unable to delete photoshop files that claim to be "in use" but are not, anyone know a solution?

[cryanhorner]

MACOS Sequoia 15.0.1

Photoshop Beta 26.1

I periodically run into problems where photoshop crashes while saving a file, and whenever it does, it seems to create a broken .psd or .psb file that just will not delete.  Ususally (but not always) it cannot be opened either.  I've tried many suggestions, but no matter what I do, I get the same error (which i copied below).

No luck from restarting, "purging" under the edit menu in photoshop, closing every program and force quitting every adobe-related process i could find in activity manager.  I tried moving the file, compressing it, renaming it, changing the file extension, re-opening it to change it to 1"x1" x 1dpi to try and make it tiny, etc., even tried a couple third-party apps.

it does allow me to rename it, which is why it's just nonsense characters now, and even let me open it (but not save any changes).

The location of the file in question (and really, all of my files besides system / program files etc) is my western digital NAS drive.

I can't attach the file itself because it is a nearly 9GB .psb file, but i did attach a screenshot of the "info" about the file.  All the photoshop files i work with are pretty large and the laptop hardrive is quite small, so I don't save anything to the computer itself (I already have issues where I constantly get warnings that adobe can't complete this or that task because my scratch disk is full, so trying to avoid adding even more to the internal drive.)

Ideally i'd love to prevent these broken files from being created at all, but barring that if there was a reliable way to delete them it would be a life saver (or at least a space saver).

Thanks in advance to the community for any hero who knows how to target and annihilate these pesky things withough going all scorched-earth on my system and re-installing things and erasing settings etc.

[CShubert]

Hi @cryanhorner curious what happens if you unmount then remount your NAS to see if this possibly releases the "in-use" flagging?

Thanks,

Cory - Photoshop Product Manager

[cryanhorner]

Pardon my ignorance, Cory, but is unmounting the drive the same process as disconnecting from it (which happens any time the laptop is off of my home network) or is it a different process?

I did a quick search for procedure, but was directed to go to the disk utility to unmount a network drive, however my network drive doesn't seem to appear there (attached screenshot) although I am currently connected to it.  Would just dragging the drive icon on my desktop to the trashcan accomplish the same?

[CShubert]

@cryanhorner is is suggested to always work with Ps and local files:
https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/networks-removable-media-photoshop.html

"Technical Support strongly recommends working in Photoshop directly on the local hard disk. To prevent data loss, save files to your hard disk first. Then transfer them to the network or removable drive in the Finder or in Windows Explorer. To retrieve files, copy them in the Finder or in Windows Explorer from the network or removable drive to your hard disk. You can then open the files in Photoshop. This workflow avoids problems that occur when network system setups or removable media device drivers are incompatible with the operating system or Photoshop."

Trouble shooting:

"Different factors can cause problems with application performance, including memory conflicts among device drivers, damaged or conflicting files, operating system software or hardware problems. If you work directly from networks or from removable media and you experience problems, use the suggestions below to troubleshoot.

Disclaimer: The following suggestions are provided as a courtesy. Adobe Systems does not provide support for networks and removable media.

• Make sure that you use the latest version of Photoshop. Update Photoshop using the Creative Cloud Desktop Application.
• Transfer the file from the network or removable disk to a local hard disk, and then open it in Photoshop.
  
  Note: Once a file has artifacts, they  can be permanently a part of the image data. Replicate your image in a new file using the local hard disk. See File recovery troubleshooting for further assistance with potentially damaged images.
   
• Use another computer connected to the same network or type of removable media.
• Check with your network administrator about known issues with the network or changes in network configuration (for example, updated drivers or changed access privileges).
• Make sure that Photoshop is installed on and running from a local hard disk, and try to replicate the problem. If you can, troubleshoot the problem on the local configuration. If you can't, your problem could be caused by working from removable media or a network."

Per your question on unmounting, you can either drag the icon to the trash or click on the eject icon in the finder sidebar.

Thanks,

Cory - Photoshop Product Manager

[cryanhorner]

Hey again,

So I gave the unmount-remount move a try, as well as a couple things from the links you added, including opening a composite version of the file (it does still allow me to open this file, both normally and composite), in the hopes that if I could just make some change to the file and save again, it might overwrite the broken version.  It allows to me to make changes to the file, but I cannot save them due to "disk error" (same error message composite or not).

I also tried save-as with the existing name, so that it would try to overwrite the previous file, but no luck there.  The last thing I haven't tried yet is to see if I can access the file on the drive from some other computer to delete it, although I remember that once when this happened before I tried that on an old PC laptop I had at the time, and it appeared to work, but then when I was back on the Mac the file just showed back up again as if it had never been deleted.

Is there anything that I can potentially do with the file while it is opened in photoshop that might help?  I can't imagine what though.

checked the other minor details as well, file extension matches the file type, I personally have read/write permissions, fil is not locked, etc.

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

@cryanhorner are you able to save the file to your local HD or it's giving you the disk error anywhere?

It could very well be that it has corrupted the file/storage when it crashed while accessing the NAS.

[cryanhorner]

I will attempt this now to test.

Is there any reason to think that opening/saving via the standard version of Photoshop would make any difference vs using the current beta version which is what was used to originally create this file?

[cryanhorner]

Okay, I opened the file from the NAS, made a few edits (flattened the layers, changed image size to 1"x1" @ 1ppi), and it allowed me to save that file no problem to my downloads folder on the Mac.  

