P: Doesn't save files to external drive formatted for ExFat - macOS 10.15 Catalina

I had this issue resolved but since the last Photoshop update for Mac it has returned?! Latest OS and Photoshop version. Also, I am using an external Ex-FAT disk. It stops saving at around 90% and I have to force quite Photoshop and re-start my Mac. Help! 

Convert your SSD into Apfs résolve problem

I am running PS 2020 on a iMac Pro running CatalinaOS version 10.15.2.

After updating to PS 2020, I found that I was unable to save a file from PS to my Samsung 4TB SSD. When I would save, it would start to save the file and then reach a random percent in the process and just stop. When this would happen, PS would become unresponsive. I would then need to force quit the program. Even after force quitting, PS would remain unresponsive. I would be unable to restart the program until I restarted my entire system. This has been very frustrating.

While reading the Adobe Support Community pages, I found out about issues that might occur if the write speed of PS and the external HD are different and discovered a possible work around. 

My SSD was connected via USBc to USBc cable. The SSD with this cable would have a very high write speed. My thought is that the write speed is too fast for PS to keep up, causing it to freeze. I swapped out the cable for a USBc to USBb and after doing so was able to save to my SSD. 

With PS 2019, I was able to make this save via the USB c to c cable. However, with PS 2020 I am not. What changed? 

If you need more information, please let me know and I will do my best to provide it.

Geoff

I reapet solution ... for use external USB or TB Hard drive format on APFS everything woks fine .. the problem is Catalina not photoshop 

I've spoken to Apple and it seems that a number of people have the same issue. The workaround is to erase your hard drive (after saving everything) and re-installing Mojave and photoshop 2020 should then work. But in the meantime can anyone suggest how I save my unsaved PS file before I re-install Mojave?! Thanks 🙂

Thank you! Saving to the Desktop seemed to work, once I forced quit Photoshop and reopened. (I am guessing because it was stuck on trying to save the first file to the external) I am just going to use 2019 for now...

Hi Lindsey, it sounds like you're hitting a different issue since you're not able to save to the desktop. This issue only applies to saving to external drives formatted for xFAT. Contact support directly if you need help troubleshooting: https://helpx.adobe.com/contact.html

Any fix on this yet?? I have the newest Photoshop and I have not been able to save since I updated the latest OSX yesterday. (I can't save to hard drive or desktop). I had to export my current file to a JPEG, and then work on an older version of Photoshop....

Further to my last post, I updated to PS 21.0.3 yesterday. Now if I try to save a PSD to my external drive (Mac OS ExtendedJournaled) I get the error - 

Could not save as “xxxxxx-MASTER.psd” because the file name was not valid.

I've also tried saving as a different file format (TIFF etc).

I also can't open files directly from my internal drive, every file is greyed out in the 'File > Open' dialogue box. I have to go to the finder and open them from there.

This is exactly the same behavior of PS that I've experienced when I was saving my file on the external exFAT drive. Changing formatting from exFAT to Mac Os Extended (Journaled) seems to resolve the problem on my machine though. At least for now...