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Question

Macbook Pro + Tahoe + Adobe Apps

Forum|Forum|2 days ago
August 24, 2026
18 replies
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Hi everyone,

I would like to ask a question not about a specific single Adobe application, but directly regarding Adobe and macOS Tahoe in general.

Ever since I upgraded to Tahoe (since September 2025), using Adobe applications has turned into complete torture. First, I ran into InDesign place issues. Dreamweaver crashes constantly—it even crashed 22 times in half a day. Despite having an active Adobe CC subscription and Dreamweaver, I am on the verge of buying Panic Nova ($99). For a while now, I’ve also been considering buying QuarkXPress instead of InDesign (I used Quark back in the 1990s anyway).

While Adobe apps used to launch quickly on my MacBook Pro, launch times started to drag out with new minor Tahoe updates, and it gets slower with every single update. Acrobat triggers the beachball without exception every single time, forcing me to wait for it to finish before I can do anything. There are many more issues, but these are enough to illustrate the situation. The MacBook Pro + Tahoe + Adobe combination has become sheer misery. I think it might be time to say goodbye to both Apple and Adobe.

Is anyone else experiencing similar issues? Is this related to Tahoe, or is it specific to my MacBook Pro?

I have been fighting Apple over this for a year. We went to court, and I won the first round unanimously with a ruling for a 1-to-1 product replacement. Apple appealed, and we are now in the second round. I requested separate expert witnesses from the court for both hardware and software, which was granted, but Apple avoided an independent expert evaluation.

The question I'm trying to answer is this: Are these issues caused by Tahoe, or are they stemming from my MacBook Pro?

Best to all…

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

Did you grant Full Disk Access to your Adobe apps?

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mchl211c911f/mac

Mike Witherell

T

TrygaiosAuthor

Known Participant

Yes, I granted all the permissions (including Full Disk Access).

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

Remove Wacom IOmanager and reboot and test to see if the problem goes away.

Possibly related to this:

Mike Witherell

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi @Trygaios, thanks for reaching out, and I’m sorry to hear about the experience you’ve been having since upgrading to macOS Tahoe.

In addition to the suggestions already shared by the experts, could you please test the same workflows after starting your Mac in Safe Mode? This will help isolate whether any third-party applications, extensions, or other software may be interfering with the Adobe applications. You can follow Apple’s instructions here: Start up your Mac in Safe Mode.

Also, could you please confirm whether the InDesign files and linked assets you’re experiencing issues with are stored locally on your Mac, or whether you’re working with files saved on a cloud-synced location, external drive, network drive, server, or other remote location?

Please share your observation to proceed further.

Thanks

T

TrygaiosAuthor

Known Participant

Hello, and thank you for your reply.

First, let me clarify the overall picture. The problems aren't entirely consistent, but they've persisted heavily — each point update has added new ones while some older ones quietly disappeared. Rather than pointing to "this specific thing is broken," I've reached the point of watching for "which new problem the next update will bring." I haven't tried Safe Mode yet, but a 10-minute test won't reveal anything; I'd need to run my normal daily routine continuously in Safe Mode for at least a week to 10 days for it to surface.

For reference: MacBook Pro (M3, November 2023), currently on the latest macOS Tahoe.

I don't keep any of my files in the cloud, and I never have, neither iCloud nor Adobe CC. Everything is on my local storage, the computer's own SSD. For the past two months I've had an external NVMe and started doing a couple of tasks on it, but for the prior 10 months I used no external disk at all, only the Mac's internal SSD.

Since September 2025, since the Tahoe update, I have a screen recording of every problem I've run into. Every time Dreamweaver crashed, I clicked the "send report to Apple and Adobe" button and captured a screenshot at each step. I can share these as well.