So I closed the file, then reopened it again (the new version) and tried to save-as to the original NAS location to overwrite the broken version, but got a "could bkrisave file because of a disk error" message.  So it's just the version that's on the NAS drive that I cannot scrub off of the drive.

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

@cryanhorner thats what I was afraid of - when it crashed it most likely bricked that portion of data making it unable to remove/edit/save over. Reason number 198 why Adobe recommends saving/working local then transferring to a storage location. Sorry.

[cryanhorner]

Oof, I mean, from a workflow perspective I'm not sure how that would ever be practical, having to constantly transfer huge files back and forth, overwriteting, confusing copies and versions (don't accidentally overwrite the good with the bad, etc) and just waiting for hour and hours for files to copy every time I need to work on something (and having to know in advance all the files I'll need because I have to pre-emptively move them all over to my laptop). 

Seems like the easier fix would just be for Adobe to make their software work with external storage, especially if they're going to generate gigantic files (the one in question is ~9gb and its not the biggest one on the drive by any stretch), and like I mentioned earlier, even without any of these files eating space on the computer harddrive, I'm already getting "scratch disk full" warnings regularly.  I know it's not the top-of-the-line computer, but seems like you'd need a beast of a machine (and infinitely faster wireless transfers than I've ever experienced) to work this way.

As far as "bricking" a portion of data, does that mean it basically broke part of my hardrive and that 9gb of space is essentially unusable now?  This is a persistent problem, these crashes while saving and the resultant undeletable files have hit me at least half a dozen times now over the past year or so (thankfully the previous ones weren't so large), but it seems like something that needs a fix, not a workaround.

[cryanhorner]

Oh this is completely outrageous.  Photoshop just did it to me AGAIN, after over 24 hours of struggling to save another huge file, it failed "because of a disk error" (so vague), and produced ANOTHER HUGE UNDELETABLE FILE (this time to the tune of 77.9 GB!  

Adobe, please fix your software to work regardless of where i'm saving my file.  This is beyond unaccaptable and is becoming the norm.

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

@cryanhorner if you were saving direct to an external source - this sounds more like a corruption in your storage than an error due to software. There are too many variables when saving directly to external that Adobe cannot control with software, especially with the size files you have mentioned. If you are getting scratch disk full warning this also sounds like a resource allocation issue. If you are working with 9+ gb PSB files you should have more than 1 TB free HD space to allow for seamless usage and saving local then transferring to external storage.

[cryanhorner]

Hi Kevin,

As I'm sure is the case for plenty of people who regularly use this program, I have a whole library of files that I might have to access at any given point, I'm not working on one file discreetly until it is totally closed and won't be touched anymore and then archiving it and starting another, so I need access to that library to work from, and that means having it all in one place (the NAS) and not piecemeal dragging one thing or another back and forth (and waiting AGES for it to transfer) between the locations.  That just wouldn't be practical at all.

The files in that library needs to be able to live on and be used from a central hub storage location precisely because their huge size makes moving them around frequently unreasonable.

The "too many variables" business just seems like an excuse to be honest.  The company is wasting energy and resources on flashy but totally unnecessary A.I. stuff instead of fixing these basic infrastructure issues that turn regular everyday usage into a total quagmire.

Even if I were able to buy a much more expensive computer, that type of workflow, constantly moving huge files around instead of just working on them where they live, would be a huge pain that I wouldn't want to adopt even under ideal conditions.  It would just be asking for a mess of versions and duplicatates and disorganization, not to mention inevitably not having the file you need when you need it because you didn't know in advance to copy it off of the NAS drive to the computer's internal. 

I'd like to see the manpower currently being used to build novelty stuff like text-to-image, just be channeled into these sorts of longstanding quality of life issues, but that wouldn't make headlines or impress shareholders.

Regarding the note about corruption in the storage, I simply have no way to assess whether that is or is not the case, except that I can say that other programs regulary read/write from the NAS remotely and Photoshop is the only program that has ever caused this or any other issues with it, so It is hard not to point the the finger at the program as the culprit, and when I pay out of pocket for storage, having close to now 100GB of it basically taken from me and destroyed in an unretrievable way is not just frustrating, it feels like stealing.

If they can run the entire software suite form the cloud, surely they can figure out how to simply save a file to a remote drive. 

Sorry for getting bristly here, but I am so frustrated at this point.  I'm really just not feeling like I'm in safe hands using this software at all going forward because there is no real solution offered, just the suggestion that users take a complicated detour around the issue, because it could (and likely will) just keep happening.

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

@cryanhorner totally understand the frustration but it's been this way for decades - both the issue with drive failures and PS holding steadfast that saving local then migrating is the only reliable way to insure file integrity.

No one is "stealing" your storage due to drive failure/bricked sectors.

The "too many variables" is a very honest assertion. I manage over 170 Macs and can tell you from personal experience that cables fail, connections get bumped, etc. and any random occurence can interrupt a read/write and brick external storage like nobody's business. It's not just an issue with PS either - any larger file type can corrupt when working direct and I've seen InDesign, Illustrator, Excel, 3DS, etc. all corrupt or brick storage due to a failure in the hardware when writing or reading (don't get me started on Mac OS permissions).

If this were my NAS and I was experiencing the same thing I would take a serious look at my hardware setup and start backing up/migrating to a new storage solution. Having two failures in this short of time is concerning.

Please don't take this as berating or getting preachy with this - honestly trying to help you but it's ultimately your choice on how to move forward. If you continue to save 9+ GB files direct - you are rolling the dice.