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.)

[Andreas Resch]

No changes at all. Still completely unusable. I'm back to Photoshop 2021 for the unforseeable future.

[uwe johannsen]

I bought a brand new PC and installed the latest version of Photoshop. Now I also have the problem with the hand tool. It's no longer possible to work quickly and effectively...and i currently have thousands of images to edit. that's not funny.
Adobe support advised me today to use an earlier version. now i just rolled back to 25.2.0 and it seems to be working for now. that is very strange.

Windows 10 Pro 22H2 (latest Version/Update)
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
64 GB RAM
Nvidia RTX 4090 (latest Driver)

[uwe johannsen]

regarding my previous posting:
After two hours of continuous work in Photoshop, the bug appears again. I am frustrated.

[Jqqerry]

@uwe johannsen Are you sure you don't mind using the previous version?
If so, try the 24.0.1 version.
I have all the Photoshop installed for each year, and I only keep the most stable version of the releases that come out each year. Not to mention taking the time to test new releases from time to time.
Photoshop 2024 version has all the bugs you're experiencing.
Photoshop 2023 version also has bugs in releases later than 24.5.
In my experience, apart from this bug, the stable 2023 Photoshop was 24.0.1.

[A.L.5E2E]

Still having the same issue. Note that this has been happening since 2019, this is not a new problem, reported fixed many times and still nto fixed. I understand Adobe is having issues reproducing it. I think if 3 years is not enough time to figure out, then not enough effort has gone into testing potential causes. I see some speculations here about hardware.

FYI I am using MSI GP68 HX. However this issue happens on all of my devices (Dell G7, Dell desktops, HP Spectre laptop). One common thread is that I use a Logitech MX Anywhere Bluetooth Mouse with all of them, so you might try there. However there are very few hardware commonalities that seem to lead to this issue. In any case, I use a lot of different software all on the same hardware and PS is the only program that gives this type of issue.

[AlanGilbertson]

@A.L.5E2E Maybe I can rule out the Logitech Options and Bluetooth suspects. My XPS 17 and XPS 8950 aren't seeing the problem and never have. I've been a Logitech mouser since the early Stone Age, currently in MX-land with the Master 2S mouse and MX Keys. I tested using the dongle and Bluetooth and neither reproduces the error. I do recall (vaguely) a transient problem like this a couple of years ago, but that was on a different machine: same mouse, Wacom Intuos 3. I've since replaced the Wacom with a Xencelabs tablet, but it doesn't seem like that could be related.

At yesterday's LA InDesign UG meeting (everyone uses Photoshop, of course) I asked the 40 or so designers present if anyone had seen this problem. Nobody had heard of it, far less seen it, so I got a screenful of puzzled looks.

[CJButler]

We really don't have an idea of how many people are affected, but it's probably < 1%. Unfortunately, if you are in that category, that is an extremely unhelpful bit of data.

In my private build, I've added some internal code that simulates the lost mouse-up messages (WM_LBUTTONUP). This allows me to exercise some "backup" code that might help things recover, but it will take a while to get this new code tested and out to you. One difficult area is the Polygonal Lasso Tool which has been reported to fail. It's what we call an "up-tracker" and it's a somewhat convoluted bit of code. The dropped mouse-up event makes it behave in a very annoying fashion. I'm working through how to make up-trackers behave reasonably well in the event of the lost mouse-up.

One thing I don't know is whether we are also losing WM_LBUTTONDOWN messages, i.e. mouse-down. It seems possible if we are losing one, we may be also losing the other, but the feedback may be less severe, and most folks just click again. This would affect the Polygonal Lasso Tool in particular.

Just FYI, Most of Adobe is now on Winter Break until January, and I expect we will have new forum moderators sometime after that. But I'm still watching this thread.

[madhoek]

Hi there!

The bug still persists in 25.3.1 and occurs instantly on my system.

Last week I tried to use Photoshop on my girlfriend's system. (Latest version, Windows 10, Wacom Tablet)
Unfortunately it was also bugged. Just navigating around the image with space bar and mouse got instantly stuck.
When I asked her about it, she said that she got used to it and just works with it anyway.
I wish I could ignore it like that, but I can't. It drives me crazy when this occurs and it's killing my flow completely.

There are probably way more people affected, but I can picture only 1% of us actually sign up to the forums and complain about it.
As CJButler already mentioned, most folks just click again and by that accept the software not working correctly.

