Participant

Question

All Menu Items Greyed Out CS5

Forum|Forum|15 years ago
May 12, 2010
7 replies
29940 views

Everytime I use Photoshop CS5, at some point all of the menu items get greyed out and don't come back unless I quit and reopen Photoshop. There doesn't seem to be anything that triggers it.

All the keyboard shortcut and the mouse and tools work fine, but I can't select any of the menu items in the dropdowns in the menu bar (Photoshop, File, Edit, Image, etc)

This is obviously very annoying...any ideas?

This topic has been closed for replies.

A

Anonymous

Having the same problem; grateful to see that it's being (been?) addressed. I'm on a Mac Pro Quad Core, OS 10.5.8, with 4 GB of RAM. My gray out problem with the menu functions occurs once every day or two, and I'm working long hours in Photoshop CS5 these days. The syndrome is much like it's been described above ( I am working in standard screen mode).

Here's the kicker: I've tried twice to download the Photoshop 12.0.4 upgrade, but both times I get the message "Mounting failed." What the @#$%^? Please help.

B

brink668

Participant

Hi Arty you replied to an ancient thread but in any case I was able to solve this problem by entering in the correct serial. You may need to deactivate your product and reactivate it by entering in your serial again. Somehow with the demo verison I had originally installed than unistalling and using my purchased Adobe product it failed to activate as the demo days or something was keeping the product active though you had already entered in the serial.

So to sum it up, try deactivating the product and re-entering/re-activating the product thats what fixed it for me...but your on a mac and I was on windows.

W

wixco

Participant

Actually, this problem was driving me crazy until by chance I realized that I had to be in Standard Screen Mode for the Menu items to show up. Give it a try. Just hit the “F” key to get back to the Standard Screen Mode.

L

lorin@duckshotsphoto.com

Known Participant

Thank you.

duckshots@comcast.net

D

DonLand

Participant

Well..... any progress on the problem yet as I just lost another 1/2 hour worth of work? I have a rather large file with many layers that takes over a minute to save so saving it every 10 minutes is getting VERY tedious and losing work is getting even more so. Oh yea, this time since I could not save it I tried playing with the different options that I could still use, like the change of floating vs. full vs blacked out. Well after clicking Photoshop gave up and crashed.

B

brink668

Participant

I get the same problem on Windows Professional x64 using Adobe Photoshop 64bit

I have 8GB of Ram and 512MB Nvidia 8800GTS Video Card.

I noticed the problem 1st when 3D menu would come and go as I went into Photoshop a few times..

Chris Cox

Legend

This is the Macintosh forum, and the menus graying out was a Macintosh specific bug.

So I doubt you have the same problem.

The 3D menu can be grayed out because your video card driver isn't capable of using the 3D features (can be intermittent if it returns errors).

B

brink668

Participant

I know it is a Mac Forum but I figured I'd let you know that it is occurring across the board, oddly enough it works fine using the 32bit version and not the 64bit version of Photoshop. 3D works sometimes and doesn't the next..comes and goes time to time really random haven't got a clue.

I updated my drivers for my card, and got the latest updates from Adobe same problem. I even tried restarting, deleting my preferences and nothing had any effect.

I even attached a link to a video of me having this problem so you can see for yourself there is something going on that is really wrong.

I am originally in Photoshop 32bit (You can see the 3D Menu on the top + in the performance it recognizes the Card)
Then I go into CS5 Adobe Photoshop 64Bit (You do not see the Video card being detected) <-- That may be an issue
Then I go back to 32bit to show I'm not kidding

Here is the video:

http://www.computerrich.com/downloads/Problem_with_64Bit_Photoshop.swf

Thanks

C-Wave

Inspiring

I have a very specific version of this problem. Sometimes, especially after I expand my canvas to add a white border that I then want to stroke, I'm unable to select all, either with a keyboard shortcut or with the menu. When I pull down the menu, the select all command is not available. If I back up, before expanding my canvas, I am able to select all and stroke. I am not in a mode that should prevent me from doing this, and have a normal layer as my active one. I've been using PS for enough years to know that this is not the normal behavior. After a restart, it is sometimes fine. Occasionally, a second restart is required to fix the problem.

L

lorin@duckshotsphoto.com

Known Participant

Glad I am not the only one, because then it would be me and not the program.

L

Lelia25

Participant

I'm having this problem as well. After having CS4 crash constantly on my macbook, I was happy to get into CS5, but now I am havng the menus ALL greyed out. I think I notice it happening mostly after I command+S (to save my work) but I will pay attention in the future to see if anything else specifically triggers it.

The only fix is completely shutting down CS5 and reopening. This will become a hassle.

Has there been any news of what this is or if a fix will be available.

I am using OS 10.5.8 Leopard on a macbook

No plug-ins. No modifications. No imports from CS4

Chris Cox

Legend

Has there been any news of what this is or if a fix will be available.

It's an event problem in Cocoa. We're really not sure what triggers it, and we can't reproduce it reliably to debug it.

Frank Heller

Inspiring

I bumped into this little beauty today. Every item in every menu greyed out.

"Trash your Prefs" parrots steer clear. It aint prefs. I'll tell you what it is, though: scary. Quitting the file without saving and reopening cleared it. I couldn't begin to guess what set it off.

Hey Chris....5000 beta testers and we're the only two to see this? I doubt it.

Chris Cox

Legend

Re: Frank; yeah, only a few (2 or 3) reports.

Do you have any third party plugins installed? If so, have you tried disabling them?

M

Mies_Man

Participant

I'm getting the same issue over here...

Running PS CS5 on a 8core MacPro with 9gb RAM...

PS runs in 64bit

MAC OS X 10.5.8 installed

The problem appears from time to time...without specific reasons...

I am sure I'm not in any modal state cause all tools and keyboard shortcuts still work perfectly... only the menu gets grayed out.

I don't really know what Chris Cox means by "system modifications"... can you tell us a bit more about this ?

Also note that this is one of the many problems we have with CS5... You probably have heard of trouble with panning and troubles with the liquify tool beeing incredibly slow... I know it has nothing to do with the problem discussed in this thread... but I'm wondering is it couldn't somehow be all related...

... so far, PS CS5 is a pain in the ***, but I'm getting this feeling that it's a matter of a few fixes to get it up and running smoothly.

Thanks.

J.

The same issue here. I have had it twice now in Photoshop.. no idea why. No plugins, no extras, all the preferences untouched. All other keyboard shortcuts working but the program it self won't quit with cmd+Q.

Lucky us the shortcuts work and we don't loose any files!

Late 2008 MBP (Core2Duo), 4Gt, OS X 10.5.8, PS runs in 64bit