C Has anyone else had this problem? Am running Photoshop CS on a Titanium Powerbook G4, 640 Mb RAM. Running OSX 10.3.1 It will open the first file with no problem, maybe the second and third but sooner or later I will ask it to open a file and the cursor just goes into spin mode. The file does not open until I click on the desktop and then back into Photoshop. Odd huh? It happens whether I leave the other files open or not. I assume this is some sort of memory problem but could be completely wrong. Any suggestions welcome.
I’m having this same problem under both 10.3.3 and 10.3.4, and I found this old topic whilst searching for a solution. Has this – as has been suggested in another thread I found – anything to do with the scanning for currency in images that Photoshop CS does? I certainly hope not.
although Adobe claims that this does not affect the time it takes to open a file many think it does. Make sure you have al the latest plugins and additions for PSCS
Thanks. The only update to PSCS that applies to me is Camera Raw 2.2, which I have. Panther is bang up to date, too.
It’s not that it’s opening files slowly-but-normally (which I could maybe accept as a result of PS doing its police work). What’s happening, seemingly randomly, when I try to open a file by double-clicking it in the Finder (with PS already running), the watch (not the beachball) starts spinning. I could wait forever and nothing will happen, but if I click back on the finder, PS will respond in the background and open the image. I can then click on PS and continue working as normal.
Ah…im getting this as well…10.3.4, no updates to CS…CS is standard. Im not getting the beachball, i just get nothing…its like PS and the OS arent handshaking.
It doesnt seem to be anything to do with the size of the file to be opened but perhaps is something to do with the size of file that is already opened. I have to double click, 2, 3, 4 times before the file opens…sometimes i have to jump from the desktop into CS, back to the desktop, double click the file again…and then it opens. Its an everyday occurance for em.
Seems to have started around 10.3.4 update for me.
I’ve been getting this too. If I double-click on a file, it won’t even begin to open. If I click between the photoshop icon in my dock and back on the finder, or the window where I double clicked my file, it will seem to "wake up" and you can see the tiny progress bar moving along my photoshop icon in the dock. Sometimes it will stop partway through and I’ll have to give it a couple more clicks between finder and photoshop and it will continue. When the progress bar gets to the end and disappears, the file will not pop up by itself until I click once again on the photoshop icon. In addition, sometimes the file will open up *behind* the finder window, and clicking on the image will not bring it forward while I’m in photoshop. Again, I have to click between finder and photoshop to actually bring the image to the front and be able to work on it.
What maximum percentage of dynamically changing available memory is assigned to Photoshop?
If it’s too much, the OS and other applications won’t have enough to run in and will slow everything down. If it’s too little, then Photoshop won’t have enough.
think i have my % set high….but then i have 2.5gb of ram to play with and i only run PS on its own…there should be more than enough for the OS….also it can happen when im opening small files, but it does seem to happen when i have a large file already open…the % memory usage hasnt changed…but the slow opening is becoming more and more frequent.
Additionally, try booting off the install CD and using Disk Utility from there. It will let you Repair Disk (different from repairing permissions) only if you are booted from the CD or another volume other than your startup volume.
Don’t forget to Repair Permissions BEFORE AND AFTER every system update as well as BEFORE AND AFTER installing anything that uses an installer.
Additionally, try booting off the install CD and using Disk Utility from there
Just curious Ramón, have you heard anything about that not being a great idea anytime after the first OS update? Something about too many changes for the disk version to be completely accurate.
If you’re concerned with that, you could install the latest version of Disk Utility (if it has indeed changed, I don’t know that for a fact) onto a separate disk (not your boot volume), then boot from either the CD or a separate drive, then do the REPAIR DISK thing.
You can Repair Permissions from the startup volume, it’s only REPAIR DISK that has to be done while booted from a different drive.
ok…had to nuke the site from orbit today due to cocktail crashing (me trying to do too much at once…ooops) and wrecking something to do with the clipboard.
so with a clean formatted and freshly installed system and PS CS i tried it again, 2 mins later i was getting the problem again, this time under less load.
Im wondering if its an OS thing rather than a PS thing…perhaps the OS isnt talking quickly to PS
Also, after the reinstall, the OS had put my hard disks to sleep when it felt like it, i switched it off now though and havent had a chance to test it…related??
They sound ominous but used sparingly are not much of a threat. CHUD is much less of a mouthful than Computer Hardware Understanding Development Tools, a suite of utilities released by Apple to help Mac developers fine-tune their hardware and software.
Lest anyone here get the idea that the suite is a means to improve performance or solve problems on the Mac: it isn’t; it’s meant for developers, not end-users. I mentioned it only because of its ability to change the hard disk sleep property.
