues if not for the part where she can work on files up to ~800MB all day every day without a single corruption, but as soon as they surpase 900MB she recieves 95%+ corruption rates. If it were a hardware issue, we would atleast have a few issues working with other files.

[Chris Cox]

The only magic numbers for file sizes are 2 Gig, 4 Gig, and everything over that.

It still sounds a LOT like a hard drive or system problem.

But could also be RAM or the motherboard.

[imfrustratedtothemax]

I am aware of why those are the magic numbers. Trust me, I see where your coming from with thinking it's the system. It doesn't quite work in my head though.

RAM shouldn't be the issue or we would be seeing errors anytime the particular block in RAM is being used, not just on large files

HDD I don't think is the issue because the issues litterally drop to 0 outisde of largish photoshop documents. No issues with indesign, AI, or anything else.

OS: Again, the issues only exist within Photoshop CS6. Hell, if she makes and saves the file inside CS5, it works.

It's ONLY Photoshop CS6 that has issues. So while I know hardware is a valid concern, and the easist scapegoat, I am fairly confident that in my situation here, our hardware is fine.

[Chris Cox]

And I'm pretty confident that a problem that exists on a single system with a file size that isn't near anything that could cause problems... is almost certainly a problem with that system and not the software.   It still could be a utility program (like a font manager or antivirus).  But my bet is on the HD or RAM.

And no, only the most blatent RAM errors would show up under common use (and those would usually prevent the machine from passing POST).  More common RAM errors occur under heavy load and cause timing or voltage related problems that are not as easy to detect or repeat.

Swapping the system out would also let you track every piece of software that the user has added or modified, in addition to validating the hardware.

[imfrustratedtothemax]

Bump. We just had a customer submit us a peice of art with an identical issue. I've found that if you open the art in AI and tell it to flatten the image, it works fine. Also, if you run Advanced PSD Repair, which flattens the image, it works fine. Any idea where the layers could be casuing the corruption?

[Chris Cox]

Layers comprise most of the structure in a layered file, so are going to be most succeptable to file corruption.

For instance, the font manager corruption only happened when you had text layers in the file, because it was trying to modify the layer information after the file was written (and got it wrong).

The flattened composite image in the file is the least succeptable to file corruption, and thus the most likely to be recovered.

[station_two]

imfrustratedtothemax wrote:

…We just had a customer submit us a peice of art with an identical issue…

Surely the client/customer has a backup file?  Just wondering…

[mintcanary]

I've just had this happen, but with a small (5MB) file. Looking at this forum it seems to be hapening quite a lot but I can't find a solution. Is there a way to find out how this happened and ensure it doesn't happen again?

[Noel Carboni]

Make sure you didn't save with one extension (e.g., .jpg) but with a different file type selected (e.g., PSD).

-Noel

[mintcanary]

I'm pretty sure that wasn't the cause in my case (am surprised that's possible though).

[Noel Carboni]

It can happen, at least on a Windows system.  There's a neat little free viewer program called IrfanView that can detect that situation and offer to rename the file for you.

Another possible cause is that the file is simply corrupted, which could happen if Photoshop took an error during the saving of the file, or the disk drive has a problem.  Unfortunately there are usually no easy fixes for such things.

Make sure your copy of Photoshop is fully updated with Adobe's latest versions (Help - Updates... in the menus), and if you're on Photoshop CS6 or newer, Try disabling the background save feature of Photoshop CS6 to see if that might help.

-Noel

[GeneFreyer]

I received this error message with a TIF file recieved from a client using a PC. On my Mac (OS 10.8.4) I opened the file with Preview and then exported it. Preview could export it to a pdf, a jpg, and a png, all of which were then openable by Photoshop CS6.

[hhelmbold]

This seems to be a more common problem that what Adobe wants to admit! I have the same with a very large .psb file, even my backup of the file is not working anymore! This all after upgrading to CC 2014!

Adobe has cost me THOUSANDS of dollars since their move to CC and they just keep stuffing things up and we have to sit back and just accept it!

[rhianaw64789809]

Photshop CC 15 - Same issue. A file created last night will, now, not open and says "Could not complete your request because the file is not compatible with this version of Photoshop. I created it last night using this version of Photoshop! WTH!!!!

947MB CMYK Layered File (~18 Layers)

Adobe Photoshop CC15

Win7 Ult

8G Ram

MSI P35 Neo 2

Samsung SSD

***No errors showing on full system scan.

I am an IT professional and have been using PS since it was Photoshop. It is not my hardware. I just created a .psd that is due friday and I am having to fight through this CC shiz. C'mon Adobe. It is you! WTF!!!

[jbm007]

Stupid question coming.

Could you post a screenshot of your performance settings and scratch file configuration?

Do you do incremental saves as you add layers?