Judging by numbers this is now in the top 5 highest upvoted bug reports of all time here.
It's massive! Since 3 of them are marked as fixed, this could break all the records.

It's good to know that at least someone at Adobe is still trying to figure this out. Thank you for keeping it up!
And it's also kind of sad, looking at the profits they make a year (billions), they could do more in this case.

At some point the older versions will no longer be available and won't be supported anymore.
It will be a sad day, but before being forced to accept this bug and work with it, I will probably just quit Adobe and switch to Affinity Photo.

CJButler I hope Adobe will support your efforts and have more technical staff investigate this error.
Happy holidays to all of you!

[uwe johannsen]

@madhoek said " I will probably just quit Adobe and switch to Affinity Photo."

That's a good idea, thanks! Due to the hand tool bug it takes me about five times longer to edit an image in Photoshop than normal. I can't meet my deadline for my clients at the moment. Hundreds of fashion photos have to be ready for printing at the beginning of January.

[Goyko]

Hey Adobe,

wouldn't it be nice, to give away 3 months of free subscription for all those here who suffer from this bug?

Just thinking.

Sounds fair?

[GrafiskWingman]

@Goyko for something like that to even be considered, they'd have to be able to locate the bug to be able to tell us that if this and that is in your system thus meaning you are experincing it, you are eligble for 3 months of free subscription. And then we'd have to produce the evidence of having said bug. 🙂 it's a nice idea, but I wouldn't hold my breath. 

[Renae99]

3 months? This issue has been going on since March or so. Considering how many people, students, businesses etc. this has affected, 3 months free is not nearly close to enough compensation. Those of us who've made suggestions for ways on how they can reproduce the bug i.e connect with someone/multiple someone's (in person) who can demonstrate/reproduce the bug, have been ignored. 

[Renae99]

We shouldn't have to switch to Affinity Photo when we've spent years learning Photoshop and years paying for it 

[CJButler]

> Those of us who've made suggestions for ways on how they can reproduce the bug i.e connect with someone/multiple someone's (in person) who can demonstrate/reproduce the bug, have been ignored. 

Sorry, but that very simply is not true.

[Renae99]

So you're saying you/other employees have brought affected Photoshop subscribers in, so you can witness and study the bug being reproduced personally? I have mentioned that before and my comment was ignored as far as I know, but I'd love to be corrected 

[CJButler]

Please refer to the pinned reply. That reflects our latest information.

We have observed the bug on user machines. Observing the behavior has not been sufficient to diagnose the cause.

[AlanGilbertson]

The less common a bug is, other things being equal, the harder it is to track down and the smarter (and luckier) the investigators must be. And in modern systems it's seldom one thing: it's some rare combination, perhaps a subtle timing issue involving multiple vendors and APIs. 

The worst-case troubleshooting scenario is something that affects only a tiny number of installations and is intermittent. They're really, really hard to crack.

I don't work for Adobe, never have, but I've beta tested drivers and apps for various companies over many years. Here's my perspective, hopefully somewhat useful. Apologies in advance to the folks who already know this stuff.

Good engineers, in my 40+ years of experience, care deeply about the code they work on. It's personal. They talk about "owning" a module or a section of code, and they mean it literally. Uncaring or incompetent programmers, far less entire teams, don't survive at high-end companies. Skilled engineers who care about their work are the ones who last, so it's safe to assume that the people on this hunt put as much importance on finding the answer as anyone in this forum. Are the Photoshop team brushing this off? No. If they were, they wouldn't be on the team.

Why is it taking so long to fix? Think of it as an escape room: you can't even start to solve it until you pay for your ticket and they let you in. The first step in bug hunting is finding a way to reproduce the problem, and a bug you can't reproduce is an escape room with no way in. The Photoshop team has hundreds of individual test systems, but there are many millions of possible configurations. Collectively, the team probably shares a couple of centuries or more of engineering experience, but they aren't clairvoyant.

What's our role, then, since we can't work directly on the code? -- To provide them with all the data we can dig up. Rants won't help, information will.

Every report helps to narrow the search. "I did [x] and the problem went away, but after [y] time doing [z] it came back." "It showed up right after an OS update." "I have tried x, y, and z workarounds with/without success." "My CPU/GPU/chipset is [x]." "My system is [hardware detail], OS version, app verson(s), Human Interface devices, driver versions, update history."