At last!, other people are having this problem! Hopefully we’ll get a fix sooner or later as it’s really hampering my work.
I’m OSX 10.3.4, everything updated, using Photoshop CS on a 867mhz G4 with 1gb RAM. No haxies or anything dodgy installed.
I’ve had this behaviour I think since I updated from 10.3.2 to 10.3.3.
I get exactly the same behaviour as PeterK. On opening 1 file in 3, Photoshop comes to the front, and for small images it does nothing until you click on another app or the desktop, and then Photoshop seems to ‘wake up’ and opens the file (sometimes takes a few tries at this), and for larger images I get the progress bar, it stops about a quarter of the way and will only continue when Photoshop is in the background (again only sometimes).
I have a separate partition for my Adobe Scratch Files, and I have Photoshop set at 50-70%. Although it doesn’t matter what I set it at, I still get the same behaviour.
Now that a number of people are getting this repeatable problem, it’s definetely a bug, I suspect with the OS rather than PSCS.
its getting worse here…its doing it now with tiny files off the hard drive with nothing open in PS.
have wiped and reisntalled OS and PS…10.3.4 clean OS, no gimmicks, all the updates…comp gets left on so the crons can run (tried cocktail as well)…repaired everything i can. Memory % makes no difference…got 2.5gb anyway. Scratch on separate drive as well.
Im still undecided if its OS or PS related, but as I use PS more than anything else on my machine, PS is the one thats showing the strongest symptoms.
<< With this in mind I think it’s something to do with the old problem of updating the OS doesn’t carry over the ‘Adobe Unit Types’ file. >>
Have you tried to do this: Open your Previous System folder. Find "Adobe Unit Types". Copy it into: <Panther volume>/Library/ScriptingAdditions/ .
If you do not have the necessary file on your HD, do ALL of the following:
Trash your Photoshop prefs. including "com.adobe.Photoshop.plist"; Search for "AdobeFnt" and trash all of them except for AdobeFnt.db; Repair Permissions: Re-install Photoshop: Repair Permissions AGAIN; Shut down and reboot your Mac.
I find that shutting-down the Mac at night and running Cocktail produces a far more responsive System than leaving the machine on 24/7.
Also check for bad fonts and get rid of troublesome Font Management programs. [Did I ever mention that I hate Suitcase?!]
None of the things on my list would be included in your "format reinstall" — if you mean reinstalling the System and Photoshop — and ALL would still need to be done
If you mean wiping and reformatting the HD, and doing a clean-install of OSX, you still will need to: Repair Permissions: Install Photoshop: Repair Permissions AGAIN; Shut down and reboot your Mac.
Thanks for your input Ann, just to give a bit of history I had the original ‘unit types’ problem, and a reinstall of PSCS solved the problem.
However I’ve still got the recoccuring problem of the delay in opening files as described in this post.
I have tried another reinstall, but with no luck. I haven’t tried the exact procedure you have outlined however.
This only happens on 1 Mac in my studio; the other 5 operate fine, and all exhibited the original ‘unit types’ problem, which was solved by a reinstall.
I do run Suitcase as well, I will disable this and try your procedure and will report back.
++++++++++ Trash your Photoshop prefs. including "com.adobe.Photoshop.plist"; Search for "AdobeFnt" and trash all of them except for AdobeFnt.db; Repair Permissions: Re-install Photoshop: Repair Permissions AGAIN; Shut down and reboot your Mac ++++++++++
However, Photoshop still delays in opening files; still exhibits the same behaviour as before. Any further suggestions welcome.
nope…just one external…thats the way it is for now. Everything else is zippydoodah, and it can happen when PS is just open with no docs…ram isnt an issue either with 2.5gb to play with just with the OS and PS.
Hasnt happened to me in ID or AI or any other app that i’ve noticed to date, but then PS is what gets the hammering on my machine.
I have 2 internal HD’s, 1 is a 60gb & the other a 120gb. The 60gb is split into 2 partitions, one for the system (55gb) and the other an Adobe Scratch disk (5gb). The other disk is used for work, & I have tried using the other drive for a scratch disk but still the same. (Ramón G Castañeda) I don’t think the problem is a disk problem because this only occurs with PSCS, all other applications are working normally. My system is rock solid, the restart that was required for your procedure was the first one in at leasst 4-5 months.
The trouble is that you have both the System and Photoshop’s Scratch on the SAME hard drive — having them on separate partitions won’t help at all because the same read-wtite head is still having to do two different things and it can’t do both at once.
