Issues with Photoshop being unresponsive

[Eyetooth.Design]

I have an issue with Photoshop being unresponsive after certain tasks when working in Windows 10.

The issue has been ongoing for ages but somewhat sporadic. It is often triggered when I try to use the alt key to do something or when I drag an element into a new tab within Photoshop.  This tends to cause the app to become completely unresponsive (i.e. no clicks have any effect within Photoshop). In order to get the app to respond again, I need to click the PS icon in the Windows 10 taskbar to minimise it and then again to show it on the screen again.  Only then am I able to click or do anything in Photoshop.

This issue has been present for most of 2019 but has actually become a lot worse in the latest version (2020) of Photoshop.

I am using a Intuous 5 touch Wacom graphics tablet.

If anyone has experiences similar issues and knows a way to fix it, I would really appreciate some help.

Thanks,

Steve

[kevin stohlmeyer]

Please send your specs - Windows 10 v?, Available RAM, HD space, file sizes, etc.

[Eyetooth.Design]

The Spec of my machine is as follows:

Windows 10 Pro, version: 1903, OS Build 18362.449.
As I mentioned this has been a long standing issue, so it has been affected by all Windows & Adobe versions since the beginning of 2019.

RAM: 32GB

Processor: Intel Core i7-8700K CPU @ 3.79GHz

1st Hard drive (with with Windows and Adobe Apps installed): 930GB (298 GB free space)

2nd Hard drive (with Photoshop files capacity): 3.26TB (with 2.14TB free space)

Wacom Intuos 5 touch graphics tablet and pen.

Graphics card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Ti

The issue is not dependent on file size, it just happens sporadically on all the files I work on. The longer I work with Photoshop open the worse it seems to get

All the drivers for the hardware are up to date.

Please let me know if you have any further advice on how to correct the issues.

[kevin stohlmeyer]

What is your scratch disk allocation and where is it designated?

You shouldn't be working on the same partition that you use for scratch disk.

[Eyetooth.Design]

Thanks for the advice about the scratch disk.  I actually had it set to use both drives, as I thought that it would spread the usage and make things more stable.

I have now set it to just use the drive that all my work files are stored, not the drive that Photoshop is stored on.  Is that the correct way to do things?

If anyone else has any useful advice then please let me know.

[kevin stohlmeyer]

Its ok to have two swap drives. You can organize a primary and secondary if the first gets full.

I actually have a completely separate partition for my swap drive that I don't read or write too.

It keeps things simple and I don't have to worry about storage space being eaten up by Photoshop.

[Eyetooth.Design]

Thanks again for the help.  I have tried setting the scratch discs to multiple different drives, including an external drive which is not used for either running Photoshop or the files I am working on and am still facing the same issues.

Does anyone else have any other ideas?

[kevin stohlmeyer]

Try unplugging your Wacom tablet and see if the lag persists.