Hotkeys break when using brush tools - keep reverting back to brush.

[Myrtle That]

Help if you can - When using any brush tool (brush, clone, smudge, etc.) if I hotkey to a non-brush tool (select, marquee, text, etc.), it only switches for a fraction of time and reverts back to the brush.  If I press and hold the hotkey, I can use the new tool, but as soon as I release it goes back to brush.

If I choose the non-brush tools manually from the menu, I am able to hotkey normally between non-brush tools, but as soon as I hotkey to brush, I'm caught in the loop above.  If I choose the brush manually, it also has the issue above.  Once I'm in brush mode, basically hotkeys don't work normally.  Hopefully this is not a feature...

I am using Photoshop Defaults in "Keyboard Shortcuts and Menus," Photoshop 2022, I've restarted Photoshop twice, I have some custom brushes and have been using this setup for many months. Just started happening yesterday.

[CoryShubert · Accepted solution]

Hi @Myrtle That sorry to hear that.

Let's make sure we're in a default state and there are no stale settings somewhere: 

Restore your preferences using this manual method:  

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/preferences.html#Manually  

Does it work correctly? 

If that doesn't solve it, you can quit Photoshop and put the Settings folder back. 

It may help if we could see your Photoshop System Info. Launch Photoshop, and select Help >System Info...and copy/paste the text in a reply.  

Thank you,

[leosn56185363]

It's probably the Spring-load Tool feature. 

You can try disabling under Preferences > Tools > (untick) Spring-loaded Tool Shortcuts, or you can adjust how u need to hold the hotkey before the feature kicks in (I just disable the bloody thing on mine because it's near impossible to get the right timing)

[Myrtle That]

Thanks Cory, that worked! In the process I noticed several old settings
folders of previous Adobe versions, and brushes stored in an older version
folder in Program Files which I moved to the newest version. Hopefully al
this didn't cause any new issues, but everything seems to be working now
with all my brushes as well.