Drop Down Menus in Photoshop CS 6 Goes Blank In Mavericks

[TKirkeberg]

Hi

I'm having trouble with Photoshop CS6 in Mavericks. After a working a little while, all pop up/drop down menus goes blank. They still work, but I can't see what's on them. Even the Apple menu bar is afflicted by this, though only when Photoshop is in the front.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.  PS: I do use a cintiq on a 2012 Macbook Pro 15" with retina display.

[DocPixel-BMW]

OK... I can't stand reading this tripe anymore without asking the Guinea Pigs:

WHO specifically told you that it was EVER a good idea to update to a NEW OS x.x.0(!) on production machines?

It doesn't matter if it's Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, iOS or Android... if you make a living with your computers, gadgets and software, YOU NEVER upgrade to a dot-zero release. Ever.

That goes for software as well as new computer purchases with a new dot-zero OS pre-installed. Patience is a virtue and will save your hair at the same time.

If anything, this should be a hint:

Most recent Wacom Driver release date: 15 Oct 2013 vs. Mavericks OS 10.9.0: 22 Oct 2013

Considering that Wacom drivers have always been flaky and fragil since the old UD Series of 20 years ago, it has ALWAYS been best practise to wait until the new drivers are in place, and then updating to a dot-ONE or Service Pack 1 release of your preferred operating system.

That is unless you have the time to troubleshoot the problems for the rest of us.

In that case, I say, Thank You! for your diligence.

To all the others, keep the complaints of who's at fault here by complaining to the person looking back at you from the nearest mirror or shiny object.

Rant over. Hope you've learned something.

[donbarrum]

Ok, DocPixel-BMW, So when Adobe says they have tested their software and worked closely with Apple to make sure their applications work flawlessly and Wacom says they have tested their drivers and guarantee that they are fully supported on Mavericks, don´t you think we should expect to trust those statements? That means that their words doesn´t count for anything? I thought we could trust the companys providing our software which we pay a great deal of money for. And Mavericks isn´t in beta you know, its a released version which apple recommend you install. WOrld moves forward and Adobe and Wacom have had time to prepare for it and those bugs that appear shouldnt be impossible to fix rather quickly - im pretty sure about that. 

And I am, as many others here, surely willing to test and troubleshoot anything as long as Adobe and Wacom are willing to listen and do something about it.

So you rant is completely pointless

[Evil_Lair]

donbarrum wrote:

So when Adobe says they have tested their software and worked closely with Apple to make sure their applications work flawlessly and Wacom says they have tested their drivers and guarantee that they are fully supported on Mavericks, don´t you think we should expect to trust those statements?

In a word no. Software is so complex nowadays that it simply isn't possible for them to test every scenario and computer configuration to the point of breaking. There are also lots of big software companies who do not even begin testing until the final consumer release of a big new OS is out.

If you have a setup that your daily work depends on, it should have the most conservative and skeptical update schedule of any device you use. If your on the fence about a new OS or major Adobe release, the best course would be to have a secondary setup to test on.

The only truly reliable way to know beforehand if something is  safe is to wait days/weeks/months/years after something is released and see if anyone is complaining about it.

[BoomeArt]

That sounds, at least, funny. What can be recommended to a Publishing Agency which had opened a new office in my city and have bought brand new iMacs and Retina MacBook Pros with already installed Maverics? Shall the tecnician tell the boss that it's necessary delete the latest software and install the previous versin, because there could be some new bugs

[donbarrum]

Yeah and were can you buy Mountain Lion now? not from Apple. - I would actually downgrade if apple would let me download Mountain Lion.

[MarkD3]

My iMac is also brand new.  Maybe I should ship it back to Apple and tell them my Wacom doesnt play nice with CS6 on Mavericks.

How about this, if you have something to add to the solution, please do so. Ranting about peoples IT processes doesnt help at this point.

Based on no workflow issues until the Wacom is brought into play, I would suggest more complaints be made to Wacom.

[Mmaher6540]

Hey DocPixel-BMW, way to waste your time and add nothing productive to our conversation about a very specific issue!   

Someone will inevitably, have to work on a machine that has the latest OS and then that person will inevitably encounter these problems.  Problems won't get solved without someone first attempting to help resolve them. 

Several of us have provided all the necessary information and have been cooperative with Apple, Adobe, and Wacom.  Now, all of a sudden they are unresponsive? 

It would seem that I have a justification to my complaints.  Do you? 

Speaking of you, if you don't have a problem with photoshop... are you just perusing the photoshop general discussion forums (blank menu specific) for fun? 

[donbarrum]

Sadly, since I´ve been screaming on their forums all ready, it seems as useless as complaining in here.

[cLacLac]

Just wanted to add that while I haven't had any issues with the blank menus, I am having the brush (and eraser) hesitation issues. I am also having hesitation/delays with other tools such as when I use two fingers on the Touch Pad to rotate the view. Usually it works fine, but sometimes nothing will happen initially and then after a few seconds suddenly the view will rotate. Also, sometimes when I click "ESC" to get back to normal view, nothing happens until I click on a new tool. I am tempted to try and go back to Mountain Lion where I wasn't having any issues whatsoever.

