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Joel xo
Joel xo
Inspiring
February 27, 2026
Question

Can't dismiss Program Error dialog in Photoshop 27.4

  • February 27, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 132 views

Since updating to 27.4 yesterday I’ve had two random Program Errors, one relating to Smart Objects (in a document with no Smart Objects) and one about the color sampler.

The problem is there’s no way to dismiss the dialog. There are two buttons: “OK” and “Learn how to fix” and neither of them do anything. I had to force quit both times to get back to work.

Smart Object error was on a 2020 (Intel) Mac Pro and the color sampler error was on a 2022 Mac Studio. I didn’t get a screenshot of the first one because I assumed it was a freak occurrence.

 

    1 reply

    Joel xo
    Joel xoAuthor
    Inspiring
    March 4, 2026

    Had another one yesterday on the Intel Mac (forgot to screenshot, in my panic), then just got this on the Apple Silicon. Never the same provoking behavior, but I think it’s always the same error code.

     

    Regardless, the error itself doesn’t concern me. The dialog box that essentially freezes Photoshop is the problem.

    Restarting Photoshop always opens several identical auto-saved documents but that doesn’t even count as a nuisance compared to f376f9.749

     

    Sameer K
    Community Manager
    Sameer KCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    March 5, 2026

    Hey, ​@Joel xo. Welcome to the Photoshop Community. I'll help you figure this out. Based on the limited description, this behavior is unexpected, but we'll need specific workflow details to be sure.

     

    Please share a video of the issue and the system info from Photoshop Help > System info > Copy and paste into a text document > Upload and attach here.

    Here is a similar error that the team is investigating: 

    Please test and confirm if Photoshop (Beta) has an issue. You can get Photoshop (Beta) from the Creative Cloud > Apps tab > Beta Apps section. 

     

    Thanks! 
    Sameer K

    (Type '@' and type my name to mention me when you reply)

    Joel xo
    Joel xoAuthor
    Inspiring
    March 5, 2026

    ​@Sameer K 

    There’s unfortunately no pattern that I can detect, as to what triggers the phenomenon, so I can neither conclusively test the Beta, nor even hope to accidentally catch it on video.

    It happened again on a different computer last night; twice about 10 minutes apart. The triggering events were unrelated. Always the same error code, never the same trigger.

    For now I’m treating embedded smart objects as an obsolete workflow and converting them to links for current projects. It’s always been a problem with the auto-save function that unsaved work on embedded objects is irretrievable, but with the frequency of crashes now it’s unworkable.

    If I were 100% sure that reverting to 27.3 would fix this I’d do it right now, but I’ve got too much work on my plate to do experimental troubleshooting.  

     

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