Mac Photoshop CS4 stalls – force quit quits the app, but it remains active in the Dock

[star-affinity]

Our retouch department is having some issues in Photoshop CS4 11.0.1.

One of the problems is that Photoshop suddenly just stalls while working (beach ball spins) and it doesn't stop.

Below are four different samples of Photoshop when in the stalled state:

http://home.mac.se/star-affinity/sample_of_photoshop.txt

http://home.mac.se/star-affinity/sample_of_photoshop_2.txt

http://home.mac.se/star-affinity/sample_of_photoshop_3.txt

http://home.mac.se/star-affinity/sample_of_photoshop_4.txt

http://home.mac.se/star-affinity/sample_of_photoshop_5.txt

When this stall happens, if one tries to force quit Photoshop it ”goes away” from the Activity Monitor, but the icon in the Dock remains active as if the application is still running. After some few minutes (around five maybe) it finally ”gets quit” in the Dock too so it can be relaunched.

Any ideas on this?

We run the first version of Mac Pro (2.66 GHz) with the ATI X1900 graphics card.

Some run 10.5.6 but some have started to move to 10.5.7.

Some have 5 GB RAM and some have 9 GB RAM.

All samples above are from a machine running 10.5.6, but I've heard the stall also happened on a 10.5.7 machine.

[Wade_Zimmerman1]

Keiran you might have actually hit on a source for the problem in the

first place and this might be for all applications this is the only

instance I have ever come across anyone doing this to get

thiscorrection and I now would think this is not Adobe's problem or at

least not 100% that a memory leak exist perhaps with launch services

and Apple's doc feature.

very interesting.

Thanks for posting it.

[-_JM_-]

Hi Kiernan

I can report that this isn't effective in the situations where I've experienced it, force quitting from the dock has no effect for me.

here are the questions that I would have:

Does the AdobeCrashReporter send data to the Apple Crash Reporter, or is the AdobeCrashReporter independent and the Apple CR collects it's own set of info?

If AdobeCrashReporter were disabled ( I've asked and the end-user apparently can't do this ) would it fix the stalled force quit.

Why does this stall only effect PS?  ( or has anyone heard of other apps that experience the same problem? )

---

the irony is that relatively few people are complaining about the crashing, but instead the problem is something that should be part of the remedy.

j

[Chris Cox]

Adobe's crash reporter uses the Apple crash report code to generate the report, then sends the information to Adobe.

No, disabling Adobe's crash reporter would still allow Apple's crash reporter to run - doing EXACTLY the same thing (but then sending the data to Apple, where Adobe may never see it).

[-_JM_-]

Thanks Chris

Has Adobe determined that this is an Apple only problem?

and should we be reporting this directly to Apple or are they aware of the problem?

is the following the best link for an Apple bug report and is there anything that we should include in our description to help pinpoint the issue?

http://developer.apple.com/bugreporter/bugrptform.html

regards

j

[Chris Cox]

I really don't know.

Whenever we hear about crash reporter taking forever, it usually just takes 5-10 minutes because of some issue on the user's machine.

I haven't heard enough reports of problems to file a bug with Apple.

But you can file a bug if you wish.

[-_JM_-]

thanks again for the response, I won't bug you anymore..... at least on this one : )

Maybe Apple can make a crash reporter for the crash reporter..

regards

j

[Al Ferrari]

Sorry if this is something commonly known, but what does "Secondary clicked the icon in the dock" mean? Selecting force quit from the dock only works when enough time has elapsed for the crash reporter to release control in my case. Since you report having it work only after having tried other things, it sounds to me like you have the same behavior I do.

Al

[Wilczak]

I have experienced this issue. Force quit does not seem to work nor does an obvious process show up in the Activity Monitor application. I resolved the icon still showing photoshop as open in the dock by relaunching the Finder in OS X. This then allows you to restart PS without a restart.

