Photoshop CC 2015 is so slow it is unusable on my system

[DG. David Escalante]

I have no idea what is wrong here but this version of PS its horribly slow.

Here is a video i just captured about this issue:

http://cl.ly/2W0P381A1G1y/60fps-PSCC2015-slow.mp4

There is not difference with GPU enabled, there is no difference if I have or not rules enabled. I never experienced something like with with CC 2014.

MacPro with 12 cores and 64GB RAM

Its there something I could do to fix this?

[art-flow]

At my desk past midnight waiting already 4 minutes for Crop tool to complete the process. Saving file with take another 10-15 minutes. It's unprofessional for Adobe to release PS 2015 [Adobe Photoshop CC 2015] and pretend the app is not raw and doesn't require any solution on their end. So far, I've installed trial version and if nothing improves in a few weeks, it won't be commitment-worthy; particularly since every update or release of the new features can end up in complete disruption of my schedule. I've already been there with CS.

At this point, it is still great to be a shareholder at the expense of others but not so much a subscriber.

[Guest]

Hi all.  A quick & easy solution for you to try....

In short... before launching any CC app, temporarily disconnect the internet, until the app has finished launching.  Then reconnect it and carry on.

Important....

This solution is not an option for anyone who must use the CC file or font synching features, since it also disables the synching.  Please note however that the overall effect (on our Macs at least) is different to that of disabling the synching via the usual synch settings preferences in the Adobe Creative Cloud app - we initially tried doing that but the apps were still laggy to use, especially InDesign.

Our own experiences therefore imply it's not the sync disabling itself that's making the difference for us.  Rather the lag problem's down to something else going on via the same internet connection that's used by the synching process.  By nobbling that connection, we do get round the problem, sure, but we also lose the synching capability as an aside (which is no loss here as we happen to not need it anyway) .

We also tried just about every other suggested fix I could find, including ditching the apps prefs, quitting the CC Libraries process, setting recent files to 0, etc, etc.  I even tried a clean install of OS X 10.10.5 and the latest CC 2015 apps.  Nothing we'd tried worked 😞

You must do the disconnect before you launch (or relaunch) any of the CC 2015 apps. To do so, either turn off wi-fi or Ethernet (or unplug the network cable), or, deselect any proxy servers you connect through (which we do here, being in a company network) - whichever of these methods is appropriate for you.

If your internet is via a company's proxy server, you only need to deselect the proxy server in your network prefs - no need to interrupt any network connections to printers, servers etc.

Right then, others have already mentioned that turning off their wi-fi made things go faster, but that it's not a realistic option for them to keep it off, for obvious reasons. However, there's actually no need to leave your internet off for more than just those initial few seconds, only until the app has finished launching.  You can then reconnect to the internet and carry on as normal 🙂

The app tries only the once to establish the troublesome internet connection, during launch time. Therefore, after we've blocked that connection by the app while it's launching, it conveniently remains unconnected while the app continues to run, thus allowing us to carry on using the internet for everything else as normal.

If you have an active Adobe CC Desktop sign-in at the time, don't worry - it should automatically resume itself once the internet is turned back on.

Ideally, you would do the disconnect/reconnect process just the once each time you've started up (or restarted) your machine. i.e. disconnect the internet, launch all the CC apps you'll be using, then reconnect the internet and just leave the app(s) running until you next shut down the machine (you probably already do the latter anyway).

If the above suggestion does work for you, the process can be automated to achieve the same result (as I have done on our Macs, with a startup login item).

Please let me know your findings - much may depend on your own particular tech environment & setup as to if/how much it makes a difference for you.  Anway, it works for us.

Worth a try and nothing to lose?

[BrandHOUSE]

C'mon Adobe, this is truly pathetic. Only days ago Photoshop 2015 was a dream with it's artboards and Device Preview especially working across UX/UI. Now it's as slow as. It's at least half the speed of what it was. Since you've gone on the subscription model everything has gone down the toilet. Fix this disaster!!!

[BrandHOUSE]

Chrome, doesn't exist on my Mac, never will. So while it might be an issue for some it's not for me. Just posting this so Adobe is aware that the issue we're all experiencing isn't down to one common denominator.

[Bobby Henderson]

I've been dealing with varying levels of Photoshop lag (from hardly noticeable to infuriating) for months.

Some of this started with Photoshop CC 2014, but has grown considerably worse with the CC 2015 applications. I've been noticing this lag in other applications like Illustrator CC 2015. If either application is open they can cause hangs in other applications that I have running, such as CorelDRAW X6. I can't have Photoshop CC 2015 and CorelDRAW X6 running at the same time. The applications are unusable if both are running.

When I first started encountering the lag in Photoshop my desktop PC was running Win 8.1 Pro 64-bit. I updated to Win 10 Pro in August, hoping the OS update would solve the problems. It didn't. I have repeatedly installed new drivers for my video card (nVidia GeForce GTX 660). I just updated the driver earlier today to version 358.50. Lag is still there big time.

