P: Completely broken Hand tool (PS24.5) Hand Tool Sticking, sticky, not seeing mouse-up

[Jqqerry]

This is a bug. Please don't move it to the Discussions tab.

And please don't merge into another unrelated thread. I will report a bug with this thread.

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I made a YouTube video using a keyboard mouse overlay to show what action I'm taking. I hope you can refer to refer to it.

https://youtu.be/Cle6dEgP5_Y

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I was disappointed that there were so many bugs that were not fixed in 24.5, but I was still trying to give it a shot.

However, this bug is pretty serious. Really...

Please see the video I attached.
If you watch the video, you will see that I am shaking the screen.
I'm not using a hand tool, it should release automatically, but that thing is sticky.

To release this sticky, pinned handtool, you'll need to make one more unconditional click.

Here's how I've organized them for your reference.

< What I can be sure of >

1. Window10 (Tested a total of 14 PCs)
2. Use WacomTablet
3. Not related to preferences at all (Especially not related to Spring loaded, Flick panning stuff things)
4. I've tried all the known Photoshop troubleshooting methods and no improvement.
5. Even reinstalling Windows does the same thing
6. Only in 24.5 does this bug occur with certainty. I can't reproduce it at all in earlier versions.

< I'm not sure about the >

1. Mac OS not tested
2. I couldn't even test if it was a GPU company difference. I and my team all use NVIDIA

And while there are a few threads pointing this out, there doesn't seem to be a proper plan to fix it.

If this is not fixed in 24.6, 24.6 will be equally unusable as 24.5.

Also check out the links below.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/hand-tool-lock-after-releasing-spaceb...

https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-bugs/some-ps-tools-keep-reading-wacom-pen-after-l...

https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/hand-tool-won-t-let-go-of-image/m-p/1...

https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-bugs/24-5-impossible-to-use-with-wacom-intuos-on-...

(cjbutler 1/12/24: edited title from "not reverting to cursor" to "not seeing mouse up" to reflect latest focus on lost mouse-up as root cause, and not just a stale cursor setting.)

[CJButler]

>> So the non-appearance in the logs of WM_LBUTTONUP does not imply it doesn't happen, just that it has gone to a message queue that is not being read - which presumably is not the one it was expected to go to. Am I right?

It's really hard for me to say, since we have such difficulty reproducing. But yes, that is a possible scenario.

[ericman2323]

As this seems to be a PS-specific bug and as stated previously, is most likely not video card-related, I wonder if a contributing factor or even the culprit could be a PS addon or extension that is somehow interfering with PS noticing the WM_LBUTTONUP state.
 Below is a list of the addons and applications I have installed for use with Photoshop specifically as well as a list of my computer specifications.

Addons and applications I use with Photoshop:

Lazy Nezumi Pro (ver 23.11.14.2355)

Coolorus 2.5

Bruserator (by Sergey Kritskiy)

Perspective Tools (by Sergey Kritskiy)

Layer Factory (by Sergey Kritskiy)

Windows 10 Pro

AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12 core 3.7GHz

64.0 GB
AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT - Driver ver 23.11.1

SSD 980 Pro

{ Windows Inking and typing personalization (ON)}

Additionally, I have an XP-Pen Artist 15.6 Pro digital drawing display connected to my machine with all the relevant software and firmware drivers up to date.

[Jqqerry]

@ericman2323 i guess Plugin it's not problem.
When I tested countless times (24.5~24.7? version). These days, when the release comes out, I test it out and roll back it right away...), I just reinstalled the OS clean, installed Photoshop, and did nothing, and reproduced it with just a mouse.

[oxpal]

I totally forgot about the PSUserConfig.txt! I used to have it, but you have to re-add it for every new version install (thx Adobe). This solved it so far. 

Make a  PSUserConfig.txt file - add it to this folder:
C:\Users\[User]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop 2024\Adobe Photoshop 2024 Settings

In the file you need the line: 

UseSystemStylus 0

You might have to also make sure your Wacom Driver preferences (under "Calibrate") has "Use Windows Ink" set to OFF.

Resetting the preferences only helped me temporarily (I celebrated too early, it was maybe just random). But so far, after several restarts, I don't have the click issue after copying the PSUserConfig.txt.

It's kina opposite solution of what @alanp6536080 said (but thanks for reminding me). Either way, it is related to it, so try one or the other way:
> With this I *never* see the issue using a mouse. I *do* see the issue with a Wacom tablet if I have UseSystemStylus=0 in a  file AND have Use Windows Ink set to OFF; I do *not* see the issue with a Wacom tablet with no PsUserConfig.txt and Use Windows Ink set to ON.

Strange that Adobe tells us they worked on this for 4 months without even reproducing what users now supplied instantly.

[ericman2323]

Valid. It's just very odd and frustrating then that even with a full clean install the issue persists and yet is somehow also difficult for some to reproduce.

[saged]

I thought it was my mouse problem, and I just got a new mouse today and noticed the same issue. That led me to search on google why that is happening and came across here. Now please, Adobe, take my mouse and give me my money back. 😒

I hope the engineering team will have a fix soon. I'm running Photoshop 25.1. But it's strange that, those folks experienced this weird issue on Photoshop 24.5. An entire new version was released but the issue remains. 

