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Photoshop CS6 icons sometimes do not appear on Macintosh

Community Beginner ,
May 21, 2012 May 21, 2012

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Yes, this is a question.

I've been using my trial of Photoshop CS6 Extended for 10 days now. I have run into a peculiar problem - when saving a file Photoshop does not display any sort of icon. No thumbnail, no generic, nothing. It's not a huge problem, I can always open the image but not by double-clicking on the icon: it's just not there.

I'm wondering if anyone else has had this problem and if there is a resolution to it - or is it just a bug? I didn't have this problem with the beta version and I've repaired all permissions on my hard drive to see if that was the problem.

Any help would be appreciated.

Regards,

Clinton

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

May 25, 2012 May 25, 2012

The thumbnails in the open dialog are provided by the OS (as is most of the open/save dialog).  So there is still a problem with the OS creating or displaying thumbnails.

It's not a matter of blaming Apple without reason, just that Apple has an awful lot of bugs in the OS that don't get fixed very quickly.

Here we know that the OS is responsible for the thumbnails, that clearing the OS cache of thumbnail and metadata fixes it for some people, and that even after that the OS can't always draw the t

...

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Adobe Employee ,
May 21, 2012 May 21, 2012

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Hey Clinton,

Do you have some kind of Alpha Masks used in the Photoshop images by chance??

<< Photoshop does not contain anything called an "alpha mask">>

Thanks

Mandhir

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May 21, 2012 May 21, 2012

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It could be something like messed up registry entries (or file associations on MacOS), or a bad thumbnailing program, or problems interpreting transparency, alpha channels, etc.  So we're going to need more information.

Which OS version are you using?

Do you have any third party utilities that create thumbnails for PSD files or other image formats?

Do the files include transparency, or alpha channels?

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Community Beginner ,
May 21, 2012 May 21, 2012

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Some of them are jpg, some psd with transparency and alpha channels, some png, some tif, etc. I just installed an SSD and ran diagnostics on it, repaired some permissions (again) and verified and repaired the drive. Now some of my previously 'lost icons' are showing up, but not all. I'm on a MacBook Pro (late 2011) running OS 10.7.4.

Thanks,

Clinton

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May 21, 2012 May 21, 2012

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MacOS does have known bugs creating thumbnails for files that contain alpha channels (some intern at Apple confused them with transparency), so that could mess up some files.

But JPG files shouldn't be a problem, or PNG.

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Community Beginner ,
May 22, 2012 May 22, 2012

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But some of the files don't have alpha channels - just standard jpg or png for uploading to the web. Those were the one's tht were 'recovered' when I repaired my disk and permissions. I'll see if the others are psd files with alpha channels and let you know. You may have solved my problem, though!

Regards,

Clinton

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Explorer ,
May 22, 2012 May 22, 2012

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Clinton, I'm experiencing what sounds like the identical problem (running Mac OSX 10.6.8) ...

- It happens with .jpg, .png, .tif,.psd and Photoshop .pdf files - and therefore is not related to alpha channels

- No other app on any of the Macs in our shop, running either Snow Leopard and Lion has - or has ever had - this problem

- Re-opening the files and re-saving in the same format using any other graphics utility (Preview, Graphic Converter, AND Photoshop CS4! creates the icon successfully.

- Deleting the .DS_Store files for any given directory does not eliminate the problem

- Repairing disk permissions does not eliminate the problem

Only thing I haven't tried yet is rebuilding the entire volume in DiskWarrior - that is next.

I created 7 identical copies of the same stock photo in different file formats (.tif, .jpg, png, psd, .pdf) - Only #6 (re-opened in Preview and re-saved) and #7 (saved in Illustrator CS6) are displaying file icons.

Would love some real help from Adobe on this...

UPDATE TO THIS POST

Deleting the .DS_Store files for directory and restart appears to solve the problem...

Message was edited by: jeff@seaver.com

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May 22, 2012 May 22, 2012

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Deleting .DS_Store means you cleared the OS cache for thumbnails, which means you are seeing a problem in the OS thumbnailing.

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Explorer ,
May 22, 2012 May 22, 2012

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Thanks, Chris - apparently PS6 is very sensitive to OSX caching for thumbnails. I've had to use a utility to clear out the display settings for pretty much my entire hard drive, and after a restart, the icons are being created correctly. Unfortunately, I had 600GB of content with hundreds of thousands of folders, so it's a pain to have to do this. As I mentioned earlier, no other app in our Applications folder creates files with this problem (and I have over 350 apps installed) - and in fact none of the other CS6 apps I tried fails to create icon previews either.

A good utility for clearing DS_Store files en masse is Onyx. I also think Snow Leopard (aka Lion) Cache Cleaner does this.

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Guest
May 22, 2012 May 22, 2012

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jeff@seaver.com wrote:

...apparently PS6 is very sensitive to OSX caching for thumbnails...

It is not apparent to me what this means. Can you explain? Which is writing to .DS_Store: the OS or Photoshop?

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Explorer ,
May 22, 2012 May 22, 2012

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Please read in context of previous posts - I'm speculating that the problem of PS6 not creating icon thumbnails, while it is being blamed on Apple's OS, it is the only app we own having the problem of saving new files that don't have thumbnail icons - and that this may imply that PS6 doesn't "play well" in the sandbox with the way Apple's OS caches (stores) the files that govern any given directories' appearance. Hope that's a help - and if you're not having the problem, congratulations and no need to worry about it! 🙂

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Guest
May 22, 2012 May 22, 2012

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My confusion regards your use of the word "sensitive". I would imagine that it would be OS X/Finder that is sensitive.

