Layer Panel keeps collapsing on its own??

This usually happens on laptops with insufficient screen resolution to keep all panels open. Each panel needs a minimum number of screen pixels.

Adobe needs to stop changing things.  Why on god's earth would I want my layers to be collapsed in photoshop?  This is absolutely boneheaded design, and the fact that I have to tinker around when saving my workspace with it expanded should HOLD it that way.

Yep. Still a major irritant 18 months later. I like to keep Brushes, Brush Settings, and Color all in one big stack. There is more than enough room for this to fit. Photoshop seems absolutely fixated on closing the Brush Settings tab in particular, sometimes upon opening the program, sometimes upon moving things.

If I try to re-expand, Photoshop will consistently close another tab to ensure that I'm never allowed to see more than two tabs at once. Sometimes, comically, as it forces the Hue cube to expand until it's 60% of the entire monitor height. 
Seemingly *anything* to prevent me from ever seeing 3 tabs at once. 
Auto-collapse in unchecked. 
Then sometimes, It works fine and does what I want, 3 nice tabs, stacked whee I put them, for no apparent reason.

By @defaultti73crxpt6c4

It would be much better if you started a new thread.  You's might be a completely different issue, and it can get confusing while trying to track down what is happening in your case. 

Whether you start a new thread or not, can you tell us what operating system you are using, and are you using the latest version of Photoshop?

Are you using just the one screen? What is the pixel resolution of your screen(s)

Have you created one or more custom workspaces?

Do you use the Function keys to open and close the primary panels? It sounds like you have plenty of screen space — I've always assumed that the Function shortcuts are for small notebooks where screen space is limited, and you need to toggle screens open and closed.

With the above in mind, those Function keys are are solid gold and if you don't use their defualt functions, they can be used as single key triggers for Actions.  I personally use some of them to select and reset custom workspaces.

Another huge benefit of custom workspaces is that you can save custom shortcuts, and custom toolbar settings.  That means you can 'borrow' existing shortcuts and quickly switch to Essentials (for instance) should you need the defualt use of that shortcut.

The bottom line is that, as far as I know, what you are experiencing should not be happening, and might be fixable.  Unable to save Preferences etc. used to be a known issue with OSX a while back.  That could cause what you are describing.

EDIT: literally half an hour later and the panel is auto-collapsing again, despite a new workspace being active. So frustrating! It also occasionally shows no layers when it's open, requiring me to collapse and open it again to see the layers in my file.

I'm wondering whether there's new information on this subject.  My layers panel frequently auto-collapses as well.  Also, Photoshop always launches with the layers panel collapsed.  While it is a minor issue to bring the panel back (I just click it), it's still an irritant.  I want photoshop to launch the way I like using it.

Thank you,

Thank you Jane, but I'm sure I've made appropriate readjustments to the size of the panels to comfortably fit them all. I don't know if I'd need to do something to make it stay that way or if that's just how it is.

 This is how I rearranged after getting CC, both Layer and Brush panel opened.

 But when I switch to the Swatches tab, as you can see, the Layer panel has collapsed.

Something I also realized after posting the question is that in while the Swatches tab is active, the Brush and Layer panel can't be opened at the same time. If I click on the Layer panel again after it collapses, it would open the Layer tab AND collapse the Brush panel, and vice versa. This is really annoying and if you can help me, that'd be awesome, thank you!!

I checked and it isn't :'((((