P: "Adobe Community Help" keeps popping open (Windows)

I had a Memory dump of Photoshop as it was doing all the opening a zillion help tabs a while ago, but nobody ever wanted it, should I come across this issue again, should I take another memory dump, or would that not help?

I personally think it's memory curroption, hence it taking hours of being open before it happens.

Perhaps it's Wacom-driver related?

Anyone a "nay" on having a tablet like that installed?

I've seen trouble with Directory Opus in the past, but something completely unrelated to this (and I think it was an older version than this). Does anybody else have a similar list of applications?

Thanks for the file, but I'm not able to get the issue to occur either. I've tried it with different tools selected as well: Brush, Move, Text, probably more, but those I know for sure. I tried opening and closing Layer Styles over 100 times.

Stuff that is running when this happened:

Microsoft Security Essentials
Logitech G700 Mouse Drivers/Software
Intel Rapid Storage Drivers v10.8.0.1003
C-Media Oxygen HD Audio v7.12
Directory Opus v9
Outlook 2007
Bandwidth Monitor

I do have a Wacom tablet but it's unplugged and it did this before I had the tablet.

http://www.eplanetdesign.com/Adobe/ma...

(I have Help Manager installed, hence the error dialog instead of opening a browser). For some reason my Adobe Help Manager doesn't work.

It happened the 2nd time I opened PS this morning.

For me, if it's going to do it It will usually do it within 20 tries.
I have the move tool selected.

i5-2500k, 16gb 1333MHz G.Skill ram
Z68 motherboard
Intel Core HD 3000 Graphics, Dual monitors @1366 x 768
C: 50gb Vertex 2
D: 4 Samsung 500gb RAID 10

I tried this in Photoshop CS and cannot reproduce the bug.
First I tried following the steps exactly as described 250 times without triggering the bug. I then thought I would put a bit more stress on the memory so I changed History States from 20 to 50 and redid the entire test, but this time I made changes every time (I created a blue circle in the layer and switched inner shadow, outer shadow and outer glow randomly on and off each time I opened Layer Styles). I did this 250 times as well, but did not trigger the bug.

A couple of notes: I have never seen the bug when using layer styles, and it seems to me that the layer style error has become more common with later versions of PS. In the beginning I only saw people mention the color picker error. This is just my gut feeling, though, so don't pay too much attention to it.

My system:
Windows 7, 64 bit
4 GB RAM
Pentium dual-core CPU E5500 @ 2.80 GHz
Photoshop set to use 60% of the RAM (=1025 MB)

Another possibility could be for people to use some sort of screen capture and make a video showing the process from opening Photoshop until triggering the error. Preferably those who seem to be able to trigger the error rather quickly.

Here is one that does it a lot.
http://www.eplanetdesign.com/Adobe/ma...

Here's how I get it to do it:

Unzip it to your desktop and double click the psd to open Photoshop.

In the layers palette double click Layer 31 under the Buttons group to bring up the Layer Styles.

Click OK to close the Layer Style Dialog.

Keep doing that over and over and it will almost always end up doing it. If not, keep going back and trying.

Double clicking a layer to bring up the Layer Styles is always what triggers it for me even way back on CS2.

Hi Brett

I actually did the exact same once I had written my last post about the color picker. :-)

Also no help pop-up, but I wasn't too surprised.
When I normally work, I open the color picker two times (one for foreground color, one for background color) and choose new colors. Then I use these colors before again choosing new colors. In this way, Photoshop is actually making changes in the memory and on the scratch disk. My scrach disk was even powered down during my experiment, since nothing was written to it.
Just opening the color picker and choosing OK is in effect the same as opening the color picker and choosing cancel - no change is made in the memory (unless Photoshop writes the same color to the memory, and that would be a bit silly... I hope this makes sense).

A bit more info on this: Although I HAVE (ocasionally) had the bug appear the second I open the color picker, most often the bug appears the moment I grab the little circle to actively choose a color. And only after at least half an hour's work.

Brett, try using a complex vector smart object and do a lot of color overlays with strokes and stuff on it. In a larger composition, like a siteplan or an aerial. I work in real estate and i get this bug all the time when tweaking the design of vector smart objects (logos) or text layers with layer styles.

It doesnt exclusively happen during that, but for me, its triggered it more often. Try getting your photoshop up to a working set of memory of over 4 or 5 Gbs...it will definately happen at some point. Win 7 x64. PS can use two scratch disks and up to 75% mem. No vid accel enabled.