Can’t save because "file is open or being used by another program"

JB
Posted By
J_Bodien
Feb 2, 2004
Views
1054
Replies
4
Status
Closed
I will be working on a layered object. During the process I will be saving my work. After a while, when I attempt to save the drawing, I get an error saying that I can not save the drawing because "it is still open or some other program is using the file". To save the picture I have to "save as" something else. Then when I close Photoshop (I am using 7.0 upgraded to 7.1) I try to delete the old file and I get the same message except it now says I can not delete it because it is still open or being used by another program. This used to be solved by re-booting and then I could delete the file. Now even that does not work. I am using a P-4 (3gig) processor and I have 1.5 gig of ram running on Window$ XP. I only have one hard drive and it isn’t partitioned. So I can’t move the scratch disk to another partition or drive. Does anyone know how to fix this problem. It is getting pretty tiresome.
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Y
YrbkMgr
Feb 2, 2004
J,

Your issue has been reported in the forum before. Adobe cannot reproduce it. It happens to me from time to time. My workaround is when I get the message, I duplicate the image (Image|Duplicate), then close the original without saving, and save the new duplicate as whatever file name. It works for me, your mileage may vary.

Peace,
Tony
JB
J_Bodien
Feb 3, 2004
That’s odd if we can make it happen regularily, I can’t believe that Adobe hasn’t been able to duplicate the problem. I can’t imagine what is going on in the program to cause this anomoly. Paint Shop Pro works flawlessly, for me, and was far less expensive. Unfortunately I have to use both programs to achieve the effects I need to do. Otherwise I would just use PSP.

You get the same "unable to duplicate problem" excuse for not knowing how to fix an issue from Micro$oft.

Sad
DM
dave_milbut
Feb 3, 2004
rename psicon.dll to psicon.old to fix the problem, but you will lose the ability to see ps associated files as images in the windows explorer’s large icon view.
C
cyberseano
Feb 25, 2004
What Dave Milbut said above.

Turns out this IS A KNOWN issue by the people at Adobe. Adobe blames Microsoft. Microsoft blames Adobe.
This is the main reason Adobe took out the psicon.dll in CS. If you upgraded or had PS7 already installed, CS will not remove that file so you will still get .psd thumbnails to appear. The PROBLEM is the psicon.dll is what is causing this error to happen. It has something to do with Windows locking up the file when it displays the thumbnail. Even if you’re not even looking at it. Might also have to do with the psicon.dll just being written poorly.

It kept happening to me over and over again for the last year. My admin came down and found the problem within a few minutes. This was a month ago and ever since we re-named the psicon.dll to psicon.000 I no longer ever get that error message. I can save over and over and over again without fear of that dreaded ERROR message anymore.

The downside is just like Dave said. You can no longer view .psd thumbnails in Windows Explorer but to me it’s WELL worth it compared to the frustration I was having.

Instead I just use ACDSee 6.0 to view my image files now. It views .psd files just fine.

The only small annoyance is I can’t see the .psd icons or mini image thumbnails in the "SAVE" dialogues anymore either.

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