I keep loosing my customized preferences and/or keyboard shortcuts in PS

[sfoalan1]

I have extensively customized my preferences, keyboard shortcuts and toolbar. With Keyboard shortcuts, I often overwrite a default shortcut, either of the particular action or the keyboard shortcut of another action. I then click Accept. 

At some point while using PS, I will attempt to use a keyboard shortcut and it no longer works. In fact none of the custom ones work. PS has without any notice switched back to using the default keyboard shortcut. The same thing happens to preferences. This is happening multiple times/session. I deleted PS and reinstalled it and it still happens. I've tried the different version of PS. It still happens. 

There's no notification from PS. I find out when I look at the list of recent docs and find it too short. I find out when a keyboard shortcut no longer works. 

What's going on????? There is nothing in the log files of a change in the source of the keyboard or general settings. 

Help Please. I've worked continuously with PS since v3 and never experienced this until the recent versions. 

Uninstall/Reinstall doesn't solve the problem. Is there some way to montor the settings and preferences so that I can learn what I was doing when PS went back to default setting?

Alan

[D Fosse · Accepted solution]

Settings and preferences are rewritten on every application exit.

They are not stored with the program files, but in a separate directory in your Windows user account. When Photoshop starts, it loads its whole configuration from this Settings folder in the user account.

So there are basically two things that can cause settings to be lost:

• an irregular shutdown/crash/power loss, corrupting the preferences file during rewrite
• a permissions problem in your Windows user account, preventing correct write on shutdown

Uninstall/reinstall rarely fixes anything. Completeley resetting preferences is usually what it takes. This returns the application to clean, out-of-the-box factory state. Move the whole Photoshop Settings folder from the user account to the desktop. Next time you launch Photoshop, a fresh new Settings folder will be rebuilt.

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

The Preferences contain a lot more than your own user settings. It's the entire application configuration, including lots of under-the-covers parameters. Corrupt preferences usually look like application bugs and are frequently mistaken for that.