I have made and continue to make the foolish decision to rely on Photoshop on Windows for its stability. When is that open source, one-to-one, bug-free alternative going to arrive? 
I buy a lot of brushes from places like Kylebrush, GrutBrushes, etc. Both of these brush makers use tool presets, rather than brush presets. But since I started using Photoshop with these brushes, starting in February of last year, I have found that--on any random day, with no telltale signs for prediction's sake--that all of my tool presets revert to Photoshop's standard presets.
I also own a plugin called BrushBox, which organizes brush and tool presets, and incredibly necessary feature for Photoshop artists. So, when all my tool presets go missing (brushes, thankfully, remain), and I have to re-import them all on start-up, all of the work I put into organizing my 300+ tool presets, folder by meticulous folder, is thrown into disarray all over again.
This happens on both of my computers with Photoshop CC. My first computer was kind of a slower one, and I thought that could have caused it, so I switched over to my (significantly newer) computer. Nope, still happens, though less often, I think. My best guess is that it might have something to do with the amount of available memory on start up. Really just a guess, but something just seems to land and break its ankle on random startups.
I know I am not alone: I've read the forums. Someone has said that restoring preferences does not work. The same person said that reinstalling the suite does not work. I am not tempted to try either of those. Whereas brush presets have often remained for me, tool presets are just a special case.
To the person reading this, I hope you do not take offense at this, this is not directed at you. Rather, there is simply an incredibly frustrating bug that shouldn't require a resetting of preferences or re-installation. Not that I trust that works, but you know.
Please, developers, just do some more tests on your software for Windows. This might exist also on Mac. I don't know, but it's maddening.
Explore related tutorials & articles
9
Replies
It is very easy for an Add-on like an action or scripts to delete loaded tool presets, reset tool presets etc. To me it sound like an action, script or plug-in you use occasionally is using Photoshop's Presets manager and reset your tool Presets so the one you loaded are not longer loaded. It may delete all loaded presets an than loads some Adobe tool presets so it can use then confident that they have not been replace with other tool presets using the same names as Adobe's presets names. Review the Add-on you have installed that you occasionally use.
You need to find out when or what is resetting your loaded Tools presets. Not all problems are Adobe's I do not work for Adobe and I do not feel Adobe support is what it should be. Sill I have created a number of bugs of my own and Adobe Has added bugs that brake add-on I have made for Photoshop. So I still use CC 2014.
Thanks for the reply!
"It is very easy for an Add-on like an action or scripts to delete loaded tool presets, reset tool presets etc. To me it sound like an action, script or plug-in you use occasionally is using Photoshop's Presets manager and reset your tool Presets so the one you loaded are not longer loaded."
I definitely can't rule that out. However, the only plugin I had around the time it started, iirc, was Coolorus 2, which I bought because Photoshop's color picker went awry on me, and did so again some time after resetting preferences (this was before I had any 3rd party stuff). That was maybe a year and a half ago, but I don't think Coolorus 2 accesses the preset manager... if it does, I'd be interested how! Lol
Thanks for your great insight. 
I'm pretty sure this is mostly Adobe's doing, but you never know.
Thanks for chiming in!
"BrushBox does not delete presets unless the user specifically requests it to, by either clicking the trash icon or right-clicking presets or groups and selecting the delete option. BrushBox also doesn't reset presets (return to default) unless selected from the menu. When these actions are taken, it calls Photoshop's own scripting system."
This is all true. Although, in my response to Trevor.Dennis, I did have what seemed to be some odd indexing(?) issue just one time. But other than that, BrushBox deletes as intended.
"One of the most important questions is whether they're using other actions/scripts/extensions as JJMack suggests. Script and extension authors come up with very creative ways to interact with Photoshop, especially if that interaction is with the preset system. BrushBox gets around this by reading .ABR and .TPL files directly, but I've seen some extensions that use methods which actually load/unload presets in Photoshop in order to get their data."
For fear, I will abstain from those kinds of extensions. 