And 5 GB for Photoshop’s Scratch if probably far too little for the sort of work that you are doing.
Also, try reducing Photoshop’s RAM usage to about 65%.
Ramon, the disk related idea used to hold sense with me when PS had a heavy document open, but i get this sometimes when its got nothing open, just the app.
I’ve varied the memory usage, but with 2.5gb and just PS and the OS, i’d be shocked if the OS needed more than 1/2gb to sit in the background and do very little…i wouldnt think it impossible, but i would be shocked.
What we are trying to tell you is that there’s something that is accessing your disk, which is causing the delay. Not knowing what else you have on your machine or what your settings are, it’s impossible to tell. Of course reformatting the drive would not remedy this.
Do you have the drives set to go to sleep when not in use?
Ramon, how do you know something else is accessing the disk? I don’t think it is, there’s no disk activity when it does it, other applications run in the background fine.
Perhaps the term "delay" is misleading. It isn’t a delay as such (i.e. you open a file and PSCS slows down or stops and then eventually opens the file), when I get the problem, PSCS just stops and won’t continue until you click on another application.
However, your disk activity related reply has made me think of what’s PSCS is doing when we get this pause.
I opened PSCS & Activity Monitor, to see what PSCS was doing when I got this pause.
When opening files ok, CPU% was around 53%. When the pause happens, CPU% goes up to 95%.
The ‘green’ bar in the Activity Monitor’s window is all the way up to the top. It stays at this % until you click somewhere else where it quickly drops to 0% in the background.
how do you know something else is accessing the disk?
That’s what usually causes delays when you’re opening files. There’s no ironclad guarantee, just an educated guess.
Do you happen to have the File Browser open and Allow Background Processing enabled?
Another thing is that Photoshop CS builds the whole scratch disk from the get go, as soon as you open a file. If it encounters delays because anything else is accessing the disk, or for any other reason encounters a delay in building the scratch disk, you’ll see a delay. That’s why, as Ann suggests for this and other reasons, it’s an advantage to have the scratch disk set to a separate drive other than the boot drive.
There’s considerable confusion in this thread because we seem to be addressing issues experienced by at least two different users, Progress and Sartori, so there’s ambiguity in the responses.
As satori mentioned, I think the word delay is not the right description. It halts the opening of the file entirely. If the file is big enough to have a progress bar upon opening, it doesn’t show up on screen, but it can be seen in the little progress bar over the photoshop icon in the dock. What I witness is that when the file is double-clicked, nothing happens, and nothing will begin to happen until some other app or desktop or finder window is clicked on. Only then will the progress bar show up and proceed as normal. If I click back on photoshop, sometimes the progress will suddenly stop partway through. It will stay frozen like this, partly opened for as long as I don’t click on any other window. If I click on a window again, the progress bar will start moving again and the file will continue opening. I’ve tried the "adobe unit types" fix as well, with no luck. My guess is some kind of OS problem. There’s something not communicating properly between the OS and photoshop.
As an aside, are there any Adobe people reading this thread? Usually we hear some kind of response from folks like Chris Cox. They may be looking into it and not replying until they find something, or maybe nobody’s been made aware of this problem yet?
have a firewire 400 external 120gb drive set to primary scratch for PS, AI is set to use the sole internal.
no internal, and there’s no likelyhood of getting one.
one thing i did find in the power preferences is that you can set the processor to save power…so i’ve set it onto high power all the time rather than the default automatic.
I can see where your going Ann, but I dont see that PS should need a second internal SATA just to open files when i click them on a system with 2.5gb of ram and nothing open in PS or running at the same time.
Is anyone else on anything but 10.3.4 and experiencing delays?
Unfortunately, I suspect that using an external FWD may be the source of the trouble but try running Illustrator’s scratch on the FWD too — it might be better than using your System HD.
I asked about second internal SATAs because I found Photoshop CS was surprisingly slow on a new 2GHz/Dual G5. Once I installed the second drive, EVERYthing in Photoshop sped-up. For me, a second drive was an essential purchase.
If you have Photoshop’s scratch on your System drive, it has to continually wait for the System swap-file to do its thing because the single set of heads can’t be writing to two different places at the same time.
To add to Ann’s last post, remember that I already mentioned that Photoshop CS (not v 7.0.1) sets the whole scratch right from the start, in opening the file.
Yes, I have a second internal HD (120gb), and the boot drive is on the original HD (60gb). I’ve tried changing the scratch disk to this 2nd HD, and still get the same result.
I agree with PeterK, I think it’s an OS problem, the OS and PSCS don’t seem to be communicating properly.
