Photoshop 27.7.0 Opening Files and Forcing Quit Issues?

I'm seeing something very similar on recent Photoshop versions. When the issue occurs, Photoshop will launch and show the Home/Welcome screen, but opening PSD files becomes unreliable. After that, the app often gets into a partially responsive state where menus appear to work, but opening files or closing Photoshop normally doesn't. The only way out is usually Force Quit, and sometimes even that requires a restart.

A few things I'd try:

• Reset Photoshop Preferences (hold Cmd + Option + Shift while launching Photoshop).
• Test with a PSD stored locally on your Mac rather than in iCloud, Dropbox, OneDrive, or a network location.
• Temporarily disable any third-party Photoshop plugins to see if one is causing the hang.
• Check whether the problem also happens when opening a file from within Photoshop using File > Open, rather than double-clicking the PSD in Finder.
• If none of that helps, try rolling back to the previous Photoshop version through Creative Cloud to see whether the issue is specific to 27.7.0.

You're probably not alone here. There have been other reports of recent Photoshop builds becoming unresponsive, refusing to open new files, or requiring Force Quit after working normally for a while, particularly on newer macOS versions. It would be helpful if you could post your Mac model and whether the PSD files are stored locally or in cloud-synced folders.

Hi all,

I'm sorry to hear about this experience. It definitely doesn't sound good. I wanted to confirm whether you're all still experiencing the same issue with version 27.8.

If so, could you please share the following details?

• System information (OS version, hardware specs, etc.)
• The plugins you're using with Photoshop. Hold down the Shift key and launch Photoshop. A dialog appears during the launch that reads Skip loading optional and third-party plug-ins. Let me know how it goes after that.
• Does disabling GPU Performance help resolve the issue?

This information will help us investigate the problem further. 

I’m having the same issues. Won’t always open photos from Lightroom (I go back and forth a lot and notice this trying to open a previously opened tiff) and the app isn’t responding to quit commands, via keyboard shortcut and menu. Have to force-quit. I’m still using MacOS Sequoia 15.7.3 and I’m on Photoshop 27.7.

Yes, same here. It is a very strange issue.

After force-quitting and restarting Photoshop, the problem is solved for a while, but after some time (hours, opening other files, or other actions) the issue rises again. Any opening action won’t work, and the application behaves as if it is invisibly busy doing something else, because almost all menus are grayed out (even Quit).

I seemingly don't need to reset my preferences, because a corrupted Preferences file isn’t saved when force-quitting.

But there’s another aspect that might give a clue.

Since regular and public beta versions of applications are popping up almost every week, I’m using a clever trick to re-instruct my MacOS to register certain file extension to the proper (version of) an application. Betas can really mess up the system-based and intermediate file extension patches (from Bridge, InDesign, Acrobat, etc.) So I have this folder of ‘proxy’ files with manually edited extensions, I select them all, and use Cmd-option-I to force their preferred “Open With” application to my desired version of Photoshop. That worked well for a couple of years.

(On a side note: how long might it take Adobe developers to acknowledge that Photoshop can open webp files from the contextual Finder menu ?)

But since a few weeks, after clicking the “Change all” button, the files don’t refer to Photoshop, but are related to totally unrelated applications, like Acrobat, Illustrator, and even After Effects !! What’s going on here ??

Is there something terribly going wrong with Photoshop’s application registry ?

Hello I posted this in Questions but I believe it to be a bug. After downloading Photoshop 27.7.0, Photoshop opens with the welcome screen, but the .psd files will only open sporadically. If they don’t open and I try and close Photoshop, the program freezes. Even a Force Quit doesn’t work and I have to restart my computer.

I uploaded a system info report in Questions and I rebuilt my preferences, but it is still happening randomly. 

Please look into this. Thanks so much.

I am using a Mac M3 Pro with Tahoe 26.5.1

This could almost be a sticky thread at the top of the page, demonstrating how corrupt preferences can give the most unexpected and weird symptoms. As I’ve said over and over before: Corrupt preferences usually look like application bugs.

I rebuilt my Preferences and it seems to have helped. Thanks Nikunj

Hi, thanks for reaching out, and we're sorry about the trouble.

Please go to the Help menu in Photoshop, then System Info, and copy the text. You can share the info with us by either pasting it as a reply here or in a text file and sharing the file with us. 

Meanwhile, you can try to reset the preferences of Photoshop using the steps mentioned here: https://adobe.ly/4fsZhoz

Please backup your settings prior to resetting the preferences. You can check: https://adobe.ly/4vuzC3p

Thanks,
Nikunj