Cant open PSB because its not compatible with this version of Photoshop

[GFKS]

Hi guys,

I saved PSB like 2 hours ago at work, tried to open it now at home and i got a message that its not compatible with this version of Photoshop (its the same version, same computer, same file location). This happened several times already and i have to say im starting to get fairly irritated and paranoid about reliability of this program.

Anyone has any ideas how to open the file? i have previous versions that work fine but it will set me back several hours of work, and as we all know the first good result can never be replicated the same. The PSB has around 8GB but i made sure it saved and i didnt fiddle around with anything while it was saving.

MacOS 14.5 M1 Max 64GB / Photoshop 25.12.0 20240903.r.806 055f5e9 arm64

so...this is why i pay $700 per year? But at least we can AI generate [cursing removed] flowers right?

[WestCoastVivi]

The same thing happened to me, and I do not know how to fix it. Hours and hours of work down the drain... I'm pi....

[larissak30344270]

Same thing just happened to me - there goes two hours. Is there a solution?

[WestCoastVivi]

I'm sorry that happened to you as well. My file never opened again, and I had to re-edit the entire thing.

My biggest takeaway from it is: Don't edit files and then save them directly to an external hard drive. Instead, edit and save them to your desktop first, then move them to the external drive. (especially PSB files that are way bigger)

[D Fosse]

Where was the file saved, internal drive or elsewhere?

This sounds like it may be a corrupt file.  File corruption is always caused by hardware failure.

[WestCoastVivi]

External HD. The file opened just fine yesterday. Today it doesn't. No changes made. 

[D Fosse]

Saving directly to external storage has a high risk of file corruption and is officially warned against. Save locally, then copy over. External drives get kicked around a lot, and cables/connectors inevitably get worn. In addition, there's the additional layer of USB drivers and protocols.

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/networks-removable-media-photoshop.html 

[WestCoastVivi]

Since there's nothing I can do to fix the issue, I have to re-edit the entire image. I think I want to cry a little first... 🥲

I appreciate your help and I will save to desktop first before it goes anywhere else. Thank you! 

[D Fosse]

One aspect of this is very often overlooked - file sizes.

Thought experiment:

If a random event happens on average every, say, 100 gigabytes, you can on average save 100 000-ish small web jpegs or Word documents before you get an instance of file corruption.  So you'll just write it off as a glitch and think no more of it.

But if you're saving 10 GB PSBs, every ten files will be corrupted. That will make you sit up and notice.

Obviously, this is just statistics, so it's random and can happen at any time, not regularly and predictably. But the chances are much higher.

[WestCoastVivi]

I try to keep all of that in mind! I think my brain needs an external hard drive too—so many things to remember! Ha!

Thank you again for taking the time to help me. I don’t take this for granted! 

[GFKS]

interesting how this never ever happens with .PSD format even if its huge and saving for a really long time

[D Fosse]

@GFKS 

Are you saving directly to an external drive or over a network connection?

[davescm]

@GFKS Two things.

1. PSDs have a maximum size of 2GB. PSBs have a maximum of 4 Exabytes (4.2 billion GB). So as D Fosse explained the larger file sizes are more prone to encounter an error.

2. People do have trouble, reported in these forums, with PSDs saved directly to external or network drives. Hence Adobe's advice to save to internal drives. If you then copy to an external drive you can delete the original once you know the copy is OK.

Dave

[milani_2290]

This is happening to me right now and I'm saving it on the cloud. I save it and then almost immediatly it does not open back up. Also the files I am able to open says I need to update the text layers and I do but then when I click on any of the text that that had issues, the program freezes and shuts down completely.   Why is this happening and how can it be fixed?

[marks2425733]

I came here as I had this issue. I did manage to oen the file again (before I went to pl;ay on the motorway).

I was working on/saving a 2.4GB PSB direct to my Samsung T9 drive when this happened.

I purged all the Photoshop cache Edit > Purge > All

Disconnected the drive properly, and re connected it, re-opened the file.

Hope this works for someone else!

[Joe_Goldberg6988]

Oh that's so frustrating!

Quick fixes you can try:

1. Make sure Photoshop build numbers match on both PCs.

2. Enable PSB (Large Document Format) in Preferences → File Handling.

3. Try File → Open As → Raw or File → Place Embedded to salvage.

4. Check for Previous Versions/AutoRecover.

5. Ensure plenty of scratch disk space (PSB = ~5× file size).

6. If moving via cloud/USB, zip the file first to avoid corruption.