Four or five months ago I had an email exchange with the Dreamweaver team about this same issue. A remote session was offered and I was asked for a date and time; I gladly provided them, and I noted that if it were a voice call my English isn't strong enough but my sister can interpret, and that text would be no problem. After it came out that I have an ongoing consumer case with Apple, the thread went quiet. I'm telling you this upfront on purpose: if it's going to be an obstacle, I'd rather we both know now than after I've set aside a time and waited.

To be clear about why it has no bearing here: the case concerns a hardware defect. Software was brought into the second proceeding by Apple itself, not by me, I then requested a court-appointed expert examination, and Apple avoided it. The court is not seeking technical detail; what it will actually rule on is the hardware matter, it will either uphold or overturn the court-appointed arbitration panel's decision, which is purely about hardware. Everything relevant to the case has already been submitted, and nothing from a remote session could feed into it. My only aim here is to fix the Dreamweaver problem, and if you're willing, I'm genuinely glad to do the remote session.

As a side note: yesterday I installed the Panic Nova trial, it appears to offer the multi-project and remote features that kept me tied to Dreamweaver, so after the trial I may end up purchasing it. And with Quark, I'm testing one specific thing; once I do, my decision will become clearer.

Best Regard

leo.r

Community Expert

but a 10-minute test won't reveal anything; I'd need to run my normal daily routine continuously in Safe Mode for at least a week to 10 days for it to surface.

You mentioned earlier that Dreamweaver crashes constantly (even up to 22 times a day), so it looks like you can notice changes much faster.

In addition to this, you can also try the troubleshooting step I suggested earlier, that is creating a clean new admin account and working from there.

You also mentioned you didn’t have any problems on Sequoia. You can install Sequoia on a different volume and work there.

In addition to this, Tahoe will become a legacy system soon. You can install a beta of Golden Gate and see if it makes a difference.

I do realize that each of these steps take time and are not exactly fun. But probably still easier than taking Apple to court (although you said that the court case concerns a hardware defect so I’m not sure if all of this is connected to each other).

T

TrygaiosAuthor

Known Participant

Thank you for your reply. May I ask which Mac you're using? Mine is a MacBook Pro, November 2023, M3, 14". I'm asking so I can figure out whether this is specific to that series or specific to my own machine.

I should mention, though, that everything worked flawlessly on Sequoia. The moment I updated to Tahoe, the problems never stopped. Every point release means a new problem, whether or not it fixes the old one.

For instance, I don't know if it's been resolved by now, but I copied the text of a law in Safari and hit paste in Pages, and it only pasted the first 30–40 words. I tested it over and over, always the same. I recorded it, too. Every so often, when I try to copy and paste in Dreamweaver, it copies not the part I selected but some unrelated spot, pastes not where I clicked the cursor but somewhere unrelated, and often in fragments.

There are a lot of problems. The one thing they all have in common is that they "started with Tahoe."

Best regards

M

Manan Joshi

Community Expert

I have M1 Macbook Pro, so technically I am on an older machine from yours

-Manan

T

TrygaiosAuthor

Known Participant

Thank you for your reply :)) Before the MacBook Pro I used an Air, and it was an M1. To be honest, I didn't feel any difference at all between the M1 and the M3 — in fact I regret buying the MacBook Pro, because it felt not one bit different from the M1 MacBook Air, so it was almost a wasted purchase :)) That's why I don't think it will be a determining factor in the problems above. Thanks again.

leo.r

Community Expert

There are countless Tahoe users (including myself) who don’t have these issues, otherwise, we’d hear about it. Did you ever try to create a clean new admin account and work from there?

(I have Dreamweaver always open and it doesn’t crash. I’m still running Dreamweaver 2021 though, which shows that I’m not its heavy user anymore.)

M

Manan Joshi

Community Expert

I use Acrobat and InDesign on mocOS Tahoe and I have not seen issues to the point of crippling my work. Acrobat does hang if I do some specific operation like selecting a big tag and then scrolling, requiring me to kill it. What specific issues are you facing. Are they replicable on other machines as well?

-Manan

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