Known Participant

P: (Windows) Photoshop v27.9.1 Crashes at launch: OpenCLOn12.dll exception 0xc0000409 (possible Windows/NVIDIA driver conflict)

Forum|Forum|29 days ago
August 18, 2026
125 replies
1209 views

Simply went to open Photoshop. Intro screen came up and little blue wheel was spinning but then it just stopped, no messages, etc. Went through various potential solutions on Adobe and on the internet. Nothing worked. Finally uninstalled and reinstalled through Creative Cloud. Had put it in “Run as Administrator” in trying to solve the problem. Changed that and Photoshop ran once. When attempting to reopen it again, it would not run. Lightroom works. The Beta version of PS works.

Pinned Reply By Sameer K

Hi everyone! This thread is now designated as the main thread for tracking and consolidating similar and related reports. I have shared this with the team for their review.

Based on detailed investigations and feedback from affected contributors, we understand that the issue may be stemming from external sources (non-Adobe).

Here are two of the user-reported workarounds you can try:

Uninstall the Microsoft OpenCL/OpenGL Compatibility Pack: Go to Windows Settings > Apps > Installed Apps > search for "OpenCL, OpenGL and Vulkan Compatibility Pack" > Uninstall. This removes the broken OpenCLOn12.dll translation layer entirely, forcing Photoshop to use NVIDIA's native OpenCL driver instead.
Uninstall Windows Update KB5121003: Go to Windows Settings > Windows Update > Update History > Uninstall updates > remove KB5121003. This rolls back the Aug 12 update that introduced the NVIDIA driver conflict and triggered the D3DMappingLayers auto-update.

Will circle back to update, or post new notes from the team soon.

Thanks!
Sameer K

R

robertrestupambudi

Participant

Force closed in splash screen when measuring memory

K

kiddac

Known Participant

Chatgpts detailed response.

Yes. This is a known current Photoshop 27.9.x issue, and your crash log matches it very closely:

OpenCLOn12.dll
Microsoft.D3DMappingLayers_1.2608.1.0
0xc0000409

Try this first — most likely fix

Go to:

Windows Settings → Apps → Installed apps

Search for:

OpenCL™, OpenGL®, and Vulkan® Compatibility Pack

or possibly:

OpenCL and OpenGL Compatibility Pack

Uninstall it, then restart Windows.

Then launch Photoshop Beta again.

The DLL in your crash:

C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\
Microsoft.D3DMappingLayers_1.2608.1.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe\
x64\OpenCLOn12.dll

is part of that Microsoft compatibility layer.

Why this is happening

Photoshop normally wants to use your graphics card manufacturer's native OpenCL implementation.

For example, with NVIDIA:

Photoshop
   ↓
NVIDIA OpenCL driver
   ↓
GPU

But with Microsoft's compatibility package installed, Photoshop can end up going through:

Photoshop
   ↓
OpenCLOn12.dll
   ↓
Direct3D 12
   ↓
GPU

It is that OpenCL → D3D12 translation layer that's crashing.

Removing the Compatibility Pack allows Photoshop to use the GPU manufacturer's native implementation instead.

B

bafflingbarnacles

Participant

Mine won’t even let me open a new project (it loads it as a white box and takes ages to load and once it does it lags the entire time I have to just keep clicking ok. It’s like being on Dial Up all over again lol) under these last two updates. I’ve had to revert back to two updates ago . Neither new updates works and i have a 4080, 64gb of ram, and top of the line CPU (idr the exact numbers). I’ve never had issues before until these last two updates. It’s definitely on Adobes end.

L

Loaker

Participating Frequently

WORKED FOR ME!!!!!

Windows Settings → Apps → Installed apps → OpenCL™, OpenGL®, and Vulkan® Compatibility Pack → Uninstall

yamato713108855

Community Expert

It seems that a problematic file gets installed during Windows updates.
In my case, updating the NVIDIA driver to a newer version resolved the issue.
I experienced similar symptoms with previous Windows updates as well.

J E L

Community Expert

@Serene_Harmonyf9ef, can you confirm you have the NVIDIA studio driver and not the game ready diver installed? How much scratch disk free space is showing? Please copy and paste your System Info into a reply here so we can check it out (Help > System Info). If you can’t open the 27.1.0 Release, you can get the info from v26.

S

Serene_Harmonyf9ef

Participant

Merci beaucoup @J E L , c'était bien ça !

