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

Look, a few versions ago it might have been okay to try to hide behind statements like "we can't reproduce it". That you haven't taken steps even to mitigate the symptom is unforgivable at this point.

I've already provided help, in multiple ways. More help from me will require establishing a working relationship with Adobe and will need to be paid for.

I can't reproduce the problem on demand, and you can be darned sure that if I could I would provide you a clear sequence, documented with pictures and animations and whatever it takes. In fact, all it has been for me, personally is a very intermittent nuisance, since it has never led to a Photoshop crash. Perhaps I've just been lucky. But that it's rare doesn't mean it can be ignored. I see that others here have volunteered some possible ways they can reproduce it.

On the other subject, this forum interface continually ignoring the fact that I have checked [ ] Remember me is more than enough of a problem all by itself. Today, when earlier I tried to post, it just locked up when I tried to log in. I left it for a long while, but nothing happened. I have a well-tuned system with virtually no add-ons and no other glitches. The browser wasn't locked up - clearly it was a problem communicating account info between your various systems.

You pay this GetSatisfaction company to run this forum, right? Did it occur to you to lodge a complaint about a user's loss of data, instead of just saying "gee, that's never happened to me"? It's not happened to me before either. No - it must be just a glitch, so let's just try to explain it away and otherwise ignore it. NOT!

Everyone at Adobe needs to avoid the mindset of "that's just a minor glitch and can be ignored". With computers and software it's either right or it's wrong - there's no middle ground. With digital systems perfection is possible.

This is especially important if you expect to KEEP DOING BUSINESS with future evolutions of the same product and with the same customers! To have people report the same problem against multiple versions is simply inexcusable. It says that you're avoiding working on the code where the root cause lies.

I'm not going to be particularly kind, understanding, or patient on these subjects. I have given you money for licenses to use your software for decades, and I give you and your users a lot of help for free. I understand that new problems can come up, and that today's complex computing environments add their own problems, but I am never going to be tolerant of any sort of apathy about software quality.

No response, outside of a renewed effort to find and fix the long-standing problems in Photoshop, is required.

-Noel

Can you send me the file?

Hi Brett,

Thanks for letting us know where Adobe sits with this problem.

May I make a suggestion? Do you think Adobe could task maybe one or two of your great programmers to work with a handful of customers who are having this issue? A customer who will allow you to have remote access to their computers when this happens so that you may see exactly what they're doing - or perhaps offer remote access assistance right after this malfunction happens to a customer? Perhaps that way a programmer can look at whatever code is working at that time.

I'm not saying you should offer that to every Adobe customer with the problem - that would be super unrealistic, but if you could pick a small handful of people who seem to be having this problem on a regular basis and work with them, ghost their working patterns, and use the access they give you to go looking for possible triggers. I'm no expert, and I am glad Adobe is aware of the problem, but relying on your end user to figure this problem out isn't working well. It seems that we've got to hit this from a different angle cause what we've been doing isn't working.

Thanks in advance for all of your hard work. I'm looking forward to a patch being posted sometime soon.

Regards,
jf

I can replicate this problem.
A psd with many layers organized in groups, and has slices.
Select a layer without any styles/effects
Double click that layer it to bring up the Layer Styles
Click OK to close Layer Styles

Do this 10 to 20 times,
This is what faithfully triggers it for me.

Win7x64 - CS6

Disregard

It has always happened to me when I double click on a layer in the Layers pallet to open Layer Styles.

From XPx64 - CS2 through Win7x64 - CS6

Also running dual monitors.

We don't program this particular web site, that is done by GetSatisfaction.com, they host it, it's their code. Why it won't remember your login I can't say. Mine sometimes last for weeks. Sometimes days, other times hours. But I've never lost a post because I suddenly had to log in.

I'm not trying to dismiss anyone's input, but so far we aren't getting any kind of real input. Just saying "Photoshop is broken" isn't input, we need more info than that. We need to find some sort of common thread among everyone that encounters the problem. Sure, there could be a flaw somewhere in the code of Photoshop that makes it susceptible to this behavior, but there is more to it than that. Otherwise, everyone would encounter this issue.

