Photoshop won't start but shows in task manager

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
October 27, 2022
6 replies
1374 views

Whenever I click open on creative cloud (or try to start photoshop from anywhere), nothing happens. When I check the task manager it says that Photoshop 2023 is open but I can't use it. I've tried deleting preferences, downgrading versions, ending the process on task manager, and fully reinstalling it twice. I don't really understand why it won't work, it was working fine 2 days ago.

Windows

A

Alon_martin

Participant

This reply is more than 3 years late, but I figure this might be useful to anyone who might read it.

I had the same issue, and what solved the problem was deactivating a windows service called "Windows Image Acquisition (WIA)". Press ctrl+r, type in "msconfig", go to the Services tab, and look for it in that list. Make sure "hide all Microsoft services" is unchecked.

My guess is that Photoshop requires the WIA service, which somehow fails and therefore Photoshop never actually starts. Hope this helps anyone who might be in the same crappy situation!

If it doesn't, try deactivating all services, including the windows ones, and restart the computer (a few windows services will reactivate automatically, ignore those). If Photoshop runs, then go about halving and halving the list until you finally get to the culprit. It helps to take a lot of pictures to keep track of what gets deactivated.

MarekMularczyk

Community Expert

I saw something like that happen with some Adobe applications in the past.

Try:

Keep Task Manager open,
End Task for Photoshop (keep Task Manager open)
Start Photoshop again with Task Manager open and hopefully it'll start this time

I hope this will woek for you

Adobe Community ExpertAdobe Certified Professional

JerryandLoisPhotography

Known Participant

I've reported the same issue. After launching and then quitting PS, it leaves behind a process that you can see in task mgr.
As long as that process is present, PS will not <re>launch, since it doesn't allow duplicate instances.

This has been an irritating, long-standing problem for quite a few months. I first noticed it in PS 22, did a clean uninstall, and then a reinstall, problem existed. No plug-ins were in use at that time.

It also happened when I paved my production box, did a clean (obviously) install of PS, and the problem repr'd as well.

This is now present in PS 24.