[donbarrum]

How would you go about going back to Mountain Lion ? Im curious...I would like to do that myself for the time being until any hickups are fixed.

[cLacLac]

@donbarrum

I haven't looked into it deeply yet, but I believe through using the recovery drive I can reinstall the previous OS from my Time Machine backup. I've done it in previous versions of OS's, but haven't tried it yet in Mavericks. My only issue right now is I don't have the time to do it. But if I get a break, I just might.

Recoverying from Time Machine does mean that I loose any local files added since I upgraded, but that isn't too big of an issue for me because I only upgraded to Mavericks last week and most of my important files are saved on our server.

[BoomeArt]

Hey, people, I'm not shure I discovered the hint to avoid "blank menu" issue, but yesterday I opened Photoshop Preferences, switched to Performance, and in History & Cache put the slider of Cache Levels to maximum (for my computer it is 8) and Cache Tile Size to 1024K. Untill now I haven't noticed any "blank menu", but Brush tool still sometimes frezez

Can anyone check with this settings and give a reply?

[MarkD3]

Hey, people, I'm not shure I discovered the hint to avoid "blank menu" issue, but yesterday I opened Photoshop Preferences, switched to Performance, and in History & Cache put the slider of Cache Levels to maximum (for my computer it is 8) and Cache Tile Size to 1024K. Untill now I haven't noticed any "blank menu", but Brush tool still sometimes frezez

Can anyone check with this settings and give a reply?

Hey BoomeArt,

Tried this and it seem to prolong the amount of time I could work but eventually I got the white menus again. Making more resources available seems to help which is why I think there is a memory leak or some memory space that is specifically allocated for one task is being stepped on by something else.

Hello...Adobe?!? (place echo here)

Thanks BoomeArt, at least I can work a little longer!

[DocPixel-BMW]

@claclac - and for anyone else looking to rolling back (downgrading) from Mavericks -> Mountain Lion, here's a short tutorial:

http://osxdaily.com/2013/11/05/downgrade-from-os-x-mavericks/

PS: and no, you will NOT lose your new documents created with Mavericks... if you follow the instructions that is.

NOTE: No you can not downgrade a new Late 2013 iMac.

Message was edited by: DocPixel-BMW

[DocPixel-BMW]

donbarrum wrote:

And I am, as many others here, surely willing to test and troubleshoot anything as long as Adobe and Wacom are willing to listen and do something about it.

And didn't I write "Thank You" to those willing and with the time to do testing? Yes. I did.

I specifically stated in the very first sentence of my rant, "PRODUCTION" machines. And I stand by the following statement unequivocally as does every single other IT professional:

It doesn't matter if it's Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, iOS or Android... if you make a living with your computers, gadgets and software, YOU NEVER upgrade to a dot-zero release. Ever.

donbarrum wrote:

So you rant is completely pointless

No. I don't think it is "pointless", because it's quite possible that this is actually news and relevant info for those first starting to maintain their own machines and software. Call it a nasty wake-up call if you like, but pointless it is not!

That sounds, at least, funny. What can be recommended to a Publishing Agency which had opened a new office in my city and have bought brand new iMacs and Retina MacBook Pros with already installed Maverics? Shall the tecnician tell the boss that it's necessary delete the latest software and install the previous versin, because there could be some new bugs

This is exactly why I'm also on this thread: I'm doing research FIRST in order to prepare a number of my clients that have purchased new iMacs for their businesses. This due to Apple's current 0% leasing offer until 31. Dec.... and also something that is quite common here in Germany: upgrade and capital purchases before the end of a fiscal year to save on taxes.

I'm now well prepared to tell 3 photographers, that there may be problems with their new machines on Mavericks using PS and Wacoms. Naturally, I expect there will be a quick solution... but I "personally" can't guarantee when those machines will become "production-grade" investments.

No. Unfortunately, Apple machines can not be downgraded from the OS version they are delivered with, so we'll just have to wait on a solution from the parties involved in fixing the situation.

BTW #1: absolutely no provider of software, services or hardware peripherals can 100% guarantee compatibility with new OSes until they have critical mass installations. There are just too many variables at play.

BTW #2: take a hop on over to the Adobe Illustrator Forum and witness a recurring nasty problem with any and all graphic design software since the Mac was introduced in 1984: FONT CORRUPTION; causing software to crash or not even load. A 30-year old problem that raises it's ugly head from time-to-time, which is OS, version and software agnostic.

What I'm getting at here is that, once again if you are running a mission critical production machine and depend on it daily to do "x" number of jobs... you should NOT be the first to upgrade either your OS or your critical software.

Turn on notifications, but turn off auto installs.

Let the people with time on their hands do the testing, keep your eyes on forums such as these and then test on one, then 2 machines. If all goes well, upgrade them all.