For some people it seems to be triggered by Layer Styles, for others it's the Color Picker (as you have mentioned yourself). But I've left Photoshop open for days, opening and closing PSDs, raw files, jpegs, etc. Adding text, adding layers, applying layers styles, running actions, changing colors... And Help never popped up once. So, unless someone can give us an exact set of steps to make this happen, all we can do is shoot around in the dark. Which happens to be what we're doing on this side. There are no updates about this issue because, try as we may, we can't get it to happen over here, no matter what workflows we've followed. So, it probably will take a rocket scientist to figure out the connection because there seems to be more to factor in than just Photoshop code.

And we do take this very seriously. We are not dismissing this problem at all. But we need some good concrete information to be able to move forward. Right now we can only move in circles because of the whole mystery of the situation. If there are great engineers, better than our own, that have some information that will lead to a solution, we're all ears. Give us what you've got. We want to fix this just as badly as you want it fixed.

Getting this fixed isn't about not having enough resources, it's about a lack of actionable information. There isn't a manager somewhere saying "Stop all work on this issue." We really, really need your help to get this fixed. Saying it seems to be tied to Layer Styles is not enough. What about Layer Styles? I open Layer Styles: no Help pop-up. I change settings: still no Help. I apply settings: no Help. What are you doing differently that I can try on my side to make this happen?

As to the number of forums in use, there are two official for the Photoshop family of products. This one, which is for Bugs and Feature Requests (although it gets a lot more traffic than that). And the Forums at Adobe.com, which is for everything else. And do consider this a Bug, but there is more going on than simply bad code in Photoshop (if that is related to the cause).

This is addressed to Adobe:

First, I don't mind telling you this stupid forum is for the birds. This is the second time I had to type this because your forum doesn't remember my login, and it didn't take the first time. Who on Adobe's payroll thinks this poor level of software quality across the board is acceptable?

This "Help Pops Up" problem is not malware.

Don't fall into the trap of dismissing people's input by thinking everyone's computer is just screwed up / misconfigured / infected / broken. Mine isn't - I guarantee it. A lot of them aren't. It's your application this time.

Data corruption (likely because of an error in your code) is likely the answer, and the Help popping up is a secondary symptom. Since it seems to happen consistently with Photoshop across multiple versions, and not with any other app. Most people never have random windows just pop up - ever - even though virtually all other apps have F1 Help as well.

In Photoshop I regularly see my saved default settings for various Layer Styles get replaced by random numbers. People, including me, have reported that manipulating Layer Styles can lead to this failure. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to think there could be a connection.

Here's a suggested guideline:

One or several persons report a bug in a particular version: Take it seriously. Maybe it's a screwed up computer but check it out anyway. Make your software more defensive against the problem.

Bunches of people, including software engineers with more knowledge and capability than your own, report the problem across multiple versions: Get a team on it.

If you have more problems than you can keep up with that's a sign that you're managing your development wrongly. Take everyone off new feature develiopment and have them fix bugs until the platform is stable enough to build a new release on it. Yes, I know, some manager somewhere is now rolling his eyes over reading this, thinking, "we can't just stop everything to fix bugs". It YOU who's the problem.

Oh, and to the forum people: You need to dump both your forums (or how ever many you have) and concentrate on making EXACTLY ONE forum that actually works.

-Noel

Has anyone installed the Adobe Help Manager and then set it to Display Local Help Only: Yes

http://www.adobe.com/support/chc/?hel...

And don't update the help files.

I disabled the F1 hotkey and did this and haven't had the problem since.

I deleted my post so as to not be redundant, however i cropped out the other screen adn taskbar...there were three or four iterations opening of help, but yes your correct, but its usually the same message in the view prob details (for me). was in a rush and didnt, next time (and there will be a next time! :P)