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Question

Photoshop is unusable after updating to MAC OS TAHOE

Forum|Forum|1 day ago
April 9, 2026
5 replies
102 views

Hi everyone, I am currently in a panic. I need photoshop for work almost every day and after updating my Mac Studio 2023 Apple M2 Max to TAHOE 26.4 (I wasn't running Tahoe before this) I cannot run ANY version of photoshop.

It runs sort of in the background but I can't see or access the interface, and when I open a file it seems to be there but again I cannot see the interface at all. I’ve been able to run other Adobe apps without a problem but not photoshop. My computer has 64 GB of RAM and 130GB of storage available. I’ve searched over and over again and I cannot find a solution and I am getting very desperate about this.

I also ran ETRE CHECK and it doesn't report any issues.

Thanks in advance for any help. I’ve been trying to solve this for hours.

sunshineDevAuthor

Participating Frequently

Update: I have run the creative cloud uninstaller after uninstalling all of the apps. I first ran the repair and that didn't help so I ran the uninstaller to clean everything out. It didn't work. All of the other apps run perfectly fine but Photoshop still won't run. There has to be something interfering but I can't figure it out and I don't know where to turn to. There is no tech support on either Adobe or Apple. Switching users will be very time consuming as I have a bunch of backups associated with my all time user, aside from all the files, years worth of files. I don't know what to do.

AxelMatt

Community Expert

Update: … Switching users will be very time consuming as I have a bunch of backups associated with my all time user, aside from all the files, years worth of files. I don't know what to do...

I understand you and I know that switching to a new user account is very time consuming.

But if it solves the problem, I would invest the time. It might also be a good opportunity to "clean up" the entire system. Further searching for the cause of the problem could potentially be considerably more time-consuming.

… There is no tech support on either Adobe or Apple….

There is a support from Adobe. Please click the link below to contact Adobe staff to help.

Be sure to remain signed in with your Adobe ID before accessing the link below.

You have to allow 'cookies' in your web browser for this to work

https://helpx.adobe.com/contact.html

Click the chat icon in the lower right and type "agent" to get a human and not the chat bot.

My System: Intel i7-8700K - 64GB RAM - NVidia Geforce RTX 3060 - Windows 11 Pro 25H2 -- LR-Classic 15 - Photoshop 27 - Nik Collection 8 - PureRAW 6 - Topaz Photo AI

sunshineDevAuthor

Participating Frequently

@AxelMatt @ExUSA I deleted the settings and it is still giving me the same issue. I am attaching a screenshot so you can see how the menus even appear grayed out and I cannot do anything. Nothing else appears, no menus, no tools, no workspace, no canvas. I am desperate. I still haven't tried creating a new user, that will be my next step but given that I have deleted the settings, I don't think it will help. Thanks so much for your input, if you have any other suggestions please don't hesitate to let me know.

sunshineDevAuthor

Participating Frequently

@AxelMatt @ExUSA I have created a new user and run photoshop fresh with that test user and it worked. Is there any other possible setting I might need to delete? I followed the procedure of deleting the settings and restarting with my regular user as you had suggested but that did not work. Thanks again! I have hope.

AxelMatt

Community Expert

@AxelMatt @ExUSA I have created a new user and run photoshop fresh with that test user and it worked. Is there any other possible setting I might need to delete? I followed the procedure of deleting the settings and restarting with my regular user as you had suggested but that did not work. Thanks again! I have hope.

I don’t know about other settings regarding Photoshop. If you reset the preferences manually (as I described in my former post) you have reset all of the settings.

If this doesn’t work and a new user accout works it seems the error is somewhere in the configuration.

I would now configure the new user account accordingly and continue using it.

Even though it's a bit of work, searching again in the existing account is much more time-consuming, and there's no guarantee that the problem will be found.

My System: Intel i7-8700K - 64GB RAM - NVidia Geforce RTX 3060 - Windows 11 Pro 25H2 -- LR-Classic 15 - Photoshop 27 - Nik Collection 8 - PureRAW 6 - Topaz Photo AI

E

ExUSA

Legend

As a test, try creating a new user account and running under that. If it works, you know you have a preferences issue.

sunshineDevAuthor

Participating Frequently

I tried this and it worked with the other user but when I delete the preferences as recommended for my old user and re-run it doesn't work. There has to be something running with my regular user that is preventing photoshop from running properly but I have no idea how to figure that out.

E

ExUSA

Legend

You can post the EtreCheck Pro report if you want, presumably you have something in the old user account that is causing problems. At least now you have it narrowed down to where the issue might be.

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

OK, I have updated the Mac to 26.4 and tested Photoshop 27.4, and it is working fine AFAICT.

I have Use Graphics Processor enabled with all (except 30 bit display) options enabled.

It might be worth trying a simple Preference reset in your case.

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

I have a M2 MacBook pro running 26.3 no problems. I’ll try updating to 26.4 to see if it makes a difference.

sunshineDevAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thank you for looking. I’ve seen many say the same thing. I don’t understand. I also don’t understand how Illustrator and Premiere are working but Photoshop isn’t. I’ve tried downgrading to older versions PS and nothing. And the only way to close Photoshop is by force quitting. If I can’t find a solution I’ll have to resort to drastic measures and downgrade the OS. 😓

AxelMatt

Community Expert

@sunshineDev Just an idea. (I’m on Windows).

Do you have tried to restore the Photoshop preferences to the default settings?

https://helpx.adobe.com/ie/photoshop/using/preferences.html#Manually

Remember to back up your settings before doing the preference reset

https://helpx.adobe.com/ie/photoshop/using/preset-migration.html

Manually removing the preferences files is the most complete method for restoring Photoshop to its default state.

If this doesn’t help you can try a manuallyreset of all settings.This method ensures all preferences and any user presets which may be causing a problem are not loaded.

Please follow the steps below:

Quit Photoshop.
Navigate to the preferences folder of Photoshop.
MacOS: Users/[user name]/Library/Preferences/Adobe Photoshop [version] Settings

Note: This folder is hidden by default. To access files in the hidden user Library folder see the appropriate links below.
MacOS: How to access hidden user library files.
Move the entire Adobe Photoshop [Version] Settings folder to a safe place on your drive for a back-up of your settings. Then delete this folder.
Open Photoshop.

Photoshop creates automatically the appropriate settings folder with the default values.

My System: Intel i7-8700K - 64GB RAM - NVidia Geforce RTX 3060 - Windows 11 Pro 25H2 -- LR-Classic 15 - Photoshop 27 - Nik Collection 8 - PureRAW 6 - Topaz Photo AI

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