Last word: my frustration at reading "clueless" moaning, groaning and threatening posts the whole day, whether here, at Apple's and Microsoft's forums, got the best of me. The reality is, you/we/me can not threaten these companies at all any more. They own the market, the hardware and the tools we use to do our jobs. There are no viable replacements and IMHO I don't think there will be for a very long time.

So in order to avoid unnecessary health repercussions due to our frustrations (like yelling, screaming and pulling our hair out... or writing whiny posts!) and the above reality, may I humbly suggest that you/we/me become more educated and even sceptical about these companies, their products and PR/Marketing claims. That means, once in a while stepping back and reassing what's working for us now vs. what any company is trying to get us to upgrade to. Just because it's shiny, new, and packed with features (or not, see iWorks)... does NOT mean it will be better than what you have now.

We may not have a very large choice of hardware vendors or software, HOWEVER, we all have the choice to say, "No. I think I'll wait until I have more information on whether that will be a good choice for me and my work"... AND... "I'll find time to educate myself FIRST before making that leap of faith when the time is right... and be able to go back to what I had if it doesn't work out".

At this point in time, that's all "realistically" we can do.

[Inselfotograf]

Mac Pro 5.1 came with Mountain Lion.

Mountain Lion 10.8.5 still showed major bugs with Photoshop CC (disappearing cursor) at my system.

So, upgrading to Mavericks solved that one issue for me.

But it did bring new trouble: The blank menue windows and the healingbrush/brushtool being sluggish quite often...

So staying with Mountain Lion is no solution for me either!

[Jesper Storm Bache]

We have talked to Apple and Wacom but so far no luck in reproducing the problem.

At this point in time, it would be great if we can run a few tests on one or more machines that exhibit the problem.

If anyone is willing to install one (or more) Photoshop plug-ins and send us the output, then email me at jsbache (at) adobe.

In your email include the brand of Wacom that you use and the version of Photoshop that you are using.

Thank you for your help (and patience).

Jesper

[donbarrum]

GLad to see some response from Adobe finally...I would have loved to help you, but since I never got any replies from the bugs or forum threads before I reverted back to Mountain Lion. But I hope someone else will help out! It would have been great if it´s possible to go back to Mavericks again some time in the future.

Btw, will you look at the Polygonal lasso tool ending at random too...it should be easier to reproduce, as it happens very often with a tablet.

Also the keyboard shortcuts not responding 50% of the time (dunno if its only with tha tablet too) but both of those bugs are making it difficult to work and they are even more common than the white menus. Both of these bugs occurs once upgrading to Mavericks...with any wacom tablet - at least the intuos pro 5 and the Cintiq, which I own.

I think to reproduce the white windows, you need to do a lot of various stuff in Photoshop with a tablet, masking painting, moving layers, it seems with large image files that is somewhat memory consuming....suddenly it just happens. But someone here with Mavericks should help out, it´s an important bug to fix for us all.

[cLacLac]

I, too, have already gone back to Mountain Lion due to the issues with Photoshop and Tablet. Just fyi, I am working on an iMac 27, late 2012 and a Wacom Intuos 3 tablet.

[MarkD3]

I have sent you an email.  Let me know what else I can provide

Mark

[Inselfotograf]

Jesper Storm Bache schrieb:

We have talked to Apple and Wacom but so far no luck in reproducing the problem.

At this point in time, it would be great if we can run a few tests on one or more machines that exhibit the problem.

If anyone is willing to install one (or more) Photoshop plug-ins and send us the output, then email me at jsbache (at) adobe.

In your email include the brand of Wacom that you use and the version of Photoshop that you are using.

Thank you for your help (and patience).

Jesper

I updated the wacom from v6.7.2 to v6.3.7-3 (6.3.7f3) when the menues went blank the second time.

Since that I realise other things like sluggish brush + healingbrush, but no more blank screens since then.

I saw some wacom related crash reports in Konsole during that time (before and after).

You can sent me an E-mail if you want me to provide the Konsole log...

Michael

P.S.

Mac Pro 5.1 3.33 GHz 6-core Intel Xeon

48GB RAM 1333 MHz DDR3

Mac OS 10.9

Wacom Intuos 4

no Photoshop Plugins...

[avengersss]

This is from Japan, using Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks, Photoshop CC, iMac bought in 2013 and Wacom Intuos 5.

Same bugs. Sluggish brushes and blank drop down menus.

I believe users from all over the world are experiencing such problems.

I hope something would be sort out between Adobe, Apple and Wacom.

[BoomeArt]

I also rolled back to Mountain Lion, because I need to earn for living with retouching.

So if anyone is still on Mavericks help Jesper to reproduce the problem:

"We have talked to Apple and Wacom but so far no luck in reproducing the problem.

At this point in time, it would be great if we can run a few tests on one or more machines that exhibit the problem.

If anyone is willing to install one (or more) Photoshop plug-ins and send us the output, then email me at jsbache (at) adobe."

[Guest]

Hi Jesper,

You got mail 🙂

Hope to get it fixed soon!!!

Cheers!

Dominik

[MarkD3]

Is anyone using AV (Avast)?