I suspect the problem is bigger than just Photoshop alone. I can boot my computer and not even launch any Adobe applications and some choppy performance lag will already be present. A slew of CC-oriented services get loaded upon login.

My desktop PC has more than enough performance overhead to be able to run demanding graphics applications just fine. It is a Dell XPS 8500 Special Edition. The CPU is a Core i7 3770 3.4 GHz. The machine has 24GB of RAM. The video card has 1.5 GB of GDDR RAM. Hard disc is a hybrid 2TB SATA hard drive with a 30GB SSD Intel Rapid Storage System drive.

[rubberpoultry1]

Same here! Please do something about this Adobe!

[Dabatross]

its amazing to me i make a similar post about the graphics performance in cc2015 on mac and I get this from the people at adobe "its something on your computer, its a font corruption issue, nobody else is having this problem" no response on why this is happening and just push the blame on me. wtf happened to this company? is this the way to treat people who pay monthly for these programs. i've said it time and time again that there are performance issues in photoshop with lag for a year and they have done nothing to fix it. they just blow me off, tell me its my computer and to contact apple, and every single time chris cox just says "turn off your rulers" when that clearly is not the problem for everybody. what a crock

[Bobby Henderson]

Some of it is an attitude stemming from the belief that nothing can ever go wrong with a Mac. If something isn't working correctly it just has to be the fault of the user. There's no way any bugs could be present in the application software or the operating system. Bugs are something that only happen on Windows machines.

Then there's the unhelpful responses from other people, "it's working perfectly on my machine," which tries to infer the problem you're encountering doesn't exist. Unless there is some actual troubleshooting info included in these kinds of "all normal here" posts they're better left not posted at all.

[BrandHOUSE]

That's why BobbyH5280, I don't think we're going to see anything that resembles help from Adobe, in so far as an update. Instead they take our subscription, those who might be able to do something bury their head in the sand and say, "It's you, not us!"

[02dc8a]

Same issue is here.

Running Photoshop on Mac Book Pro late 2012, 16GB Ram, 500GB SSD.

Previously all was fine but since 2015 update having MASSSIVE(!) issues with performance.

Now having version 2015.0.1:

• Sudden interface lags (e.g. when switching tools)
• Seeing the beach ball a way too often
• Lags when using tools: e.g. brush getting unresponsive from time to time
• Smart objects are much longer to save and update then it was previously
• Generally Photoshop feels barely usable.
  

My general impression is that Adobe has fundamental issues with product cores.

Recently I started trying other products — Sketch for prototyping and Affinity Photo as a Photoshop replacement.

They are both smooth lightning fast and provide great experience.

Would be nice to see such performance improvements in Adobe.

[colrim]

Add me to the list!

Indesign is pinwheeling all over the place since update and Photoshop makes want to replace my eyeballs with pickled onions.

[Bobby Henderson]

The problems I've been having with lag in Photoshop have improved a little bit since Adobe released its bug fix for Illustrator a couple days ago. The problems aren't gone entirely, but I can do something like digitize a vector path around something without wanting to throw my mouse through the computer monitor.

[sswdo]

Same here. Sometimes it just does not want to start even. Tried to re-start a few times...

[earwig99]

I had the same problem - Photoshop CS2015 was loading and operating so slowly that it was impossible to use. I did what somebody else suggested: uninstalled it and installed CS2014 from Creative Cloud. This works much better. I'll have lost whatever new features the 2015 version has but at least I've got a functional program.

I'd be interested to know if anybody from Adobe ever monitors these forums - or are they the same as some of the others for popular software I've occasionally gone to: puzzled and frustrated users trying to help each other solve problems with buggy software while they are ignored by the supplier.

[ChristopherButler]

Yes, several of us are subscribed to this thread. You are not being ignored.

No, we don't know why a number of users are experiencing these slow-down problems.  We are not able to reproduce in-house, which clearly hampers our efforts to diagnose the problem.  Speculation as to the root cause runs from OS issues, driver issues (not just GPU), network issues, resource issues, plugin issues, and so on.  Or perhaps some toxic combination of these. It's unlikely it's in the core Photoshop code because of the large number of users that have no problems at all. But we're still looking.

I've seen some videos that suggest some kind of process consuming an extraordinary amount of time on just about every event.  Based on what I saw, I am in agreement that I would find the product unusable. But it's also not what I see on my machines.

Whatever the magic recipe is which will allow us reproduce these problems, we have not found it. And that's key to eventually fixing the issue - or at least providing guidance on how to avoid it.

[Bobby Henderson]

My feeling is the intermittent lags and hangs are caused by a combination of things, at least on the Windows side. I know some of the laggy problems have either worsened or disappeared after various Microsoft "Patch Tuesday" updates to Windows 8 Pro and Windows 10 Pro. I don't see quite as much in the way of lag-tastic problems on my 4 year old notebook running Win 7 Ultimate; that notebook is powerful but not quite as powerful as my office desktop machine.

[Colin Holgate]

You should talk to the InDesign and Photoshop teams. Both of those, especially InDesign, have had lots of complaints about slowness since Creative Cloud library was introduced. Most solutions involve turning off or deleting the Creative Cloud library features, The PM for the CC library has been informed.

