P: "Adobe Community Help" keeps popping open (Windows)

Report · Jul 07, 2011

Adobe Community Help keeps popping open when working within Adobe Photoshop CS5. I'm not sure if I'm doing some sort of shortcut that causes it to open, but sometimes (maybe once instance, during a 40hr week) Adobe Community Help will open in a Window while I am doing stuff in Adobe Photoshop CS5.

I'm not sure what causes it, but I'll close the Community Help window, and then continue working in Photoshop, and it will open again. Only way to keep it from opening back up again is to close and restart Photoshop. This has happened to me on my home PC as well, and in previous versions of Photoshop, if I remember correctly. I am using Windows 7 now, but I think I've had this happen on XP too.

Is it because there are updates available? Is it because I'm doing some sort of weird shortcut that I don't know about?

An example: I was transforming an object (using the mouse, clicking, using shift button while moving the cursor, using the space bar while panning, etc.) It just opened again. Guess it's time to restart Photoshop...

Report · Sep 26, 2013

Well, scratch that. Even with "blocking" Adobe servers via the hosts file, I still have the issue. Thought it solved that, as it's been a good week since it crept up. Guess I can at least get rid of all that garbage from the hosts file now.

Report · Sep 26, 2013

Hi everyone,

Photoshop did release version 14.1.2 yesterday. For more details please visit this page:
http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2013/09/...

I apologize that the help launching bug fix is not in that release but it will be in a future release.

Thanks,
Jeff

Report · Sep 30, 2013

Few day ago I found funny thing.. I was teaching few people (PS lessons) and all of the sudden, in the same moment everyone had help on there screens 🙂 I was on my CC version and they have CS6.
Unfortunately I don't remember exactly steps to this bug but it was something like go to style window on shape layer -> color overlay -> pick color -> close style window -> again open style window -> color overlay -> pick color -> BANG!
But on fresh file this dont trigger this bug 😞

Report · Oct 02, 2013

Is this Help window issue going to get a CS6 fix?

Report · Oct 02, 2013

I would be embarrassed to call myself a Photoshop Engineering Manager by allowing this bug to exist in public releases.

Report · Oct 05, 2013

Hi everyone,

I cannot comment on if the bug will be backported to CS6, I apologize for that.

As far as the steps to reproduce, there is an internal operation that needs to trigger 3999 times before this bug will reproduce. So the comment about it not happening on fresh files makes sense. You have to keep Photoshop open for awhile and do different windowing operations in order to trigger it. That is why there is no good workaround other than quitting and relaunching Photoshop as that will "reset" it so to speak.

-Jeff

Report · Oct 06, 2013

Just 'quitting Photoshop' may not always be the wanted solution.
In this situation any Photoshop command including 'Exit' triggers the Help pop up page.
You cannot Save any Unsaved jobs, which may not be so funny.
You probably will use the Taskmanager to 'End the process' for Photoshop or just restart your computer.
Instead temporarily disconnect your internet connection - then the help pages don't pop up - and you can save your jobs - or do anything in Photoshop - and after that do the relaunching of Photoshop to get the reset.

Report · Oct 08, 2013

This just happened to me. My Internet connection was off and I went Layer style, a few clicks and BANG!! Dreaded Error! I had to connect my internet modem and search for a fix. I went through this thread for a few mins and then minimized and clicked 'OK' for the umpteenth time on the evil popup and surprisingly, it just disappeared and photoshop was back to normal. I didn't even have to quit. So I guess u just have to give it what it wants-Internet. If ur already connected, try disconnecting and reconnecting give it a minute or two. Or better still stop the process and risk losing your work.

Report · Oct 08, 2013

Looking forward to this fix in CS6

Report · Oct 09, 2013

I have exactly same issue almost every day. Same system, CS and internet browser!

Report · Oct 09, 2013

This better get to CS6 ASAP.

Report · Oct 10, 2013

I dont think we're all doing things 3999 times before it shows up..

maybe thats one way to reproduce it, but there must certainly be something else happening.

its a shady behavior, and one that Photoshop seems more and more ok with.. I remember way back when Adobe respected offline users. it was somewhere around CS that they decided everyone should be online

and FYI, most serious system builds made exclusively for the Adobe Suites are actually not even put online

I usually have a separate top-of-the-line system I use only for Adobe, and other Design & 3D modelling programs

in fact, my newest computer is always offline, and my online computer gets handed down from that offline power workstation

at the moment, I've migrated the offline system to an online system for the time being, until the next full system upgrade, and I think part of the problem may be that I still often take my computer offline, sometimes after I've opened PS or other apps, or just whenever I need the focus, attention, calmness, and Zen state of mind unplugging gives me.

and I suspect this problem has something to do with the way Adobe handles online-offline computers..

