Mysterious dots on layers in PS 26.2

[Karen in Texas]

Maddeining issue. When creating files with layers in Photoshop 26.2, rows of dots are appearing on all layers. The only way to get rid of them to to erase from every layer. I've had to revert to PS 25.12.1 for the time being. Anyone else seeing these? Mac OS 14.7.2, 2023 Mac. This question was asked by someone in 2017 and she never got an answer.

[kglad]

in the future, to find the best place to post your message, use the list here, https://community.adobe.com/

p.s. i don't think the adobe website, and forums in particular, are easy to navigate, so don't spend a lot of time searching that forum list. do your best and we'll move the post (like this one has already been moved) if it helps you get responses.

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[Karen in Texas]

Thanks for your help, @kglad . First post because I'm not finding an answer anywhere. 

[kglad]

you're very welcome.  a photoshop expert will try to help you (almost certainly) today.

[Peter Villevoye]

Ouch, that really looks worrying ! 

At first glance I'd say these are signs/symptoms of a faulty graphics card.

But since you state that you're actually able to (and need to) remove these dots from the image, it must be something else. It looks like a TIFF file, with incorrectly tagged data.  But I could speculate on many more causes.

Could you elaborate a little more on what you were doing or working on when these dots appeared ? And does it always happen, or just in certain sitiations, or with certain files, or actions ? It's definitely not anything standard or a common bug. So some more information (like circumstances, actions leading to this behavior, what this or the rest of the image should look like, etc.) would really be helpful.

[Karen in Texas]

Thanks for your kind comment and offer to help, Peter. Ouch, indeed! The only thing that's changed in our process that we're aware of was the auto update on December 17 to PS 26.2. Prior to that, all files created in 25.12 were clean as a whistle. Obviously these are multi-layered files. The only way I was able to make this art usable was to turn off layer by layer and use the eraser tool to clean them up with a black background behind all layers. 'Tis a mystery to both my client and me. Attaching full image and enlarged sections with rows of dots showing over the lily and daffodil. There are many, many more on every layer. If you can puzzle this out, I'll buy you a beer next time you're in Texas. ha! 

[Peter Villevoye]

My guess so far would be that there are files being corrupted somewhere in the process, either by writing to a memory storage, or reading into Photoshop. But it's not clear to me yet whether this is a one-off incident or something that's happening more often and to more files. And in case it's the latter: does it happen with files coming from one source (client, disk or other physical storage memory), or upon opening all or certain files ?

To be honest, there's no trick to clean this file up automatically. But it's crucial to know if this is or will be happening continuously or intermittently, and to discover the cause of it. So hang in there and provide some more answers and be prepared to do some more test, please...

[Karen in Texas]

Thanks so much for trying to puzzzle this out, Peter. I shut down my computer and it seems to have corrected itself (so far). Sherri and I are keeping an eagle eye on all files coming and going, takes the joy out of "making art" for the time being. I'll post more when I have more input.

[Peter Villevoye]

I'm glad that it somehow solved itself by restarting the computer. 

But it's indeed not a comfortable thought that such a thing can suddenly happen.

Maybe it's wise to check if the storage memory of your computer or any additionally assigned Photoshop 'scratch' memory is almost fully used ? https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/scratch-disks-preferences.html

And if you haven't done so, making a backup might be a good idea as well, in case there's some technical fault showing its early signs...

Keep an eye on it !