Why does the CPU usage go from 53% when opening files ok, up to 95% when PSCS pauses? PSCS is trying to do something, and I don’t think it’s accessing anything, it just gets stuck until you click on some other process.
Can the other users experiencing the problem, try the activity monitor to see whether there set-up does the same?
Is there anyway we can let Adobe Support know of this problem?
I have a second internal HD with my system on one of its partitions, and my original, 10gb HD is set as scratch.
As has been mentioned, this isn’t really a delay or slowdown, but a failure to open PS files from the Finder normally. A failure which can be worked around by repeatedly clicking back on the Finder. It happens with all file sizes, but larger files usually require more switching back and forth between Photoshop and the Finder before they open.
I get nothing too. i’m running 10.3.4, 1.6ghz 1.25gb RAM, no second hard drive. I also see photoshop’s usage hovering around 90% while it’s in its frozen state, so it’s trying to do something.
amendment, I get that too, (maybe the more appropriate term would be "stopwatch" because it actually doesn’t spin it’s hands), although it changes to a regular mouse cursor once I’ve moved it, as though even the OS has decided I’m not actually doing anything at the moment, just waving my cursor around. And I’m not sure if I mentioned this before, but sometimes after making it open by clicking between windows, the document window will actually open behind a finder window even though photoshop is the active app in the foreground. I can still grab the document window and move it around, but it stays behind the finder window until I click between apps or windows again, then the document will pop back to the front.
my system is pure Adobe CS suite standard + AE + 10.3.4 installed off the disk (no 9). No extra fonts, no other apps, plugins, extras, gizmos or nitrous. Theres no MS apps or font management.
The images dont contain text.
It happens when the images are small, big, when there are some open and when there are none open. The images can be tiff, tga, jpg or psd.
The three basic steps I would take when your Mac is acting sluggish are;
1.– Repair Permissions;
2.– Clear ALL Caches;
3.– Zap the PRAM.
Regarding number one: OS X’s UNIX framework uses a complex permissions system to control access to all the files and folders on the hard drive. If any permissions are off, performance will suffer.
As for number two, Cocktail can help clear ALL Caches. Caches are just copies of regularly used stuff used by the OS in order to save time later on; but when caches accumulate, the exact opposite is the result. If you were to verify this manually, you’d want to make sure that the contents of Library > Caches and username > Library > Caches have been cleaned out. (Web access will slow down a bit after that, as those caches are cleaned also.)
Personally, I like Cocktail because it keeps clumsy old me from accidentally deleting stuff I wasn’t supposed to.
In connection with number three, the OS stores settings in preference files, but some information is kept on the PRAM chip. Zapping it, i.e. setting it back to its factory defaults, can clear some confusion. Just hold Command Option P R keys during startup until you hear the chimes two or three times.
Finally, even if your documents have no vector fonts or no fonts at all, bad fonts or duplicate fonts can and do cause all kinds of grief. I’d check all fonts too.
ok, as a shortstop…repaired permissions (again)…restarted.
PS baulked on an image after about 20 mins (no other images open)…a jpeg (having previously opened one fine)…the watch was seen (indiciting PS doing something)…clicking to the desktop i got the SPBOD…couldnt get PS back, but after 30 secs the image opened.
Could it be some cache isnt cleared properley after working on some files and closing them down. I am only getting this after working on files after a while…i havent had it on a machine startup and opening a file from afresh.
<< my system is pure Adobe CS suite standard + AE + 10.3.4 installed off the disk (no 9). No extra fonts >>
But there almost certainly are extra fonts.
Do a search for "Fonts" on your HD and just look at all the places where they can hide.
The System/Library/Fonts could be where the trouble starts with .dfonts such as Helvetica and Times. Replace these with the PostScript fonts which you find in: HD/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Fonts/Reqrd/Base.
And take Suitcase and FontReserve off your machine for the moment.
On cleaning the cache files, the problem reappeared straight away.
I’ve just discovered something else as well, and it would be interesting to see if progress, PeterK, and the others have this aspect to the problem as well.
It’s not only when I open a file, it’s also when a run a large filter as well, in fact anytime a progress bar comes up for any length of time.
I’ve just opened a 100mb+ file, to run a median filter on it. This filter got so far and then stopped, only when I clicked to another process did it continue. When I opened Activity Monitor and brought PSCS to the front, it went up to 95% again. On clicking on any other process, it went down to around 50%.
Tried cleaning user, local & system caches, still the same.
Just as a thought, I re-partitioned my system about 4 months ago using Carbon Copy Cloner. Although I don’t remember the problems starting around this time, and other Mac’s that have been CCC’d haven’t got this problem, could it be a link between all of us who system exhibit this behaviour?
