P: Photoshop 21.1.0 Choppy Panning when "Flick Panning" is disabled (windows 10, flick panning off)

[daniellieske]

I've Noticed this weird behavior after the latest 21.1.0 update:

When panning, the canvas  basically refreshes only after I have stopped my panning motion, so that there's no smooth movement during panning, only the state before panning and the state after panning. Feels extremely choppy. Only if I scroll REALLY slowly - like snail speed - I see the canvas following along my motion. As soon as I accelerate to a normal panning speed, the above behavior goes into effect.

I first thought that this might be a graphics card driver issue but then I noticed that when I turn on "flick panning" in the preferences, suddenly panning is performed smoothly (but, as to be expected, with the annoying floaty overshooting motion of flick panning, that I'd like to avoid).

If someone can confirm, this might be an issue worth investigating.

UPDATE 20th April 2021:

At least two users confirmed that the Navigator window plays a role in this problem. Scaling the Navigator window or closing it completely stops the problem from occurring in those cases.

Apart from closing the Navigator window and activating "Flick Panning", another workaround seems to be to activate "Scroll All Windows" in the options of the Hand tool. This also stops the undesired behavior but obviously comes with potentially unwanted side effects.

[Dabatross]

Yes this wasn't a problem at all on 2019 or 2018. It can't be the mouse as the cause of this if it didn't happen in previous versions so it must be a bug that got through Q&A.

[Mathias17]

Windows 10

Wacom Cintiq

Photoshop 22.0.1

Prefs>Performance: everything is turned; I'm using my GPU.

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Panning is unbearably laggy.

If I turn on Flick Panning, it "fixes" the pan lag.

Just one problem, though - I loathe flick panning haha (and don't understand why anyone wants it, tbh).

Whether panning with mouse or stylus, it makes no difference.

My zoom level doesn't seem to make a difference, including when at 100% - still laggy.

I've got some numbers far ya. I noticed the pan lag doesn't start happening until my canvas gets to a certain size:

(Tests done in a PSD with only one layer. That one layer contained a 1000px X 1000px white square and nothing more - just raster pixels, not a vector shape.)

-Up until 4000px X 4000px my panning is decent; even bearable. It's perfect if I turn on Flick Panning - it reminds me of going from 30fps to 60fps in a game; just gets uber smooth.

-Now if I increase my canvas size to 4200px X 4200px - panning is becoming a problem. Again, enabling Flick Panning will get me butter smooth panning.

-THEN if I increase my canvas size to 4500px X 4500px - non-flick pan panning is now completely intolerable. The canvas scrollbars always move responsively but the canvas update speed is terrible.

-I can raise my canvas to 8000px X 8000px and Flick Panning will still cure the pan lag!

-Lastly, I tested one my larger working files - yep Flick Panning makes panning super smooth again. This particular PSD is 14,336px X 3,073px, lots of adjustment layers, normal layerers, blendmodes, etc etc.

So uhhh . . . yeah. Pleeeease flag this issue so it can get looked at quick.

Until then, my canvases are gonna be flying all over the place due to stupid flick panning. jesus

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Is there any solution to this issue yet? I still have the issue with my 980ti. The panning lags when zoomed in more then 100%. I never had the issue before with PS on the same system

[thijswolzak2]

Same here, I'm using flick panning now as a workaround, but I really do not like it. A few weeks ago I noticed that the flick panning did not work, and all was fine. In settings, flick panning was selcted, but for some reason it did not work, which was exactly what I liked. But later (after restarting the computer?) flick panning kicked back in...

[Alexandre15A9]

this issue haven't been fixed yet. I've been skipping every updates for about a year now because it makes photoshop unusable

[deomis]

I tried everything that was written in these and other similar posts - nothing helped.
I accidentally found a solution. I checked the box to Scroll All Windows in the Hand Tool settings.
Now everything is smooth. It also helps a little to lower the mouse polling rate (I had 1000)

[deomis]

Try to check the box Scroll All Windows in the Hand Tool settings.

[deomis]

Try to check the box Scroll All Windows in the Hand Tool settings.

[Alexandre15A9]

it worked for me ! thank you. i don't think i've ever clicked on the "hand tool" in the tool bar before so i never thought of searching there !!

i feel like i can finally use the latest photoshop version !

[thijswolzak2]

deomis thank you so much!

[daniellieske]

I had given up hope to ever be able to use an updated version of Photoshop but deomis' tip actually fixed the problem for me. Awesome!

[deomis]

By the way, the zoom tool and rotate tool have a similar setting.

[Mathias17]

Turning on Scroll All Windows does restore wonderful smooth canvas panning for me as well, which is great. Thanks for posting that, @deomis!