In my response to JJMack, I've had this issue since my first plugin, Coolorus 2, which may or may not access Photoshop's preset system. I just don't see how, but you never know. I really it's that, though.
"Furthermore, the way in which Photoshop store your presets between loads seems very problematic. When Photoshop exits, provided it didn't crash, it saves out your presets to files named Brushes.psp and ToolPresets.psp deep in a user-data folder on your hard drive. When Photoshop opens, it reads these files back in. Now, if anything went amiss when it was saving out these files, such as a PS crash or extension blocked the operation or maybe some other OS related issue, then these files are corrupt and on the next PS load, all presets are reset back to the default set. I've heard several accounts of this from my users, and it's always on Windows machines."
Aha! Thank you for this bit of information, this is great. And yes, I feel all of this. Photoshop has been ​pretty​ good about not crashing on me, but it still does occasionally. It kind of recovers my documents... at least one of them, generally.
"I am certainly not insisting that BrushBox is completely innocent at all times, I just have not found any evidence that ties it to Photoshop losing its own presets. BrushBox functions basically as a window into what is loaded in Photoshop, and it only manipulates what is loaded through Photoshop's scripting system if the user asks it to. Unless a user action is taken, BrushBox doesn't do anything."
It's quite a stable plugin, actually! And no, it does not cause the presets to vanish. It keeps all of my folders, but the folders are just empty, and that’s nothing it can control. I've re-organized everything, and this time, I have absolutely saved ALL my folders as packs of tool and brush presets, all using BrushBox. Iirc, because I'm not at the other computer right now, BrushBox allows you to import several preset packs at once: If so, this relieves a lot of headache that doing them one by one using Photoshop’s standard method. If not, it's still a great plugin, and I don’t have to recreate the folders anyway, so it’s still good.
"Also, according to W3R3W00F this problemt has been going on for a year and a half... which would predate BrushBox by about a year. I've heard this from some other users as well, that this has been an intermittent issue happening for quite some time. Leda (who handles BrushBox customer support) experienced her presets being reset completely as well, and that happened to her a couple years ago."
Thanks again for the reply, and also the much needed plugin!
Thanks for chiming in!
"BrushBox does not delete presets unless the user specifically requests it to, by either clicking the trash icon or right-clicking presets or groups and selecting the delete option. BrushBox also doesn't reset presets (return to default) unless selected from the menu. When these actions are taken, it calls Photoshop's own scripting system."
This is all true. Although, in my response to Trevor.Dennis, I did have what seemed to be some odd indexing(?) issue just one time. But other than that, BrushBox deletes as intended.
"One of the most important questions is whether they're using other actions/scripts/extensions as
JJMack suggests. Script and extension authors come up with very creative ways to interact with Photoshop, especially if that interaction is with the preset system. BrushBox gets around this by reading .ABR and .TPL files directly, but I've seen some extensions that use methods which actually load/unload presets in Photoshop in order to get their data."
For fear, I will abstain from those kinds of extensions.
In my response to JJMack, 've had this issue since my first plugin, Coolorus 2, which may or may not access Photoshop's preset system. I just don't see how, but you never know.
"Furthermore, the way in which Photoshop store your presets between loads seems very problematic. When Photoshop exits, provided it didn't crash, it saves out your presets to files named Brushes.psp and ToolPresets.psp deep in a user-data folder on your hard drive. When Photoshop opens, it reads these files back in. Now, if anything went amiss when it was saving out these files, such as a PS crash or extension blocked the operation or maybe some other OS related issue, then these files are corrupt and on the next PS load, all presets are reset back to the default set. I've heard several accounts of this from my users, and it's always on Windows machines."
Aha! Thank you for this bit of information, this is great! And yes, I feel all of this. Photoshop has been ​pretty​ good about not crashing on me, but it still does occasionally. It kind of recovers my documents... at least one of them, generally.
"I am certainly not insisting that BrushBox is completely innocent at all times, I just have not found any evidence that ties it to Photoshop losing its own presets. BrushBox functions basically as a window into what is loaded in Photoshop, and it only manipulates what is loaded through Photoshop's scripting system if the user asks it to. Unless a user action is taken, BrushBox doesn't do anything."
