I need to press Alt-Backspace two times in a row to get it to fill foreground color after updating to CC 2018 this morning. Is there a setting change I need to make or is this a bug? Thanks for a quick reply. This is a big part of my job as a comic book colorist and driving me nuts today.
Pete.Green • Adobe Employee, Nov 14, 2017Nov 14, 2017
This should be resolved in the 19.0.1 update released last night. Please update Photoshop using the Creative Cloud desktop app, and let us know if it's fixed for you!
Josh I'm in agreement in regards to your rage and annoyance with Adobe's recent release. I'm sure many of us would happily volunteer to test their work before release , sign NDAs etc to ensure our workflows are not interrrupted by Adobe's update. I'm at odds as to why Adobe doesn't attempt such a program to ensure quality. I too am open to alternative applications, but anything I try is lacking what I need in some areas.
Thanks for showing some solidarity, John v. I feel like a lot of people
in this thread are being far too complacent regarding this issue, and
are being far too understanding and forgiving - simply willing to accept
workarounds instead of a legitimate fix. Adobe NEEDS to hear about the
level of disenchantment and ill-will they are creating here. On an
individual level I choose to speak with my wallet, but on a professional
level my employer puts me in a position where I unfortunately have to
deal with this nonsense.
I do NOT want a workaround... I want a fix for something that never should have been broken. I want real users to beta the software (hello, I'm volunteering) and not lab monkeys testing useless new features like Rich Tool Tips aka one of the first things I turned off (leave that nonsense to PS Elements).
Muscle memory alone makes any workaround useless... the only good news is that I have learned not to remove previous versions so that I can still keep working but this is ridiculous. The hotfix should have already been released so again... what is the holdup?
We are investigating, but that's all we can say concretely. Bugs have been filed, and they're being worked on by the team.
There are more issues than the two mentioned here by 1543696, so we're doing our best to round them up.
Sorry for the annoyances caused by the keyboard shortcut and centering of placed images. We are definitely working to resolve them as timely as we can, but are not able to share any ETAs publicly.
Hang in there, and feel free to use 2017 in the meantime if that makes the headache lessen, (though I wish I didn't have to offer that suggestion!).
We are investigating, but that's all we can say concretely. Bugs have been filed, and they're being worked on by the team.
There are more issues than the two mentioned here by 1543696, so we're doing our best to round them up.
Sorry for the annoyances caused by the keyboard shortcut and centering of placed images. We are definitely working to resolve them as timely as we can, but are not able to share any ETAs publicly.
Hang in there, and feel free to use 2017 in the meantime if that makes the headache lessen, (though I wish I didn't have to offer that suggestion!).
Please, hurry up! I like 2018 very much and I want it stable. version 2017 have some problems too, eg with guides and liquify, and it's bothernig me. You introduced a solution in 2018 (that has given rise to other problems), and I really want to work in 2018. But I can't, it's too buggy. This update was so big, you changed so many basic functions and you have problems with everythig - alt, smoothing and healing brush, actions, exporting, image size and png files, liquify, fonts, adding images to existing files, ... Well, I changed my mind. Don't hurry up. I think you hurried up, when you released this version, these bugs are too frequent and you must seen them at testing stage. You really hurried up when you released it. My only hope - it will exist stable 2018. I mean 2018, not 2019!
If you need a tester - please, I am also volunteer...
First, like Pete says, we're actively working on a solution to these bugs and we actually really do care about this problem. We certainly did NOT see these bugs coming and would like to get you a fix ASAP.
As for testing, well, I personally did a keyboard pass for this release. But I guess I always managed to press CNTRL before ALT or use some other combo which didn't trigger this bug (testing every, single key-combo isn't realistic). At the same time, not a single person in our prerelease program reported this bug either. If someone reading this is truly interested in joining our Photoshop prerelease program, we'd actually love to have you. Ping me back and I'd be happy to get the process started and get you into the program.
David. I wasn't complaining. I just posted the temporary way to get it to work. I understand it's impossible to catch every bug in a program let alone one as complex as Photoshop. I've been helping as much as possible with the questions on this forum and others. I also stress that the person includes a list of hardware/software in the post as it may gives us clues to what is wrong.
Hi David, I responded to your email yesterday... hopefully you got it but the short answer is, yes, I am definitely interested in the prerelease program. BTW, while testing every shortcut 'may' not be realistic, it seems surprising that no one noticed that literally every shortcut that involves the ALT key is affected.
Hi David, I responded to your email yesterday... hopefully you got it but the short answer is, yes, I am definitely interested in the prerelease program. BTW, while testing every shortcut 'may' not be realistic, it seems surprising that no one noticed that literally every shortcut that involves the ALT key is affected.
The testing thing - I have requested some people who have indeed updated to CC2018 to test the alt shortcut issue, and it seems it is not a 100% widespread thing. Even after asking people to start with pressing alt, some people's installation are just working.
Myself, my ctrl+alt+z is wacom shortcut is working fine, while I know a handful who have their shortcut broken; I can't make alt+backspace work, while other people have no trouble with it at all.
I'm wondering how much external factors are contributing to this
Am beginning to wonder if the alt+backspace problem may have something to do with the latest windows update. Could it be something in the Fall creators update. I myself have it and Alt+backspace doesn't work. Just a thought!
