Photoshop not working. Can only open jpg files if run as administrator.

Report · Aug 19, 2024

I can open png and psd files without issue, I can not however open jpg files unless running Photoshop as an administrator. I get an submit crash report issue. Everything worked fine a few days ago, I've got 64 gigs of ram, a RTX 3090 GPU and an I9-12900K processor.

I tried uninistalling, re-installing, deleting preferences, installing previous versions, completely uninistalling graphcs card drivers using DDU and reinstalling running SFC /scannow and DISM etc. If I run as administrator I can't drag and drop files into the Photoshop window and if I open Photoshop without running as administrator I can't open jpg files.

I've included a screenshot of the crash error as well as an error report that it generated.

Could someone offer some suggestion as to a fix? Thank you!

Report · Aug 20, 2024

Hey, @chrisb13277001. Welcome to the Photoshop Community. I've checked the crash reports submitted by you and shared it with the team to review.

In the meantime, here are a few things I found.

You have two GPUs on your machine. The power-saving Intel UHD 770 Graphics & the high-performance Nvidia RTX 3090. The drivers for Intel graphics are 7-8 months old & the Nvidia drivers are 3 months old.

Please try these two suggestions: 1 - Update the graphics drivers using Intel & Nvidia's auto-detect programs.

2 - Follow step 6 in the content here to configure the default GPU for Photoshop: https://adobe.ly/4fOQsTF

This should directly help how Photoshop works.

After this, in the Creative Cloud app, press CTRL + ALT + T (Win) to launch Creative Cloud Troubleshooter, select 'Close Creative Cloud and related processes, ' > and click on Go.

Ensure that the user account has read-write permissions on the following folders:

C:\Program Files\Adobe
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe
C:\ProgramData\Adobe
C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Adobe
C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\com.adobe.
C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Adobe
C:\Users\\AppData\LocalLow\Adobe
C:\Users\\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe

Giving permissions to these folders. Windows has more than one way. I can share the simple one. If this does not work, reaching out to Microsoft Support would be the go-to solution for fixing user account permissions.

1) Right-click on the folders shared above and go to Properties

2) On the Security tab, click Edit to change the permissions

3) Select the admin user in the Group or User Names section

4) Put a checkmark on Allow complete control

5) Allow complete control to other users and accounts on PC as well and Click Apply and then OK

Once you have applied the required permissions, ensure that there are no stale preferences in your Photoshop. Go to the location of the preference folder below and rename it to backup.

Windows 10/11: Users/[user name]/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/Adobe Photoshop [version]/Adobe Photoshop [version] Settings
You can press Press the Windows key > Enter 'Run' > Enter %APPDATA%\Adobe
Rename the Adobe Photoshop folder by adding a .old at the end. (Adobe Photoshop 2024 > Rename > Adobe Photoshop 2024. old), You can restore these preferences later if needed.(https://adobe.ly/4860qM9)
Restart the computer.

These changes will give a fresh start to Photoshop as a fresh install. Let me know how it goes.

Thanks!

Sameer K

(Use '@mention' to tag me when you reply)

Report · Aug 21, 2024

Hi Sameer, thank you so much for the response. The graphic card updates were rolled back because I did a clean install of the graphics card to see if that was an issue. Photoshop and Sniffer.exe were already set to use the 3090 so the other GPU couldn't have been the issue. I finally found the issue. The problem started after a Windows update that rolled out on Friday. I tried to roll back that update and a cascade of failures started including rolling back the update itself. I did a clean install of windows, reinstalled all my applications migrated what settings I could and the issue is resolved. Thank you for your assistance, but alas it turns out it was Windows itself that was the issue and couldn't be repaired via any of the tools dism, sfc, in place upgrade, repair install etc.

Report · Aug 29, 2024

I have the very same problem! I had a long discussion with Adobe support on the phone today. After I thought the problem was solved, I realized that, in addition, I have to set "Run as Admin" for Adobe Creative Cloud and some other apps that interact with Photoshop and Lightroom, such as Photomechanic, to get them to start/function normally.

I have also discovered that dragging photos directly into Lightroom from Windows Explorer no longer works.

Setting Windows permissions did not solve the problem, and reinstalling everything would take too much time, which I cannot afford. Do you have any further information about this?
By the way, yes, I was forced to install the Windows 11 update too, and I wish I could disable all Windows updates!

I look forward to hearing from you.

Report · Aug 30, 2024

Hi, I'm facing the same problem and wondering if changing drives worked for you. Can you update me? I previously moved all my apps (except for Creative Cloud) to D drive due to some storage issues on C. They all seem to work fine, but Photoshop keeps bringing up this error.