[ChristopherButler]

Perhaps someone who is affected can run this experiment.  In the interest narrowing the range of possible causes, it would be useful to know if this works.

In Photoshop 2015.0.1:

Preferences>Plugins>Enable Generator = OFF

Preferences>Plugins>Allow Extensions to Connect to the Internet = OFF

Preferences>Plugins>Load Extensions Panels  = OFF

Preferences->Technology Previews>Enable Design Space Preview = OFF

[andreasd32762921]

ChristopherButler schrieb:

Perhaps someone who is affected can run this experiment.  In the interest narrowing the range of possible causes, it would be useful to know if this works.

In Photoshop 2015.0.1:

Preferences>Plugins>Enable Generator = OFF

Preferences>Plugins>Allow Extensions to Connect to the Internet = OFF

Preferences>Plugins>Load Extensions Panels  = OFF

Preferences->Technology Previews>Enable Design Space Preview = OFF

I had the same trouble with lags and so on and tried different settings without success. Today I tried the settings you suggested. And it seems to work fine. Everything is running smoothly. Even with big files or a lot of layer, smartobjects ... My colleagues will also try these settings and we will see if that helps.

This is our System Set-Up:

- I7 4770, 3.4 GHz

- 16 GB RAM

- GeForce GTX 650/750

- Windows 8.1 Pro (64 Bit)

- Photoshop CC 2015.0.1

[ChristopherButler]

Thanks for running those experiments. Definitely useful information. I don't have any speculation for the specific activity of doing a crop/trim, and I'd be tempted to classify that as a separate issue for the moment. Again, since I can't reproduce, I'm still guessing.

If you are game, I'd like to ask another thing: Can you try turning on each checkbox one at a time and then evaluating which checkbox causes things to slow down for you? Just turn on one checkbox, run for a while to get a sense if things have changed, then turn on the next one. If you have something specific you can measure, like tool switching going from negligible to 30s, or something in-between, having a firm measurement that can be compared from run to run is good data. Be sure and restart PS between each setting change. I don't think you have to restart your machine, but you can if you want to be thorough. I can't tell you if there is some combinatorial effect going on, or how the processes controlled by these checkboxes interact with your environment (OS, network, drivers, hardware). All are suspect at this point.

-----

Also - if you need to switch back to PS 2014, here's some steps to get that done. PS CC 2014 and PS CC 2015 can coexist on the same machine; I do this all the time.

1. Open the Creative Cloud Application, choose "Apps" panel.

2. Scroll down to the bottom and look for a line that says "Install Previous Versions"

3. Find Photoshop CC 2014, install.

You can also uninstall each from the same location in the CC Application.

[misszhivago]

ChristopherButer - I did as suggested and switched options on and off, re-starting PS in between.

Firstly, "Enable Design Space (Preview) is inactive and cannot be turned on as I run Windows 7 and it requires 8.1.

Turning off one Plug-in option at a time didn't really help. Everything was still laggy.

Switching off "Load Extension Panels" made some difference, but not a lot.

Everything is much faster will all three plug-in options OFF.

But, anything to do with opening or saving files is still excruciatingly slow.

Appreciate that you recognise there is a problem and are trying to fix it. But, I'll be down-grading to CC 2014 until a fix is released.

[ChristopherButler]

Thanks for taking the time to run the experiments on your system.

[Shadowspark]

Hi Christopher,

I somehow missed these instructions.  Just tested them out, but unfortunately no change in PS performance 😞

[xtcmax]

In regards to this issue I want to add my 0.002 cents. I never had a lag problem with Photoshop. I understand that even though people have "high end" computers, it doesn't mean they take care of what is going on with their systems. People install, upgrade, re-install all the time and while doing so something is bound to go wrong. A good example a lot of people were and still reporting problems when upgrading to Win 10 from previous versions of windows. The keyword is "upgrading".

It is a good custom to have a clean install of your OS and all your "important" programs once 2-3 years or so. It may be longer, depends on what you do.

Example:

A person has Nvidia card, let it be TOP END, SUPER-PUPER card and then there is a driver update pops up, where you can just download and install it. So, a person does it, installs new driver on top of the old one, but something goes wrong, 1 file not deleted, or some compatibility issues and the whole system goes to crap, it becomes slow , crashing, etc, etc.

I strongly suggest to have clean, stable, well taken care of system before blaming Adobe or CC for being bad.

[anilk79651720]

Christopher,

I read your and Adam's comments here.  As there are several hundred users and several thousand computers in Adobe, and yet are unable to replicate the problem.  It points to a problem in itself.  May be several of us (= users) probably have not "installed" or configured the setup properly.  I live and work from home in Fremont and can bring my Macbook Pro with the installed Photoshop CC 2015 and show you the slowness.

Right now I started to render an animated six second logo with 8 FPS, at 9:00 AM (PST) it is 3:00 PM and still about 10% done.  This behavior has been happening for about three weeks.  I did allow to upgrade to the latest version.

Anil