Am wondering if the people that it does work for don't have the update yet?
I think it's more that it's just not important to some people's workflow. I was ranting to the other graphics guy I work with about how ridiculous it is that this issue could be overlooked. I told him that Alt-Backspace was broken and he just shrugged and said "what does that do?" I rolled my eyes and asked "how do you even fill stuff in Photoshop?" And he replied that he uses the Paint Bucket. I nearly had to leave the room.
You should get an email today. I was offline last night to bring my toddler trick-or-treating...
As for testing the shortcuts, well, I'd like to share with everyone just a glimpse of how it works.
I think I did about a full day's testing. Now, that might sound like a lot -- eight hours should be more than plenty to find this, right? -- but if you keep in mind that the average US keyboard has 101 keys, 42 of which are valid for ALL shortcuts and 25+ more for certain ones, with three different modifiers (CNTRL, ALT, and SHIFT) and that Mac has one more (CMD) and that if I had ten seconds to set and test just the universal shortcut combinations only, an English-only pass over the application would take more than three weeks (42 x [3+2+1+1]+[4+3+2+1+1] *10 / 60*8*5). And that's just customizable menu commands -- that doesn't include panels, tools, hardcoded, or undocumented shortcuts, many of which require putting the app in a particular state to verify. Heck, those three weeks would NOT have caught this particular combo, since Backspace is one of the "sometimes valid" keys...! Now, add the seven completely different writing systems we support (usually via 102 keyboards!) as well as the other 19 languages (and don't forget to double it to check both OSes), and well, I believe it comes out to more like nearly two solid years doing nothing else (it should be a lot more, actually, but many European languages have the very similar layouts, so they can be skipped/grouped)...and I still haven't even included checking a single non-English version of the application yet...those numbers are just with the US app and non-English hardware...=8-O
Now, the logical follow up question is, why didn't I find this particular high-traffic issue, other than I squeezed all that into an eight hour day? Well, it might have been introduced after my pass or that I do tend to press CNTRL, then SHIFT, then ALT when using a right-handed mouse...but that's MY workflow process.
And that's where prerelease comes in. We do rely on those testers to try what we can't due to logistic/scalability limitations -- to experiment with their workflows and processes. But, unfortunately, not one of them found this either. Nor did any of the testers who validate our localized versions.
Rereading my message, it sounds like I'm being defensive or whiny -- I'm not trying to be -- I know I do good work. My goal is to illuminate and personalize the process for you. Insight usually leads to understanding. Yes, this was a serious bug and I'm sure it would have annoyed the heck out of me if I had run into it, but we ABSOLUTELY did not ship it on purpose. I fully agree with and appreciate John Maguire's comment about catching bugs -- Photoshop is actually a pretty massive and complicated application and as a result, it's quite possible for the unintended consequences of fixing a bug to trigger or create another one. In fact, in retrospect, I believe that might have been what happened here. And it's for that precise reason that dot releases take time -- the last thing in the world we want is to make the situation worse by rushing out a fix that includes new bugs.
Does that make sense?
Again, sorry for the problem and please believe that we are actively working on a solution. In the future, you can be part of that process via prerelease. Emails are on their way...8-) Thanks, David
p.s. -- full disclosure: The machine I'm typing this post on still has my 102 Turkish-layout keyboard connected that I was using for testing shortcuts (I touch type, so I don't look at the keys when I'm writing in English).
Getting this level of information is certainly informative and
appreciated. I know software testing takes time, bugs can be introduced
by fixes, one thing can break the next, etc. I'm aware of all that.
The only thing I take issue with regarding your explanation is that I
feel that I could "test drive" any version of Photoshop within an hour
and discover whether or not the major tools and functions are broken.
Every last filter, every last key combo, every single scenario - no,
definitely not. But just basic functionality like filling with a
color? Yeah, I encountered this bug within 5 minutes of using CC2018,
and I find it very difficult to grasp that anyone using Photoshop under
simulated "real world" conditions would miss this.
I haven't
even mentioned the bug I've discovered with leading/line spacing in the
Character panel - that's annoying as well but not like this one.
Adobe's business direction the last 5 years or so has colored much of
what I have to say on the matter, but putting all that aside - the
source of my immense frustration about this Alt-keystroke issue is the
extremely basic nature of this function. That is what makes it so
unbelievable that it was missed. But anyway, thanks for your candor on
the matter, it's much more than we usually get on a software forum.
@Josh... I feel your pain and admire your restraint. Rather than 'leaving the room' I just employ my full arsenal of Nerf balls and slingshots so they leave my room 😉
It's somehow sad to see that some individuals manage to build up so much pressure on you, that you feel the need to justify yourself. While I'm partially in agreement, that this issue shouldn't have happened at all, I, and I'm sure many others, totally get that it still can happen.I'm looking forward to finally be able to use V19.0 soon.
Is the Pre-Release Version instanced from the regular Photoshop installation?If so, I would be happy to participate. BestMastey
Not whiny at all David! Thanks for the reply 🙂 As someone who have at least a little bit of experience with game QA (*shudder* network testing brr), I know what an monumental and often thankless job it is. If we can assist in testing in any way too, just let us know, and I'm glad to help!
Thank you David for the eye opener. Yikes. you need someone to write a program to run the test and compare the results someway to know that every keystroke combo works.
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