J'étais sur le pilote NVIDIA RTX Enterprise 610.47 (branche New Feature Branch), livré par défaut avec ma machine (MSI Creator Z16 HX Studio / RTX 3000 Ada Generation Laptop GPU). Photoshop 27.x se fermait systématiquement à l'étape "Examen de la mémoire", sans aucune erreur dans l'Observateur d'événements Windows ni dans les logs Adobe (NGL, PDApp, oobelib) — un arrêt propre, pas un crash. Photoshop 26.x et toutes les autres apps Creative Cloud fonctionnaient parfaitement avec ce même pilote.

Après avoir installé le pilote Production Branch/Studio R595 U8 (597.06, WHQL, publié le 27/08/2026) en installation propre, redémarré, puis relancé Photoshop 27 normalement (sans admin) : tout fonctionne parfaitement.

Pour info, sur les GPU RTX Ada, la page NVIDIA précise que la branche Production Branch/Studio "offre la certification ISV et le même contenu que les Studio Drivers" — donc pas de compromis à faire entre stabilité CAO (Rhino dans mon cas) et compatibilité Adobe, c'est le même pilote qui couvre les deux.

Merci encore pour la piste, ça a débloqué deux semaines de galère !

J E L

Community Expert

C'est fantastique, @Serene_Harmonyf9ef, great news! For some reason, your original post and our conversation were merged into this thread by someone else. I am sorry about that, but I am very happy to hear you are back up and running again.

S

Serene_Harmonyf9ef

Participant

Depuis environ deux semaines, Photoshop 27.x se ferme systématiquement pendant la phase "Examen de la mémoire" du démarrage, sans message d'erreur.

Ce que j'ai déjà testé, sans succès :

Désinstallation et réinstallation complète, plusieurs fois
Réinitialisation des préférences (dossier Settings supprimé manuellement)
Lancement avec Maj enfoncée (sans plugins tiers)
Vérification et changement du disque de travail
Vérification du profil couleur de l'écran (sRGB, pas de P3)
Mise à jour des pilotes GPU
Antivirus/Windows Defender : aucun blocage dans l'historique de protection
Observateur d'événements Windows : aucune erreur enregistrée, le processus se termine proprement (confirmé via Process Monitor — arrêt propre, pas de crash)
Vérifié les logs Adobe (distNGLLog, PDApp.log, oobelib.log) : aucune erreur, aucune mention de Photoshop dans les échecs de licence

Ce qui fonctionne :

Photoshop 26.x (version précédente) se lance et fonctionne parfaitement sur la même machine
Toutes les autres applications Creative Cloud (Illustrator, InDesign, Lightroom, etc.) fonctionnent sans problème

Configuration : MSI Creator Z16 HX Studio (CreatorPro Z16HXStudio B13VKTO-029FR), Windows 11

Le fait que la version 26 fonctionne parfaitement sur la même machine et que le processus se ferme proprement (sans erreur système) suggère un problème propre à la 27.x elle-même plutôt qu'à ma configuration matérielle.

P

Pedro González

Participating Frequently

I changed the "NVIDIA Studio V.610.88" Driver version to the "GeForce Game Ready 528.92" driver. Now it works well. Is this a fault of Adobe or the video card manufacturer?

sbn85

Inspiring

thats strange. I was adviced here to never install Game Ready driver. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

jane-e

Community Expert

I was adviced here to never install Game Ready driver.

You are correct @sbn85. Use the Studio driver with a clean install. See other posts in this thread.

Jane

J

June0625

Participating Frequently

had the same problem yesterday, all i had is to uninstall it and reinstall it.
just make sure it is completely uninstalled in your system.

i uninstalled it in creative cloud but apparently leaves a trail in my system, so i have to clean it.

i’m using version 27.9.1

J

June0625

Participating Frequently

had the same problem yesterday, all i had is to uninstall it and reinstall it.
just make sure it is completely uninstalled in your system.

i uninstalled it in creative cloud but apparently leaves a trail in my system, so i have to clean it.

i’m using version 27.9.1

machine spec:
Alienware Aurora R16
Windows 11 Pro

Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-14900KF (3.20 GHz)

64.0 GB RAM

2TB storage

16gb graphics

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER

version: 616.556

i agree checked your driver if using game ready as some graphic software don’t want to run on game ready driver.

i think the issue started when updated the nvidia driver and some other updates that i don’t recall.

after doing some update photoshop suddenly crash and closing.

after uninstalling and doing some clean up on my computer and reinstall photoshop, it started working bit bit slow.

so i’ve done some full system scan in my dell support assist.

so far no issue yet but sometimes photoshop have little big lag

K

Kruxader

Participant

This was the solution for me as well. Had to uninstall photoshop 2025 and download 2026.

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Try this first — most likely fix

Why this is happening

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