Thank you!

[power87]

Thank you very much for not giving up, I'm really desperate because I need it every day at work and constantly have the problem and I'm slowly getting tired of it because it feels like it takes me 5x longer for everything 😞

* Complete new Win 10 system and fresh PS 25.1 install
* Wacom Intuos - driver 6.4.4 - 3
* GTX 3060 TI

* Intel 12600k

I basically can't work with my tablet anymore because it feels like every second click the picture sticks. It works a little better with the mouse, but I have the problem there too.

[ericman2323]

After 5 months of dealing with the issue, I found a solution that 100% works. Switched to a combination of Krita and Clip Studio Paint.

[PanBeep]

Give them 5 more months. They will eventually get bored with AI pictures 😉

[saged]

I think that would help, I just reverted back to Photoshop 24.7.2 and it seems things are working pretty well. No issue for me there. You could try the same if it helps. Thank you!

[GrafiskWingman]

I can't remember if it's been discussed, but I also have no pen pressure in Photoshop. Even with the PSUserConfig.txt added in settings. Might be connected to the stickiness? I seem to remember people having problems with pen pressure and it sticking to and moving the artboard instead, a long time ago. 

[Jlily98]

They don't have to travel when teamviewer exists.

[goyah31195378aha7]

I had the same problem.

I use two different Razer mouse.
In the mouse management tool, lowering the 'Polling Rate' to the lowest possible (125Hz) solves the problem.
The same is true for other Razer mouse I use on other laptops.
25.1 ver

[PanBeep]

I have wireless mouse with 1000Hz pooling and it works fine on my Windows 11... although Flick panning is very jittery. Not smooth. Fells like workin on old computer and my PC is latest i9 13th gen with RTX 4090. Looks like Adobe is copletly lost not knowing how to utilize latest hardware advancements.

[Andreas Resch]

The "Fix in progress" sticky post is from August. Any news on that front?

[Andreas Resch]

Please fix that. There's a pinned comment somewhere, that it will be addressed from August. And it's still in there. This impacts working a lot as it happens every few minutes. And it's not only the Hand tool that's stuck, the selection box sometimes gets stuck as well and I have to click for the selection process to end. Releasing the mouse button doesn't do it any more. Maybe you can use AI to figure the mouse behaviour out. It's useless for everything else.

I'm really tempted to go back to Photoshop 2021 which works like a charm. 

[Kuttyjoe]

Yeah it's not just the hand tool. I experience this problem with other tools, such as when using the lasso tool or pen tool.  I think it can happen with any tool.  The problem seems to correct temporarily if I restart Photoshop but it comes back eventually.  For now I've reverted back to 23.5.5.

[power87]

                                                 
Quote:@goyah31195378aha7 

New Here ,

Nov 26, 2023

I had the same problem.

I use two different Razer mouse.
In the mouse management tool, lowering the 'Polling Rate' to the lowest possible (125Hz) solves the problem.
The same is true for other Razer mouse I use on other laptops.
25.1 ver

Thank you very much for this tip. I was already thinking when I received the email about this post, yes, that's completely logical and that could actually be the reason.
I use Razer mice and today I recreated it. But lo and behold, my Deathadder cannot be selected in the Synapse tool (I also use a Razer keyboard with a newer Synapse tool) because I need an older Synapse tool for it. As soon as it was installed, the default setting was 500 Hz, so I reduced it to 125 Hz and tested it in PS. But unfortunately no, I immediately had problems with the sticky hand tool.

Well, one more try, restarting the computer and lo and behold, the problem disappeared. That can't be it, can it? - set it back to 500 Hz because 125 felt very strange and restarted the computer, in which case the problem would be there again and it would therefore be reproducible. Hmm... where is the problem? I've only been working with it for an hour, but after I installed the old Synapse tool, changed it from 500 to 125 and then back to 500, the problem went away.

Maybe over the years (I also use a laptop and PC to play with Razer mice) something has changed here at some point, especially since I didn't have the correct Synapse tool installed.
But I've never had any problems with Photoshop - the reason seems to be a combination of a Photoshop update and some mouse setting that's nasty for Photoshop, which was reset when the tool was installed.
Now all you have to do is find out which mouse setting is the reason so that other users can also use the solution. Maybe just unplugging the mouse so that only the tablet is active (don't forget to restart the computer) will help to make the problem reproducible for Adobe -- but I think this has been the best approach to the problem for weeks.

[Andreas Resch]

When you think that the new update fixes the sticky tools issue, Adobe manages to surprise you. Let's enjoy another month of being annoyed. Super. I guess, they just stopped carrying.

[Marek Domke]

On 25.2 now and still having this issue. Nothing fixed so far.

[CJButler]

Current status on this "stuck mouse-down" issue.

We're continuing to have extraordinary difficulty reproducing the issues at Adobe. We understand that for many of you in this thread the issue is happening very frequently, to the point of making the latest versions of Photoshop unusable.