However, this isn't really a 100% solution so I wish this thread wasn't marked solved, fearing that this issue gets less attention now. For some it might be a solution but for others, including me, it's another workaround with unwanted side-effects.

I don't think we should have to compromise like this for software we pay a sub for.

If you only ever work with one window, you're probably good to go, but for me now all my windows awkwardly pan when I don't want them to.

Use Case 1: I often use Window > Arrange > New Window for... to create an instanced window in order to keep an eye on a specific part of a project while I zoom/pan/work in a different window. It's highly useful and there's no substitute for it - but new windows automatically panning defeats the purpose.

Use Case 2: I also use floating windows for smart objects so I can quickly and easily see updates when I save changes to nested smart object layers without needing to switch between files - again, auto panning pretty much ruins this setup.

But @deomis figuring this out should definitely be a huge clue for the photoshop team.

@JeffreyTranberry could this information be submitted to the devs in hopes it makes troubleshooting this one a little easier? This issue has existed for well over a year.

[Alexandre15A9]

I agree with you on this.....  Actually I use the same technique as you (new window on my second screen) so I rolled back to a previous version of photoshop......

[daniellieske]

Agreed! I unmarked the answer from deomis as accepted solution as I also encountered the undesirable side effects of the multi-window panning. 

It is actually very frustrating that the latest versions of Photoshop obviously ARE capable of a smooth scrolling behavior (if you turn on flick panning OR scoll all windows) but for some weird reason not WITHOUT these workarounds. Come on, Adobe! 

[daniellieske]

@ deomis

I'd like to point out that I unmarked your answer as the solution to the problem because the scroll all windows option, while being a good workaround in some use cases, is really annoying when you work with several open windows.

[Alluring_user5EAB]

Unfortunately I see you're still commenting here with this issue after over a year, and I've got it too. Something that no one else has mentioned here yet: do you have the navigator window open? (The navigator is the small preview of the entire canvas, you can enable/disable it by clicking Window>Navigator at the top.)

Like you, the issue for me is fixed by either turning on flick panning, or by turning on "Scroll All Windows" in the Hand tool. Both of these have obvious unwanted extra effects though.

I did some experimenting and found that the pan stuttering stops if I close my navigator window. I found that when it is open the pan stuttering is dependent on how large the navigator window is - if it is sufficiently small then everything works smoothly, but the larger I make it the more laggy the panning becomes. Closing it entirely eliminates the problem entirely.

Let me know if this is a factor for you too!

[Alexandre15A9]

@mark_mcglashan  thank you for experimenting on this specific problem !!

unfortunately when using multiple windows (window -> arrange -> new window for____) the problem persist.

but I believe you are on to something and, with those new clues, I HOPE someone at adobe will be able to fix this more easily

[Alluring_user5EAB]

@Amylrun Hmm strange, for me it doesn't matter if there are multiple windows or if they are all docked to the main window, as long as the navigator is closed it works smoothly in both cases. Sorry it doesn't improve it for you!

[daniellieske]

@mark_mclashan I can fully confirm the behavior you're describing! I actually have the navigator open all the time and closing it eliminates the stuttering on the panning.

Also, scaling the Navigator to a very small size decreases the stuttering.

And in my case, this is also true if I have multiple views of the document visible.

That's a great finding! The navigator window definitely plays an important role in this. I hope this helps the developers to find a fix to this very annoying problem that practically keeps me from upgrading to the latest version of Photoshop since 2019.

[Alluring_user5EAB]

@daniel_lieske Good to hear that the root of the problem seems to be the same for both of us! It also started happening for me in the versions after a 2019 release - I was stuck on a 2019 build for the last few years to avoid this lagging problem, until I was forced to upgrade when I switched to a new computer a few days ago, and the problem started up again immediately exactly as it was back then.

At least we've now found out it's the navigator, so I can begrudgingly close that in the meantime to make the software usable in the hope they'll get around to fixing this, since they no longer let you download the 2019 version anywhere.

[deomis]

@mark_mcglashan 

Thank you. Indeed, just close the Navigator panel. Instead of a navigator, it even more convenient for me to use Window > Arrange > New Window

[chad.rolfs]

Thank you for identifying that the Navigator panel is the culprit.  We have a bug logged on this and are working to fix it. 

[Alluring_user5EAB]

chad@zewg.com_rolfs Awesome, thank you 🙂

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

i have same issues here and is not the mouse... i manage to fasten the zoom/paneling and moving elements by following some tips on the net, but still, the lag is there for already a year.

i have 32gb (gaming ram), i7 cpu (7th gen) and all my disks are SSD (raid0)

the slow issue is serious... you should try your own last version instead of implying that the matter comes from somewhere else.

is not just 1 user... is the whole net claiming the same.