Photoshop fails to run but Task Manager shows it Running

Forum|Forum|4 months ago
September 30, 2025
2 replies
230 views

Had this issue at least twice. Photoshop does not open the dialog, but just sits in the background. In fact if you look at task manager [PC] you can see it running with 0% resources, and if you try it again, a second or more instance will be running, but nothing on screen.

It appears as though the issue is the graphics process, but you cannot get to the preferances panel to change it GPU settings, memory use, etc.

The fix for me was this:

1. Uninstall Photoshop - you probably need to restart computer to do this

2. Restart computer

3. Install Photoshop

4. Start photoshop and go to edit preferance set GPU off

5. If you exit photoshop before setting these preferances, you will not be able to restart it

6. exit PS restart computer

Windows

carl valleAuthor

Participant

I unistalled the version 26, rebooted installed Ver 25. It runs normally. Now there is a Ver.27 update. I have not installed this update yet, but i will see if this install of ver.27 runs correctly. I now think it was a left over preferances setting that made it thru an update. I think selecting "remove preferances'" was the correct choice during the install and i did not do that

Srishti Bali

Community Manager

Hi @carl valle

Sorry for the delayed response, and thank you for sharing the detailed response — that’s super helpful. Could you please check if the same issue occurs with the latest release (v27)? The team has made several stability improvements, so it would be good to know if this resolves the behavior you experienced earlier.

Please keep us posted on how v27 performs for you!

Regards,

Srishti

carl valleAuthor

Participant

The issue is that photoshop installed an update but did not change the pointers to the application in windows 11 - so the program shortcuts, and the app that the extensions point to [by double clicking ] a jpeg for example, point to the wrong version, the uninstalled version, so photoshop doesn't really run at all, just the loader part is hanging in task manager. the fix is really simple actually, but knowing how to get there is not. you have to go into windows and reset the default programs for the extensions. then open by right clicking a jpeg for example and use the 'open with' dialog to point to the correct version of photoshop. for each type of file you want to open --- this resets all the app associations in windows but is the only way, short of re-installing windows and adobe and everything else...

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

Does Task Manager show it as a background process or a running app?

I sometimes find that Photoshop will not open, and invariably, it is because it, (usually the beta version) is still running as a background process. I also find that I need to reset Preferences more often with the beta version, although I must say, not so much just lately.

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