Some of our users (Vit K, Alan P) in this thread added instrumentation to Photoshop using developer tools (Spy++) and observed in their fail cases that Photoshop was not even getting the WM_LBUTTONUP message from the Windows Operating System. The lack of this message will prevent the Photoshop "Mouse Tracking" gesture from terminating properly, leaving us in the stuck mouse-down state. Thank you Vit and Alan for that analysis.

We don't know why this happens on some machines and not others. There is some speculation that high-sample rate input devices (e.g. gaming mice with specialty device drivers) might be a factor. We're following up on that to see if it helps us reproduce the problem.

In Photoshop 25.2, we have added some diagnostic capacity to Photoshop to record in more detail what events Photoshop is seeing and how they are handled. There is some overlap with the Spy++ tool: The Event Logger is intended to help us diagnose event handling internal to Photoshop, whereas Spy++ looks at the events external to Photoshop.

Details on how to enable this new Event Logging mechanism will eventually posted on Adobe's HelpX pages. I'll post instructions in this thread as well.

However, if the problem looks like a situation where Photoshop never sees the WM_LBUTTONUP event, we'll have to look into alternate methods to detecting that the mouse-up has occured. Such solutions will likely be time-expensive to implement due to the complexity and testing required.

Update 2/16/24: The problem still exists in 25.5 and is still being worked by multiple engineers. We don't have any useful information to share but we are actively enhancing the Event Logging mechanism to allow us to gather more information. The bug remains elusive for us at Adobe. Please see the latest comments in this thread for the most up-to-date information.

Update 3/5/24: I have made some changes for 25.6 which which I hope will offer some relief for Mouse Users. There is some additional work for Pen users which I expect to be available for 25.7. 

Update 4/24/24: Photoshop version 25.7 has been posted and should address the remaining outstanding Pen issues of which we were aware.  We believe the original issue reported in this thread has been resolved. If you are still having lost mouse-up or pen-up problems with version 25.7 or later, please post with the version you are using, your platform and OS, and precise steps that make the problem occur for you. Please be as detailed as you can. We will try to reproduce at Adobe. We may ask you to generate an Event Log using the Event Logger Tool. We will continue to watch this thread for a while, but reserve the right to lock the thread if too many tangential issues are posted. As always, please keep your posts civil and informative and we will try to help. Thanks.

[CJButler]

In Photoshop 25.2, we have added some diagnostic capacity to Photoshop to record in more detail what events Photoshop is seeing and how they are handled. The Event Logger is intended to help us diagnose problems with missing or mishandled events encountered by end-users.

The Event Logger is enabled using two setting files. Please navigate into one of the following locations:

Mac:
//Users/[User Name]/Library/Preferences/Adobe Photoshop (Beta) Settings/

Windows:
[Installation Drive]:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop (Beta)\Adobe Photoshop (Beta) Settings\

Create/edit PSUserConfig.txt, and add this line: "TraceKeyAndMouseEvents 1"
Create/edit pslogSettings.txt, and add this line: "LogKeyAndMouseEvents=1"

When the above flags are enabled and Photoshop is launched, you will see a new menu item on the Help menu:
Help > Start Logging Events
Help > Stop Logging Events

This will put output into a log file which can be found in the following location:

Mac:
//Users/[User Name]/Library/Logs/Adobe/Adobe Photoshop 2024/

Windows:
[Installation Drive]:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop 2024\Logs\

To Set Up for Testing and Potential Problem Reproduction:
If you have seen the problems mentioned in this thread, we are interested in receiving your log files.

Please work normally until you see the stuck mouse down problem. Start Logging Events using the menu item and try to reproduce the problem while event logging is active. When you have seen the stuck mouse, Stop Logging and give the file to Adobe, either to a community manager, or by logging a bug with the supporting data.

Thank you!

[SteveEE]

Do you have an Adobe office near where someone with this problem, who is able to demonstrate it to you, lives? The amount of time and money spent to chase this down and not reproduce it on your computers may be better spent actually having people show up to see it in action. 

My work computer does not have any fancy gaming equipment. The mouse I'd been using for the last year comes from the cheapest kit that money can buy (under $20 for the Logitech keyboard/mouse combo). It seems it was more likely to happen when the mouse was moved quickly.

Has anyone tried to step away from using an adobe system and just install the same software that the rest of us subscribe to? It could be hard to reproduce because you're using a system designed for development and the rest of us aren't?

But I'm sure someone, of the many who have posted here, would be willing/able to let you come into their house, business, etc... and see it in action. 

[chrisell99]

@CJButler For the uninitiated, what changed between 24.7 and 25.0 that means you no longer see "WM_LBUTTONUP" ?

[CJButler]

>> Do you have an Adobe office near where someone with this problem, who is able to demonstrate it to you, lives?

We have observed the stuck-mouse issue. We've even see it happen briefly on our machines, and then it goes away. We can't make progress on this unless we can reproduce it. That involves using machine with a development environment with a debugger, and the ability to iteratively add diagnostic output as we hunt where things might be going wrong. Even when we can reproduce, that bug hunt may take days or weeks (Event handling bugs are like that). And, as mentioned in the sticky post, if the problem is that we are not even getting the needed event, we may have to pursue drasticly different event handling mechanisms; that will take a lot of time and effort.