It's quite a stable plugin, actually! And no, it does not cause the presets to vanish. It keeps all of my folders, but the folders are just empty, and that’s nothing it can control. I've re-organized everything, and this time, I have absolutely saved ALL my folders as packs of tool and brush presets, all using BrushBox. Iirc, because I'm not at the other computer right now, BrushBox allows you to import several preset packs at once: If so, this relieves a lot of headache that doing them one by one using Photoshop’s standard method. If not, it's still a great plugin, and I don’t have to recreate the folders anyway, so it’s still a good deal.
"I like BrushBox, but it can get its knickers in a twist, and is likely behind your issue. Are you strictly using the
BrushBox interface to control your brush sets? It doesn't like you alternating between Photoshop's native system
and BrushBox."
I actually bought BrushBox one week ago on the 2nd, after endlessly sifting through my presets... I'd been eyeing it, but dang it that search function sold it for me. Best thing ever.
One time, I was defining brush presets (which automatically show up instantly in Brushbox) and then making modifications to them in the brush engine. Then when I saved the new, modified brushes via BrushBox, I made a new copy with all of the modifications, so it was basically a before-and-after thing. It's hard to describe. And I might be using it incorrectly, but I tried using the capture current feature but it didn't work out for that so I ended up making new ones, which isn't bad. Anyway, When I would delete the old one, the new one would end up taking on the static, unmodified settings of that old one. I think what happened may have been an indexing issue somewhere, possibly due to a conflict with Adobe's preset manager or something. The next time I opened Photoshop, Brushbox notified me that my presets seemed to be out of sync, so I synced them up, and after that everything in it was up and running just fine. It’s a smart little plugin!
I will say that I do sometimes alternate between Adobe's and BrushBox, so I think I will absolutely stick with BrushBox, as it really is just the best solution right now, as far as I'm concerned. However, I doubt that was what caused the presets to go *poof*, and definitely not for a year and a half.
Well well well!
Today my tool presets have once again vanished; this time, my BrushBox tool presets have not.
The first time I organized them, I was organizing tool presets that where loaded via Photoshop's standard method in the first place, however long ago that was. Since BrushBox depended on these (I think), it lost all of the tool presets when Photoshop did.
The second time I organized them, I re-imported the tool presets using BrushBox only, completely independent of Photoshop's method. I saved them all into groups, so when I lost them all today, BrushBox still kept a hold of them, right as I left them. Holy cats.
Thinking back on the readme, it says to not use Photoshop's preset manger. I guess I didn't think I was, but if I was somehow accessing it indirectly, I think I know why.
Conclusion: BrushBox has saved my sanity. Thank you all for your time in replying, and thanks to Derrick for this extension!
Hey, sorry for the late reply,
A few days ago, I tried using Actions to load brushes, but I think because I loaded them with BrushBox while recording an action, nothing happened. D'oh. 
I need to try again, recording Ps' standard way of importing presets. if all goes well, I will try to remember to let you know!
However, I noticed another interesting correlation that may allay some concern for you guys, and I noticed it when I caught myself doing something quite mindlessly. Now I don't think it has been the issue 100% of the time, but I will usually have Ps up all day after loading it and close it while I shut down my main computer, because it's quite slow to close the program. Extremely foolish of me! I made absolutely sure after that that I waited until it was totally shut down, and behold, my problem seems to be allayed for now!
Again, this seems like a reasonable cause for corrupted tool presets, but again, I believe it happened on my older machine too when I used Ps on there. I still think it was a lack of memory, with the computer having 32 bit architecture and only 4GB of RAM, likely sharing it with a host of other applications. Who knows.
Anyway, I will try to do those Action things correctly, and soon. Until then, you can assume that my problem was fixed by remedying my own mindlessness for the time. Apologies for any perhaps false alarms! If my problem does persist outside of my ignorance, then I will try to repost here and let you know.
Thanks again!
-Jon
AdChoices