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Kippy.
Kippy.
Participant
April 7, 2026
Question

USB-Hub crashes photoshop after the latest update

  • April 7, 2026
  • 3 replies
  • 41 views

My photoshop keeps crashing when I try and open up a new or existing document when I have my pluggable usb 3.0 hub docking station plugged into my computer (that has a windows OS).

I had contacted support and we did remote help. We found out that it was the docking station that was causing the issue. However, I need the docking station for my job and hobbies. They told me it wasn’t supported, but it had been working fine for about a year (that I’ve had it) up until yesterday when I opened PS for the first time since the 27.5 update.

I did realize after the conversation with the represenative that I was speaking with that I can plug the hub back in after opening photoshop, getting things loaded, and continue to work as normal. However, I shouldn’t have to unplug and plug my dockng station in every time I want to use photoshop since this update.

I’m hoping that since it’s only been a couple of days since the update that a patch will come out to resolve this issue. I was told to make a post on the community forums here to make note of it. So, that is what I’m doing. I’ve also sent in a crash report earlier in the day.

Any troubleshooting ideas would be a big help!

    3 replies

    D Fosse
    Community Expert
    D FosseCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    April 21, 2026

    Just as a general observation, docking stations are notoriously risky with Photoshop, especially if you use an external monitor hooked up to it. The main problem is that it tends to mess up the GPU allocations in laptops with dual graphics. A docking station will usually just connect to whatever signal path used by the integrated screen, not necessarily the dedicated high power GPU.

     

    A GPU conflict is a recipe for crashing.

    War Unicorn
    Community Expert
    War UnicornCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    April 21, 2026

    As much as I liked my docking station (which used Thunderbolt 4), I found that the convenience wasn’t worth the potential hassles I ran into. (I, too, had some issues.) Thunderbolt 4 has a potential 40 Gbps data transfer, but the caveat is that that gets divided the more devices that are connected to that port. I had my 4K HDMI and my gigabit Ethernet connection both connected and it was supposed to charge my laptop at the same time. (100W power delivery.)

    It was a bit of a challenge for things like playing Diablo IV, with all the data being slung back and forth. I’d run into the occasional error where the laptop would beep and just bomb out to the desktop. It disappeared when I stopped using the dock and plugging everything directly.

    Using Photoshop was generally fine, but there was very noticeable lag and some occasional artifacting. (e.g., Panning a document around; zooming in or out would produce a weird blocky glitch on a document that I couldn’t get rid of until I closed/reopened the document.) Again, this all disappeared when I stopped using the dock.

     

    I kind of want to go back in time and tell myself not to bother plopping $200 USD down. lol

    CMass
    Community Manager
    CMassCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    April 7, 2026

    Hey ​@Kippy. 

    Sometimes peripherals don’t work well with certain programs, so that might be what’s happening here. Could you check if all your hardware and software are up to date? This includes your operating system, drivers (if you’re on Windows), and Photoshop.

     

    • Please share your system info? You can find it under Help > System Info. Please copy and paste that into a text file and attach it to your response.

    • Does this issue occur with any other programs?

    • The name of the hug you're using.
       

    If you roll back to a previous version of Photoshop, do you see the same problem? Here’s an article that explains how to revert to an earlier version:https://adobe.ly/4ckwdwm


    ^CM

    Kippy.
    Kippy.Author
    Participant
    April 7, 2026

    So... I totally forgot today that my computer's CPU is dying and often likes to disable itself. And my graphics driver wasnt running at all today when I was talking with Adobe.

     

    Going to try and get things fixed with that and see if my problem with Photoshop is any better. I will keep you posted.

    Claire H.
    Community Manager
    Claire H.Community Manager
    Community Manager
    April 21, 2026

    ​@Kippy. I'm just checking in to see if you are still running into this issue? If so, have you had a chance to try these basic troubleshooting steps in this article: https://adobe.ly/48dzRau? Let us know how things are going. Happy to keep troubleshooting with you if needed. Thanks! ^CH

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