Photoshop settings

[wade_0529]

Photoshop constantly just forgets my settings.  It is really stupid and it's been doing this for years.  It doesn't even have a button to load settings so I have to go hunting for the folder to paste them into every time. 

So it forgets my settings every update or just sometimes randomly for fun.

There's no button to easily load my saved settings.

They introduced a cloud but it doesn't even save my settings to it.

The cloud also doesn't sync my settings between my home and work computers. What is the point of this cloud?

What the heck are you doing Adobe?

[D Fosse]

The settings file (aka preferences) is rewritten on every application exit, and is stored in your user account on the system drive. Removing the settings file returns the application to clean factory state.

In other words, something is disrupting the shutdown sequence, preventing the correct rewrite of the settings file. It can be a permissions issue, or an irregular shutdown.

Note that in a major version update, a new set of preferences is created and they will not carry over, unless you check the box to migrate them. Make sure you have saved out actions, brushes etc.

[wade_0529]

I know how it works.  I'm saying it works very poorly and frustratingly.  There's no reason I should need to have to fix my hotkeys so frequently.  No other program I use has this problem this severely.

Adobe needs to stop deleting my preferences.  

They need to add a button to make it easier to restore them when they inevitably screw up.

They also need to actually put their cloud to use and sync my settings.

I have had to fix my settings so many times this year and we're not even through February. Agghhhhh.

[D Fosse]

It sounds like there is an underlying system problem. This isn't normal. It has never happened to me.

Do you have any crashing? A crash can cause this, especially if it happens during shutdown. Do you have full administrator privileges in your user account? 

You can copy the whole settings folder, e.g. to the desktop, and paste it back.

[wade_0529]

I think my anecdotal evidence trumps yours.  It happens consistently on my old computer, my new computer, my work computer and a computer I use at a friends place.  Maybe you don't use custom hotkeys?  No crashing, and the hotkey loss is very consistantly after updates.  I know I can copy the settings, that's the whole problem, I shouldn't have to.  Photoshop is incredibly disrespectful of my settings.  I save a copy because I have to replace them so frequently. 

[wade_0529]

https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/suddenly-all-of-my-settings-in-photos...

https://www.reddit.com/r/photoshop/comments/1frjhbs/photoshop_preferences_gets_deletedreset_randomly...

https://www.reddit.com/r/photoshop/comments/1dtj7v4/why_does_my_photoshop_keep_deleting_all_my/

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/2615848

https://clearps.com/photoshop-discussions/threads/62632-photoshop-forgets-my-preferences/

here's some more anecdotal evidence.

I'm not terribly interested in what photoshop wants me to do.  I know a workaround for the bug but it's still very much a bug which photoshop needs to fix.  Adobe is a billion dollar company, I shouldn't have to find a folder and paste my preferences back after every update.

[D Fosse]

You can either look for ways to fix the problem, or you can point fingers and blame. But the latter tends to get in the way of the former.

Here in the forum we see this problem maybe once in a month. Yes, it happens, but it's quite rare.

The underlying problem is either permissions in your user account, or an irregular shutdown sequence - or corrupt preferences. Or all of them in combination. Prefernces are prone to corruption due to irregular shutdowns, and the fact that small errors will accumulate since it's rewritten on every exit. Do you migrate preferences from one version to the next? That's always a bit risky, for these reasons, plus the possibility that settings might not mean the same thing with new code.

If you see the same issue on several machines, that's very useful info, because you can then concentrate on what they have in common. That's often more than you think - but you can disregard all the differences.

[wade_0529]

I posted about a bug I want fixed in the bug forum.  I already have a workaround, I just save my settings and bring them back whenever photoshop very frequently does this across multiple computers.  I have a "solution" but I still want the bug to be fixed.  I'm not sure what you're getting at.

I want photoshop to maybe not break the preferences on a bad shut down?  Or perhaps just not delete them every update.  It's frustrating to me and is surely not the intended behaviour.

[Fwughox]

Coming in here because I'm frustrated by the fact that new versions of programs always require me to manually redo/reload my settings, and I was angry enough to finally do a forum search on the topic to try to resolve it, only to see that it isn't only me, Adobe just sucks. Cool.

I agree OP, this is ridiculous. How much do we all pay per month for our respective subscriptions, and they can't be bothered to do things as simple as sync keyboard shortcuts and settings between versions? I know you're referring to more than that, and in other circumstances not related to upgrades, but the bare minimum to me is maintaining these settings between versions and making it VERY EASY to save and reload settings, and they can't do that. They still expect you to save, track, and manually load all of your settings via a local filesystem.

If Adobe had put a tiny bit of effort into cloud syncing, it would probably fix your issue, even if you did have a local workstation problem as the other replier suggests... I don't know why, during the startup process, photoshop/premiere/whatever can't check your settings files against a cloud library and verify it's up to date. Why is this very simple and basic thing impossible for Adobe to do?

It is not acceptable to tell paying customers they should be manually exporting their settings and reloading them in new versions. If I were not paying for this product or it had no online components, that would be an acceptable answer, but I do pay for it, "the cloud" is a major selling point for every software product, and so Adobe has absolutely zero excuse for STILL not doing this.

[D Fosse]

Settings can't automatically be migrated. There's new program code in the new version, and old settings may not mean the same thing or not apply at all.

There is a checkbox in the installer to migrate settings. That should "translate" to the new version wherever necessary.

Still, I usually advise to not migrate. Since it's rewritten on every shutdown, small errors will accumulate, and corrupt preferences can cause weird behavior that is often mistaken for application bugs. It's a good thing to start fresh at intervals.

The whole settings folder is stored under your Windows user account, not in the installed program files. The advantage of this is that the whole application can be restored to clean, out-of-the-box factory state just by moving this folder away. Every version has its own main settings folder in the user account, so that you can have different settings for each version.