I will say this, I do think Adobe is getting a bit too overbearing with its updates that I continually have to turn off, and which always reappear, bothering me, and dont really seem to understand what 'no' means.

there seems to be no easy way to turn it off completely.. with adobe products always coming up with some reason or another to start bothering me again

and sometimes, when I unplug my ADSL cable, Adobe starts to appear to panic or spaz out.. and suddenly it will start bugging out & bothering me with update stuff

maybe you could look into that, and perhaps even look into respecting others privacy and offline time, while you're at it.

you could start by making offline updates more of a standard, rather than some rare freakshow feature offered for people who live in the backwoods with shotguns and WWII helmets

Report · Oct 14, 2013

Happens randomly do not know why it keeps happening. Have a new computer and fresh install and the issue still happens.

Report · Oct 14, 2013

Hi Dawei,

There is an internal operation that happens 3999 times for this bug to occur. There are many ways to get that internal operation to happen but I am almost positive that is what is going on.

In our testing in house we have not seen that unplugging the network or running in offline mode reduces this from occurring. It is possible that it could help the multiple dialogs from opening at at least when this does happen you can continue to use Photoshop.

If you do see it, it is a good warning sign to save your work as once you hit this internal operation that many times there is no way to reset that other than re-launching Photoshop.

I hope to have news for everyone very soon on this.

Thanks,
Jeff

Report · Oct 14, 2013

ok.. well.. all I'm saying is that "Online Adobe Help" is a Programming function within Adobe which seems way to gungho on people going online

OnLine Help isnt even a function most users even want or can use.. as alot of Systems are kept offline, for Productivity, Stability, Performance, & Security reasons

I dont see why its even there, it should be an option people turn on in the settings

it behaves more like a data-collection tool, desperate to get online.

I think there should be an option to turn off "online Help"

Adobe does, whether you realize it or not, attempt to have its programs online and they make going offline with the programs troublesome & problematic, on the whole..

thats across the board with Adobe products

Report · Oct 15, 2013

I sincerely hope the fix makes it to CS6. Upgrading to any future versions which require cloud connectivity has been deemed unacceptable for my employers production environment. We run a large render farm, and this issue is causing plenty of lost throughput. I've currently modified our applications to restart Photoshop after a set amount of images. This has minimized the impact, but it is not optimal.

Report · Oct 15, 2013

CC still doesn't require cloud/net connectivity - that hasn't changed.

Report · Oct 16, 2013

A hundred years later and Adobe does a f***.

Report · Oct 16, 2013

Sure deleting my post solves the problem @ Chris Cox ...

Adobe did nothing about this and other bugs for years. So let people say it.

Report · Oct 16, 2013

@ Chris Cox - What makes you think, that I did not read what has been announced regarding this topic? Do you think I might feel better when you delete my posts? No I don't.

Adobe should have done something about it years ago. But did not. It even becomes worse in CC as Photoshop tends to crash even more often while opening browser instance after browser instance. I have lost countless hours of work due to this bug in the last decade. I have lost money due to it. So why should I not share my feelings here? Should I share them on Twitter?

Report · Oct 17, 2013

Just want to chime in that Photoshop CC just opened 10-15 tabs of help pages in my browser. This was while using the color picker. I have seen this problem since CS3 at least.

Report · Oct 17, 2013

yes, we know - please see the previous responses and the official response at the top of the topic.

Report · Oct 18, 2013

Can we get an update on this? I realize publishing a fix/patch/update takes some time with scheduling alongside other bug fixes...but this thing seems to be getting worse...and happens every day now. And each time it crashes Photoshop. I used to have some luck in it not crashing. But now Photoshop crashes 100% of the time this bug occurs. And my files are only recovered 50% of the time. Lose lose. 😞

Report · Oct 18, 2013

Hi Garconis,

The fix has been released to our prerelease users and we are vetting it now. I apologize that I cannot comment further on release dates at this time.

Thanks,
Jeff Sass

Report · Nov 08, 2013

Hi everyone,

The CS6 (13.0.1.3) patch has the fix for this issue. The readme specifically names this fix along with a number of others:

"Notable Windows specific bugs fixed

While using Photoshop (e.g. Color Picker or Layer Styles) PS launches browser with Help URL and crashes"

This fix is Windows only and is available for free simply by choosing Help->Updates from within Photoshop CS6.

This fix will also be released in a future Photoshop CC release for Creative Cloud subscribers.

For more information please read the following blog post:
http://blogs.adobe.com/photoshopdotco...

I wanted to thank all of our customers again for helping with this fix especially Garconis who started this thread.

Thanks,
Jeff Sass

Adobe Community

P: "Adobe Community Help" keeps popping open (Windows)

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