P: Slow tools/drawing - MacOS 10.10 Yosemite while rulers are enabled

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Since upgrading to Mac OS X Yosemite (see: 10.10.1), Photoshop hasn't been playing nice. All tools that require "drawing" (that is, click-and-drag motions) experience a small amount of lag. It appears that the system is taking a moment to realize that the mouse has clicked, but after that, no lag is observable while actually dragging. This affects tools like the Brush tool, Lasso tool, Marquee tool, Zoom tool, so on and so forth. It's notable that I've not been able to reproduce this with the Polygonal Lasso tool, which is not a drag-motion tool.

This issue CAN BE REPRODUCED ONLY USING THE MOUSE, but the effects are more subtle. Perhaps people using the mouse haven't even noticed. The issue is significantly more troublesome on tablets, however. Using the brush tool with a pressure sensitive tablet pen is a huge headache, if not utterly impossible. On a tablet, the issue is so bad that, often while doing small, quick motions, the program will fail to even register the stroke. Lines simply won't get drawn, for example.

This leads me to believe that 1) it's not an issue with the tablet software, and 2) it is somehow related to pressure sensitivity. Maybe. Again, ALL click-and-drag tools, even those that don't even have a pressure-sensitive option, are affected.

I briefly troubleshooted basics with a support technician who was unable to correct it and, in the end, broke the program completely (opening and closing preferences caused the program to crash, even without changing anything). I was forced to reinstall the whole program from scratch. Despite the headache (and the embarrassment of having a support technician break the program), it did give me an opportunity to test a fresh install. This did not fix anything.

This issue does go away entirely, both WITH AND WITHOUT a tablet, simply by disabling rulers. Don't misread what I'm saying - this is NOT a work-around - not having rulers is not an acceptable workflow for some of us. If I didn't think it were helpful information to expedite the process of FIXING this issue, I almost wouldn't have pointed it out for fear of someone dismissing this issue due to it "having a solution."

I have three versions of Photoshop currently installed: CS6, CC and the CC2014 update. All three of these programs experience this same bug.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

This issue persists into the Mac OS X 10.10.2 update, incidentally.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

We have been able to reproduce this, and are investigating the cause.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I appreciate the confirmation. Hope the information provided was helpful. Let me know if there's any other information I can provide.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Your information helped narrow it down a bit. Now we have to look at what changed in the OS drawing APIs, and whether it happens with or without GPU, tabbed or floating, etc.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Swipe-dragging the canvas disables the rulers momentarily and the issue isn't reproduced then. It's only on click-hold and mouse move.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Yeah, it seems to have something to do with drawing a lot of little lines for the rulers. We sent our findings to Apple and asked them what changed in MacOS 10.10 to cause this slowdown.

[2091212]

I upgraded to Mac OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 and Photoshop CC 2014.2.2. Working with levels and curves, moving around, the display reaction is delayed and very slow. Finally, properly working with PS is almost impossible now. Does anybody know how to fix this problem. Running PS CS6 on Mac OS X 10.6, I didn't have any problems. My iMac11,3 2,8 GHz Intel Core i5 is quite powerful using 12GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD 5750 1024 MB.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Yes, MacOS 10.10 has a number of known slowdowns, including the ruler/line drawing as mentioned above.
We are detailing the problems we find for Apple, and Apple is working on solutions.

[2091212]

I've spoken with Apple Care. Adobe has to fix these issues. Apple provides an OS and software distributors have to optimize their applications for an OS. Finally, I can't use PS with Yosemite because there's no solution at the moment.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Whomever you spoke to was very, very confused.

Apple provides an OS, and is responsible for fixing the bugs in that OS. Much like your state or local roads/highway department is responsible for fixing problems with the roads, instead of the maker of your car trying to fix roads.

We have documented these problems for Apple, and Apple is working on solutions.

[2091212]

Does anybody know if there're any problems running Mavericks and PS? I think of downgrading my Mac OS.

[2091212]

Does anybody know if there're any problems running Mavericks and PS? I think of downgrading my Mac OS.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I have the same issue after upgrading to Yosemite, but disabling the rulers does not affect the problem. I have installed the latest Java update 2014-001, the latest White Window Workaround plugin 1.0.6, disabled photoshop's use of the graphics processor (all recommended from various searches on the issue). The issue happens both with a Wacom tablet and with a mouse. I updated the tablet driver, no change. Is there any other workaround at the moment other than turning off rulers? I was willing to sacrifice the rulers in the mean time - I need to work. My company does not want to revert to Mavericks unfortunately. Other macs in the office (different models/configurations) are having no issue with Yosemite and Photoshop at all.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

MacOS 10.10 has a number of known slowdowns and problems. The rulers are just one of the most visible and obvious slowdowns. We are documenting all these problems for Apple, and working with Apple to get the OS issues solved.
Wacom has also had some issues on MacOS 10.10, and you should check for updated drivers from Wacom.

[2091212]

Finally, I downgraded to Mavericks. It works fine now.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I have just purchased four power macs with Yosemite with 10.10.3, and can confirm the rulers are causing major lag on all machines. Any news from apple yet?

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Fixed in current versions of Photoshop and macOS.