[Craig F]

Same problem here.  Photoshop CS4 crashes (4 or more times a day if working with Smart Objects) and then it will not force quit.  The whole quit and relaunch process takes 5-10 minutes.  Nothing is running in the Activity Monitor.  I would have gone back to CS3 last year if I could.  CS4 is embarrassing for me to run when I'm with clients.  This happens both of my macs.  If it's an Apple problem someone from Adobe should get with them.  This is unacceptable.  Sorry Adobe but you dropped the ball on this one.  I do not recommend that anyone on a mac upgrade to CS4.  The new features are nice but you have to be able to work.

I'm not expecting an answer.  This is just a rant.  Oh - I have to stop writing now so I can restart AGAIN!!

[-_JM_-]

Hi Craig

>when I'm with clients.

I hate to state the obvious, but the problem is probably having clients in the studio.

Unfortunately I don't know if there is anyway to fix it. If you try to remove the clients it often causes other problems.

: )

[Craig F]

Yes.  The crashing IS less worrisome than lack of clients!  Ha.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda]

Since Photoshop 11.0.1 does not crash on my officially unsupported, five-years-old and modest Dual MDD G4, I'll just list what I do differently with no further comment and no claim that any of this will make Photoshop CS4 more stable on other machines.

• I have my Photoshop preferences set to NOT export the clipboard.

• I manage fonts with FAP.

• I run Tiger 10.4.11, with Dashboard and Spotlight permanently disabled.

• Dual bootable, DP MDD 1.25GHz G4 (2004), maxed out at 2GB of RAM, both Spotlight and Dashboard disabled, Photoshop primary scratch disk on dedicated 160GB internal drive, at least 100GB available on each of the four internal drives, up to 300GB on some.  Counting external FW drives just over 1TB of drive space available.  nVidia GeForce 7800 GS 425MHz 256 MB "mutant" flashed graphics display card. Processor napping enabled through CHUD 3.5.2.

[antiisthefuture]

I have the same exact problem. Multiple times a day. It doesn't matter if i'm saving a file, closing a file, or anything else. Does this happen to anyone working on local files? I am constantly working off files on the server and I'm not sure if that is the problem or not.

This occasually happend in CS3 when working with smart objects but if I just waited for 10 mins or so Photoshop would unfreeze.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda]

antiisthefuture wrote:

…I am constantly working off files on the server and I'm not sure if that is the problem or not…

This is the boilerplate text I use in connection to saving to a network (please NOTE the part where it explains that normally, it does work, but that it is impossible to troubleshoot someone else's network remotely, and that's why it's not supported by Adobe):

If you are opening files over a network or saving them to a network server, please cease and desist immediately in the event you are currently experiencing problems with one or more files. Working across a network is not supported.

See: 

http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/322391.html

  Copy the CLOSED file from your server to your local hard disk, work on it, save it again to your local hard disk, close it, and copy the closed file back to the server.
 
     Of course, the fact that Adobe does not support working across a network does not necessarily mean it won't work.   It should.

    Adobe's position is that there are too many variables in a network environment for them to guarantee that everything will work correctly in every network, especially given the fact that if something does not work properly, it's probably the network's fault, and Adobe has no way of troubleshooting your network.

  If you can't work locally, you are on your own, and if something happens, you're on your own. If you must work from a server, make sure your network administrator is a competent professional.

When problems arise, a lot of valuable work can be lost.

[star-affinity]

I fully understand that there will be problems if the network is not performing as it should.

The question is if there are any network that are working ”as it should” in conjunction with Photoshop? Anyone?

The IT equipment at the office where I (and our retouchers that are having problems) work was installed in the end/beginning of 2007/2008.

The sever is an almost 80 kilos Sun server running the Solaris Operating System and has the ZFS filesystem. For AFP file sharing we also run Helios software on the Sun server. The RAID where the PSD files are stored is also from Sun. The network switches are ”enterprise class” equipment from Cisco.

What I'm trying to say is that it's pretty heavy IT equipment involved here.

In total there are maximum 14 people from retouch working on the server at the same time and we also have several different ”network segments” to even out the traffic.

