P: Blank home screen, no recent files - EVERY 3 DAYS for over a year!

Hey ​@Tomas-B 

When you get a moment, could you let us know which version of Photoshop you’re using? A screenshot of the issue would also help us take a closer look.
As a quick first step, try clearing the file list in Preferences > File Handling by setting “Recent file list contains” to 0, clicking OK, and then setting it back to 20 or higher. Also make sure that “Auto Show the Home Screen” is turned on in Preferences > General.
Thanks so much for your help on this
Alek

I’m serious. I work on several files in Photoshop, then close the program and turn my computer off, then I travel to the other side of the city, open Photoshop again and the recent file list is empty.

Fix your stuff, Adobe. This is trash for the money you’re asking.

@CMass Hi again! My recent files are still disappearing from the home screen. I had a full 2 miraculous weeks where they were fine, showing up every day as they should. But now, gone again.

Has the team found a fix yet? Last I heard from you, they had managed to replicate the event, so I'm hoping that by now, there is a way to permanently fix this?

Thanks so much, look fwd to hearing from you.

L

Hi!! Thank you so much to you and the Team for all your efforts in helping me!

So, over the year+ its been like this, I search, find and do whatever Adobe mentions on the website under advice for tech issues; there have been a few differing answers and some are counterinutitive to other answers. Example: change Adobe folder names to .old but then another page says no, dont do that, change UXP folder name to ~UXP.

So I have done both of those at different times.

Then another bit of advice said to delete folder contents of the Welcome folder, so I have done that a few times.

Its all now very hazy as to what was done most recently. However I have uninstalled and reinstalled a good few times, and at one point a while back I was given the Adobe CleanUp tool and I have used that in various ways too, but the issue has persisted.

My prefs are not something I cant just select again easily, so I am very happy to remove all things Adobe from my desktop and start again with a fresh install and fresh folders etc. 

I have had several CD-installed versions of PSD and Illust over time, before Creative Cloud even became a subscription thing, and have uninstalled & deleted all that were not 2025, but version 2021 still appears in my C:/Adobe folder, without me putting it there, and it has been previously deleted, so thats weird.

When I have done uninstalls and reinstalls, I have selected dont keep prefs on a few of the occasions and then set up my prefs again. But something must be being saved permanently in the C: drive because the issue persists.

Do you think that my starting from scratch/fresh as if I had never had Adobe on my PC ever, would be a good idea?

If so, how to remove EVERYTHING correctly on my C and D drive that might interfere with a fresh install?

I dont use the Cloud to store any work, ever, so am not in need of any folders which pertain to it and which may be intefering? I also dont use Microsoft OneDrive, where CC wants to default saving things.

I kinda feel if I start from fresh, it will save the Team and yourself a lot of hassle and give my system/app to begin again?

What do you think?

@lornas79690833  Good news! The team reproduced the issue using the details you shared, so thank you for that!

Now that they have a better understanding of what's going on, they have a few follow-up questions to help narrow things down. This type of issue typically occurs when the Photoshop preferences file is missing or corrupted. They've only been able to reproduce it under those conditions.

In addition to reply with screenshots earlier, I forgot to add that cwertain preferences dont work either. Perhaps prefs are the sole cause? They are always the same for me, I always have the same values set, buit I can tell some dont work. Example: New Layer When Brushing - doesnt happen, then once it did and its Oooo, great, but then back to not happening the next time etc. Choosing where the transformation values show during scaling etc, also either work as per preset or not. I have reset prefs a few times but it remians 'faulty', including the obvious not showing recent files on Home. Prefs do not work as they should, even after uninstall and reinstalls.

Thanks 🙂

@CMass  thank you XX.

I did send the screenshots when asked before at the start, but will share todays' below. Files I worked on hours ago are not there.

In answer to your points:

1. When you open the File > Open Recent menu in Photoshop, do you see any files listed there? = NO
2. When you go to the Home screen, is the Recent section completely blank, or does anything appear there? BLANK
3. After opening a local file in Photoshop, does the file show up on the Home screen or under File Open Recent? = BOTH, ONCE OPENED FROM FILE LOCATION, BUT GONE WITHIN 3 DAYS.
4. Could you describe exactly what you see on the Home screen—does it show a blank space, an error, or anything else? = ON LAUNCHING PS, the following screenshots are what I see. 

First screen which opens on launching PS is "Your Files".  It does not open on HOME, but every option is empty anyhow.

If I select "HOME", this is what is seen:

And as for "Recent Files" in Menu:   

Then, after opening a file from folder location and working on it, saving it and returning to Home:

Recent File seen after opening it from folder location, saving it and returning to "Home" - it is there and the menu list shows it too. But both will be empty within 3 days. I worked until 2:30am last night/morning and what I was working on has disappeared from PS Recent and Home views. I have used an example file for purposes of sharing now and it is there because I opened file location, saved file and returned to Home. But it will be gone within days.

Thank you so much for your efforts to help.

This has been going on for over a year now! I have used PS since 1998 and I just stick to the same processes of file saving and preferences etc, moving on with similar as the versions get newer and newer. I dont veer far off-piste, and update PS immediately when new version is out.

I have uninstalled PS countless times and reinstalled it. I have reset preferences countless times. I have used Adobe's CleanUp tool and 'erased' everything many times, so I dont know why it keeps on happening, as if there is a default somewhere in the Adobe program files on my pc. I have deleted them all too and reinstalled, same thing.

Thanks so much XX