I have read the context of these posts and that is why I asked for clarification on what has not yet been described.

Are you writing icon previews with Photoshop or are all previews being generated solely by OS X? ( Photoshop Preferences->File Handling->Icon ) What happens when you toggle this? When you did your test for (.tif, .jpg, png, psd, .pdf), did you use Save for Web on JPG/PNG?

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Community Beginner ,
May 22, 2012 May 22, 2012

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I, for one, am realying on Photoshop to create the icons with previews. Image Preview is set for icons. That is, generally I believe, the way the OS handles icons as well. I'm not even getting generic icons most of the time. I haven't, as a previous user did, deleted by .DS_Store library so I can't say if that will fix the problem or not. I'm going to check on the Apple boards and see if others are having similar problems.

Regards,

Clinton

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May 22, 2012 May 22, 2012

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Only the OS writes to .DS_Store -- that's where MacOS stores thumbnails, metadata, etc.

Somehow MacOS is not creating thumbnails correctly all the time , and wiping out the thumbnail cache forces it to recreate the thumbnails.

Photoshop doesn't do anything out of the ordinary when saving files, but we'll have to follow up with Apple to see why their thumbnailing might fail like that.

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Guest
May 24, 2012 May 24, 2012

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Chris Cox wrote:

...DS_Store -- that's where MacOS stores thumbnails...

I thought DS_Store was only recorded preferences for display of the particular Finder window (list view or icon view, window size, window position, etc).

When we delete (refresh) DS_Store, are we not just resetting the folder preferences to display/generate thumbnail previews stored elsewhere (resource fork/extended attributes/etc)?

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Explorer ,
May 24, 2012 May 24, 2012

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Yes, I think Chris meant this is the only setting we have control over, but you're right, thumbnails themselves are not stored in .DS_Store  - only our display prefs for that particular folder (directory). If you're having this same problem, try the techniques outlined to remove (and rebuild) all these files.

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New Here ,
Aug 06, 2015 Aug 06, 2015

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My congrats to all you geeks helping here better than Adobe or Apple.

Here is my experience.  I downloaded Unix run and rebulding the .ds_store but nothing happened.

But resetting Workspace in Windows, took care of the problem.

Thank  you all very much

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Explorer ,
Jul 02, 2012 Jul 02, 2012

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Hi Chris and folks of this discussion.

I deleted DS_store files as suggested ealier in this discussion and that did not solve my missing icon problems. I wish that Adobe and Apple had a more active relationship so that this issue could be resolved as it's a very important issue to be solved.

I belive Chris Cox of Adobe when he stated Adobe can't replicate this problem but I'm baffled why they can't.  I also offered to email data to help.

It was also suggested that we post this problem on Apple's online forum. If anyone has a specific place for me to post, please let me know. Thank you.

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New Here ,
Jul 12, 2012 Jul 12, 2012

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I too have this issue and ran Onyx as well as Cocktail PILOT, but I don't think it helped

Previews are still missing in Column View for both finder windows and in the Photoshop Open dialog box. If I switch to coverflow view, I see the previews just fine.

Sad thing is that I live in column view in the finder and in the Open and Save dialogs of Photoshop. Traversing directories with Coverflow is awful.

Is anyone else experiencing this problem only in Column View?

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New Here ,
Jul 31, 2012 Jul 31, 2012

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Doe anyone know if upgrading to Mountain Lion solved this issue?

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Explorer ,
Jul 31, 2012 Jul 31, 2012

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I saw the problem day 1 w/ ML. Ran cocktail, cleared it up, but it will likley be back again.

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Explorer ,
Jul 31, 2012 Jul 31, 2012

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I upgraded our machines to Mountain Lion, and no, that did not resolve the issue. Several desktop icons (for files) are missing since the upgrade and - lo and behold - they are listed as Adobe Photoshop-created files. Don't get me wrong, I accept Chris' statement that it is an underlying Apple problem.

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Explorer ,
Jul 31, 2012 Jul 31, 2012

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Really? Apple's problem? Then why is it only PSCS6 generated icons (ever - in my case. Painter is clunky as all get out and it never does this, in any version. This is a minor nusance, but stillannying)? If the saying" pass the buck" was not invented, software industry would've have invented it. But hey, it's the nature of the beast. I have been guilty in my life more than once(lost count) of always blaming others before myself.

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Enthusiast ,
Jul 31, 2012 Jul 31, 2012

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jeff@seaver.com wrote:

I upgraded our machines to Mountain Lion, and no, that did not resolve the issue. Several desktop icons (for files) are missing since the upgrade and - lo and behold - they are listed as Adobe Photoshop-created files. Don't get me wrong, I accept Chris' statement that it is an underlying Apple problem.

For me to accept Chris' statement he need to explain why PSCS6 is the only application that has this problem, and what did Adobe change in PSCS6 to cause this from PSCS5.

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LEGEND ,
Aug 02, 2012 Aug 02, 2012

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Was DYP wrote:

"... what did Adobe change in PSCS6 to cause this from PSCS5."

I can tell you a change to icons which nobody from Adobe has mentioned as far as I'm aware.

Ps CS5.1 save results in a multi-resolution icon in the "com.apple.ResourceFork" extended attribute of a file.

Ps CS6 save results in a single-resolution icon in the "com.apple.ResourceFork" extended attribute of a file.

Here is an example of the difference in icons between the versions of Ps. First screenshot is a CS5.1 icon which contains four images, second is a CS6 icon which contains one image.

Screen shot 2012-08-02 at 16.03.03.png

Screen shot 2012-08-02 at 16.03.17.png

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