A few folks have commented along the lines of, "You should fix this! You're not even trying!" or worse. Besides being (at best) disrespectful, that kind of remark doesn't belong on a professional forum. We are more like pilots than passengers; collaborators more than consumers. We can't all add Spy++ or other deep instrumentation, but if everyone who sees the bug reads @CJButler's pinned post and provides what info they can, one of those reports may contain the key that unlocks the escape room, so the real bug hunt can start.

[DLBT]

I have this problem and thus have been following this thread for months. In an effort for Adobe to collect as much data as possible about who is affected, I am willing to share the information from my system if someone could tell me (not very tech savvy) what is desired (for, example, PS: Help: System Info) and exactly where to post it online.

Whereas I share MUCH frustration with not being able to use the latest versions of PS (while auto-paying my subscription), I do appreciate Adobe's engineers continuing to try to help us who have this problem...

[CJButler]

> I am willing to share the information from my system if someone could tell me (not very tech savvy) what is desired (for, example, PS: Help: System Info)

Thank you. Unfortunately the System Info that Photoshop generates has not offered us any clues as to what might be special about affected systems. Whatever and wherever the problem is, it's in some area where we don't currently gather data.

[ericman2323]

In light of that, I think it would be all the more valuable to find a way to put together some kind of standardized template, web form, ect. So that we can find what those of us who are experiencing the issue have in common. 
 I know this has been mentioned in the past though thus far there seems to be no appetite to attempt such a thing. However, I think it would be more efficient to have everyone follow the same template and then submit their info, rather than everyone posting their own creative account of their issue. Not to mention that some are not native English speakers so, any formatting help could make a significant difference in their participation.

[A.L.5E2E]

Sounds like a lead then: what areas do you not collect? E.g., one thing I note is that this happens on all of my systems, but I use a Logitech MX Anywhere Bluetooth mouse with all of them. Perhaps this is related (i.e., maybe it is a bluetooth issue).

In any case - given that I have experienced this issue across 5 different hardware sets (all of them), if the mouse is not the problem, then this is a common issue that has just been neglected and not something that very few users experience. If I can reproduce it on all 5 of my systems, this is a regularly occurring issue.

Regarding mouse down - I have never noticed lost mouse down events. It is always losing the key release.

[A.L.5E2E]

> There are probably way more people affected, but I can picture only 1% of us actually sign up to the forums and complain about it.

Yes, I am severely doubting this 1% figure. Given the number of reports and the fact that this has been going on for years, that there are literally dozens of threads, and these are only those frustrated enough to take the time to make an account and report it.

In any case, it needs to be fixed. It's gone on too long.

[chrisell99]

Google it. There are complaints about this all over Reddit, these adobe
forums, and other creative and art forums, dpreview, Flickr, stack
exchange. It’s really quite prevalent :
https://www.google.com/search?q=photoshop+sticky+hand+tool&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb

[Jqqerry]

We really don't have an idea of how many people are affected, but it's probably < 1%. Unfortunately, if you are in that category, that is an extremely unhelpful bit of data. <<<

I've done everything I could as a writer of this thread because I have absolutely no knowledge of programming and have difficulty providing clues any more. Same with recreating it as a YouTube video.

So I understand even if this bug is hard to fix. However, I can't agree that some of you are experiencing this bug.

Most ordinary people don't even know if it's a bug or not. To know if it's a bug, you need to know what it's like when Photoshop works normally, and among those who know it, I only write on the forum for some users who want to see it fixed.

Dozens of people in my team and I have had the same bug reproduced on dozens of computers. (Not only this bug, but also the ones that were reported before and eventually fixed.)
So even if 10 out of 10 people are reproduced, is this still 1%?

The expression "some users" at least doesn't seem to suit bug reporting threads.
Most users experience this, and they don't know if it's a bug or not.
That's what Photoshop is supposed to be like. It's supposed to be this sticky. It's supposed to be this slow. Photoshop is supposed to crash once in a while.
Most people think like this about all previous issues or bugs, so they don't report much.

[jamesg2858629]

Rarely sign in here, but just updated photoshop to the latest version and immediately encountered this issue.

Reading the responses of employees does not fill me with confidence. Rolling back. Sucks as I was excited to try the new AI features but not if I have to struggle to maintain control of the artboard to do it.

Hope you all get a solution. Will check back next time an update piques my interest.