If it *should* work to work across the network I'm really curious about what in the setup above could be causing the problem.

[Craig F]

It's not a server issue.  It's true that you should not work Photoshop files on a server - but that's not the problem here.  I'm not sure what the problem is and I am quite sure that Adobe does not know what the problem is either.  It's something between Adobe and Apple.  It's real - that's for sure.  I just think it might take the next version of the suite to get it to go away - IMO.

[-_JM_-]

Hi Craig

what's your OS, is it an intel box, and are you using the suite?

also, does your PS crash or stall, and do you get the crash report or have to wait for it?

thx

[Craig F]

2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon - 10 GB RAM - 10.5.6

It may have something to do with the Dual Quad-Core?  I have seen a lot of problems with those in particular.

[-_JM_-]

>2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon - 10 GB RAM - 10.5.6

I have the same box, same memory  - 2x2.8 GHz Quad-Core Xeon - 10gb

[Craig F]

Yep.  Just like I said.  I hear about a lot of problems from that set-up.  I really think it's a matter of waiting it out.  Maybe Snow Leopard will do the trick?

[-_JM_-]

> I really think it's a matter of waiting it out.  Maybe Snow Leopard will do the trick?

I hope so, but...... the crash reporter doesn't report a problem with the force quit delay, it only reports the event when PS crashes. It becomes a problem if everyone is relying upon the crash reporter to identify problems. And.... since in my case the crash reporter has already worked and PS still remains active for a while then it doesn't seem to be the problem with the crash reporter as has been suggested already by Adobe.

[Chris Cox]

The question is if there are any network that are working ”as it should” in conjunction with Photoshop? Anyone?

Yes, in fact most networks and servers work just fine.

But, there are too many variables involved (OS, all parts of the net, servers themselves) -- and messing up any one of them will make for a near-impossible to diagnose problem.

Basically, it's too complex to support, and so easy to screw up that nobody wants to claim it as a supported configuration.  And because it's so easy to mess up, there are tons of horror stories around, and persistent problems on what appear to be otherwise healthy networks.

[-_JM_-]

Hi Star

I guess we have 2 things going on, the crashing/stall and the delay force quit.

I'm experiencing the delayed PS force quit problem but I'm working on local drives, so is it possible that irregardless of the network situation the force quit delay is a problem with how PS rebounds from a problem? To restate, is the reason for the crash related to the force quit delay or independent?

Most often I am getting a crash ( not a freeze/stall ), and the Apple crash reporter appears, but there is still a delay in being able to restart PS.

Are you only experiencing "stalls" or are you also seeing crashes(application quits)?

Do you see the crash report after the force quit and then wait or does PS finally quit just after the crash report is visible? is it Apple or Adobe crash reporter?

I can certainly understand that working over a network might introduce other potential problems but the end result of the delayed force quit is a common symptom.

general questions:

Are there any applications that are tethered to PS such as other suite apps, that would cause PS to delay force quit?

Is there anything that I can view in the crash report that would help uncover the problem?

what makes PS different from other applications that don't have a problem with force quit? ( if this is related to the OS and not Adobe's problem, what is PS doing that other applications aren't, VM? )

what version OS, PS and is everyone with this problem using a version of the suite?  (mine -  10.5.7  CS4 Suite, PS extended)

[Guest]

I'm having the same problem - brand new MBPro, running files off of the server (after this forced restart - 4th one this afternoon - I'll try copying/pasting the files...ugh) I've tried right-click force quitting from the dock, relaunching Finder, turned off OpenGL or w/e in prefs... no luck.

I also agree that this is of course totally unacceptable. I am losing soo much time on this, and as all of you, we have deadlines to meet...and although I'm working late nights already, I don't want it to be because of some glitch in the software (or wherever it is). It doesn't do this on the new (month old) iMac in the office...

Keeping my eyes on this thread and hoping a solution comes up.

[Guest]

Copy/Paste works - but I should also mention Bridge is doing the same thing, though I don't know the cause since it obviously isn't save... So now I'm force-shutting-down because of that.