CCC is nice in that it give you a good starting point as it lets you move your system to a new drive and all but I have always had problems with the copied system.
After having used CCC I always repair permissions, do an Archive and install on the system, repair permissions, update to latest system, repair permissions, then I’m back to normal.
last time I used CCC to move the system to a new 120gig drive my Camera RAW plugin did not work after doing the Archive and Install everything was back to normal. I did not notice a problem opening the files because I was preoccupied with getting Camera RAW working.
Edit: I also had to install photoshop to the desktop to get double clicking on files back.
This is a long shot, but since the problem persists with no relief in sight, another idea can’t hurt. Has anybody who is experiencing the problem tried temporarily turning journaling off? A search through this thread didn’t turn up any reference to journaling.
There have been reports that, under certain circumstances and probably due to a bug in the OS, some very large files (including invisible ones that may have bloated to unreal sizes) cannot be deleted while journaling is on. I’m speculating that some huge invisible file has not been removed as intended and it keeps growing. If I were experiencing the problem, I’d temporarily disable journaling, run a utility like Cocktail to delete all caches, then re-enable journaling.
I’m experiencing this problem on my G4 Titanium. OS10.3.4. Ram use set to 60% (of 867Mb). I believe it’s the identical problem: After working in Photoshop for a while when I double click a file (whether an image is already open or not and unrelated to size (large/small .tif/.jpeg/.psd) I get no SBBOD, but when I click on the desktop or another application the image opens in the background. Happens even if all other programs are closed, as well as the File Browser and all pallets except the toolbar and the info pallet.
Never noticed this before, but I’ve been opening a lot of files on this laptop the last few days. I did recently repair disk permissions, empty all caches and run Diskwarrior. I also defragmented my drive with Norton. I had thought this wasn’t as necessary with OSX, but discovered my partition was very fragmented even though I had over 4Gb free. I have a separate scratch partition, which I know doesn’t speed photoshop up under normal contitions, but does keep an unfragmented area free.
No ideas, but thought I should add my experience since I’m always hearing "If this were a CS or OS problem we’d be hearing from others"
havent tried it…but the problem seems to have dissapeared for the past week or so…didnt dissapear after doing anything, just doesnt seem to do it again.
one question, is opening from the desktop where people experience the delay?
Progress – it’s not just from the desktop, it’s from any folder.
Ramon – tried journaling, still the same.
Ric – it’s strange that you’d never noticed the behaviour before – this makes me think that the problem is more widespread than people realise.
If you’re opening files, and switching between apps a lot, chances are you’d never have noticed this problem. I open loads of PSCS images every day, in small batches of 20-30, so I’ve maybe noticed this behaviour more quickly than others.
Just as a test, can anyone who thinks they don’t have this problem, please do this simple test:
Collect together a few small PSCS files, say around 10, no more than 1mb each.
From the desktop, double-click the first and wait until it opens. Then click back on the folder and double-click the next and wait until it opens. Don’t click on any other app until each file has opened. Carry on until all the images have opened. Try this a couple of times.
If you notice a pause in Photoshop opening, then don’t click anywhere, just leave it until it opens. If it never opens, and only by clicking on another app will make it open, then you’ve got this problem.
Until more people post with this problem, Adobe won’t bother investigating, so please try it!
Why don’t you just Shift or Cmd.-click to select the images that you want to open from inside File Browser? I find they open instantly, one after the other, that way.
Ann, using the file browser isn’t always the most efficient means of opening files especially if the files havent got previews…they can take longer to load than just booting them off the destop/folder, sometimes the old desktop force of habit kicks in as well. Also, the annoying order of opening problem needs to be avoided manually.
Funnily enough, i havent had the problem in a week or so…but then i havent been working on heavy files…i’m wondering if thats something to do with it. It’s not necessarily when heavy files are opened, it can happen with no files open and tiny files being opened…but it seems to be when i "have" been working on heavy files. Scratch/swap not clearing at the right time/properly?
Just to clarify, did you actually look for and delete strange, large visible or INVISIBLE files manually AFTER disabling the journaling feature? (That’s the whole purpose of turning it off.)
Just an observation- I have been observing this same behavior on a G4 using Photoshop CS. Today I individually opened approximately 250 tiffs (scans) did some clean up and saved them to the original location with a new file name. I had the hang happen only twice. Both times I did not allow time for the window to update with the new file name and/or did not allow the preview to appear before double clicking the next file icon to open it. When I waited on all the others, they opened with no problem.
