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Known Participant
March 14, 2023
Question

Every action results in a beach ball

  • March 14, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 1565 views

I've been experiencing this issue for well over a year with various versions of Photoshop, but every Adobe app has a similar issue. I'm posting this in this thread because Photoshop exhibits this issue most prevalently. 

 

Takes forever to boot, then every single action results in a spinning beach ball—sometimes it lasts for a few seconds, sometimes twenty seconds, sometimes in lasts for a few minutes, and sometimes it never stops spinning. Bottom line, is that Photoshop is virtually unusable for me and is literally preventing my from doing my job.

 

I've read through every similar post, made the recommended adjustments to preferences, ram allocation, reinstalled apps, and nothing has solved the issue. 

 

I need a solution.

 

1. Photoshop 24.2.0 (issue has persisted since v22, but has gotten worse each upgrade).

2. Mac OS 13.2.1 

3. Launch, then every single action
4. Expected result = read above

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

Sameer K
Community Manager
Community Manager
March 15, 2023

Thanks for describing this. What mac machine are you working on? What troubleshooting steps have you tried?

 

When you have an extensive collection of presets in Photoshop, the launch can take some extra time. You can try to reset Photoshop to the default & apply steps to optimize Photoshop.

 

Go to the location of the preference folder below and rename it to backup. https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/preferences.html

  • macOS: In the Finder, hold down the Option key when using the Go menu > Library > Go to Preferences/Adobe Photoshop [version] Settings
  • Rename the Adobe Photoshop folder by adding a .old at the end. (Adobe Photoshop 2023 > Rename > Adobe Photoshop 2023. old)

 

These changes will give a fresh start to Photoshop as a fresh install. Please check this series of suggestions related to software optimization and in-app changes you can do to optimize Photoshop's performance in this article, and please give this a detailed read-through: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/optimize-photoshop-cc-performance.html

 

Let me know how it goes. Thanks!

Sameer K

OddBAuthor
Known Participant
March 16, 2023

Thanks for the reply, Sameer.

 

Late 2019, 16" MacBook Pro, 2.3 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9.

 

Troubleshooting steps: Everything I could find, including the preferences hack you mentioned above. I made that change again to zero effect. The most common suggested "fixes" are deselecting the graphics porcessor option, increasing RAM allocation, external scratch disks, etc. none of which solved the issues. 

I've also visited the performace article you linked and will give it another read through to see if there was something I missed on past attempts to solve this problem. 

Kevin Stohlmeyer
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 16, 2023

@OddB How much RAM do you have installed on your Mac? How much free HD space found under Photoshop Preferences/Scratch Disk? What is your current memory allocation percentage under Photoshop Preferences/Performance?

Kevin Stohlmeyer
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 15, 2023

Hi @OddB what version Mac are you running?

Have you tried to going to Apple System Preferences/Security and Privacy/Full Disk Access and making sure PS is listed and active?

OddBAuthor
Known Participant
March 15, 2023

As noted above, I'm running Mac OS 13.2.1. 
Yes, indeed, all Adobe apps I am using are lsited and active in Full Disk Access.

Kevin Stohlmeyer
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 16, 2023

@OddB I didnt ask what OS - what Mac computer model are you using?