Photoshop CC, no icons

[Kurt Lang]

Just installed as many of the CC apps as I could in Snow Leopard, 10.6.8. Photoshop CC will not save desktop icons for any file type. I left Photoshop CS6 on the drive and it still works perfectly to local drives and our server. I have the preferences for CC exactly the same as CS6, but CC never saves an icon. Anyone else seeing this?

[Chris Cox]

Yes, we do find it annoying.  But we have hundreds of high priority bugs for Apple to fix, so the lower priority stuff waits...

[bellevue scott]

I totally understand that. But while I respect your expertise and the efforts you put into the forums, I do believe it's time for Adobe to find a way to fix this. It's been years now. I'm not sure how many, but starting with CS6 and all the way to now with PS CC 2014. We've been patient, but this is starting to have a serious impact on work flow. We can't find stuff. We work with images all day long, so we go by the thumbnail images more than a file name.

Again, I don't care who's fault it is, but Adobe, being the premier digital publishing software tool manufacturer on the planet should be able to find a work around.

And yes, I do understand some of Apple's OS bugs. Some of them are infuriating, but this one is like the thorn that won't go away, and it only happens with PS. Not GIMP, not illustrator, not In Design etc. It's only PS. Call it minor, but for us it's a serious thorn.

[Chris Cox]

Adobe cannot fix Apple's code. Because we can't read Apple's code, we can't even find the bug in Apple code. All we can do is identify the symptoms and ask Apple to fix the problem.

And we can't go back to using the deprecated OS routines (which caused other problems).

While this is inconvenient for the users/directories affected - it is something Apple has to fix in their code.

[VHPro]

Chris and everyone,

I have reached the point where I am beyond frustrated with this issue and have tried so many work around on my own that I feel I need to speak out on this issue.

But first, thank you for your very thorough discussion regarding this issue. 

As I understand and simply put, after reading the entire thread, can you confirm, Apple's new OS architecture is no longer able to generate image icons for layered files saved in Photoshop CC or CC2014, unless it is a "Background" only file?  (This would include TIFF, PSD and PSB files, of which I encounter the EXACT same issue).

Like many have written before me, I am a professional photographer who works with large layered files daily.  As I open folders that contain these layered files, some of them saved years ago, I can no longer see the icons.  The only solution I have been able to find is to break out an old G5 tower that is running PS CS5 and use that as my "research" machine.  I can see ALL of my icons just fine, even the ones I just created in CC and CC 2014.

I realize many people may not have an old machine at their disposal and frankly I believe it is quite unbelievable that this issue cannot be solved.  To me there seems to be shared responsibility as this is not 100% Apple's fault.  When Adobe designed PS CC and CC 2014, did Adobe not test extensively with Apple's architecture and not discover this BEFORE CC came to market?  Everyone I know that uses PS CC is having this issue.  Those using PS CS6 or earlier are not.

Has Apple changed it's architecture without informing Adobe?  Have you at Adobe not encountered this very issue yourselves?  It sounds in the thread as if Adobe is NOT encountering this issue.  Can you confirm that Adobe is encountering this issue with PS CC and PS CC 2014 on Apple machines? Why is it happening on every type of Apple machine that is running CC but is Not happening on Apple machines running CS6 or older?

Next,  representing photographers using CC and CC 2014 as a group, can you recommend who we need to speak with at Apple and once we are communicating with them, what we need to insist upon them helping Adobe with fixing the issue? 

I'm trying to be very objective here.  But it seems to me that Apple is building the machines that then Adobe is creating software for.  I'm not in the software industry but common business protocol says to me that if Adobe is building software to be used on Apple machines it is not up to Apple to make the software work correctly on their machines, it is up to Adobe to correct issues with the software.  If there is a new Apple architecture that is causing  Photoshop CC to not function correctly, should it not be up to Adobe to fix the issue?

To use a different industry as an example, imagine that a major car company is building a car that an aftermarket company is building an accessory for.  That accessory has worked just fine for many years. But then the car company changes the design of the car and the accessory no longer works with the new design.  It doesn't seem like it is up to the car company to alter the new design so the aftermarket companies part will function correctly. It seems it is up to the aftermarket company to revise the design of their product to work with the new car.  I believe the very same is true in this situation.

My entire business is centered around the use of Adobe products, in particular Photoshop, on Apple products.  Now that PS CC is no longer able to function properly in one of the most basic functions-being able to see thumbnails of all the work I have done over the many years I have been using the Adobe products - I feel I am being left to figure this out on my own.  Adobe seems to blame Apple, Apple seems to blame Adobe and meanwhile, we the very people who purchase and use your products are being held hostage to this situation while nothing is being done to alleviate this issue.

The really unsettling thing is that we as professionals have no other option that to just figure it out on our own. We have to keep working and servicing our clients while Apple and Adobe play the blame game and the problem persists.

You wrote in an earlier post that Apple and Adobe consider this a "low priority".  It's nice to know that the very people who first adopted the use of digital imaging tools and software are now considered a low priority.  It is further unsettling that Adobe cannot get together with Apple and find a solution to this issue after more than a year of having this known issue.

All I want is things to return to normal.  I just want to use the amazing, and up to a year ago, nearly flawless software that I have built my business around without having to find a fix myself for what should be a very basic problem.  Telling us that this is an Apple problem is not fixing the issue with Adobe software.  I have zero contacts at Apple's R&D division.  I would hope and imagine that Adobe has a direct line of communication with Apple's R&D.  What is being done at Adobe to communicate this to Apple?

We need answers and solutions.  Adobe's new software is NOT working correctly on new Apple machines.  I believe it is up to Adobe to fix this issue.  I believe Adobe needs to spearhead an awareness campaign with Apple to motivate them to work with you to fix this.  I know that to Apple this IS a low priority.  Long ago Apple shifted it's focus away from professionals and into making products for the masses.  But fixing your software should be a TOP priority for Adobe, even if it requires getting Apple to work on it with you.

Please advise,

Vic Huber

[gener7]

Adobe has the same issue with Microsoft. There are however third-parties like FPV and Ardfrey that make codec software to generate thumbnails at the OS level.

Buy and install the codec, you get your thumbs instead of writing complaints.

I have no idea why this can't be done on the Mac side. Perhaps Apple has tighter restrictions on what can be done.

[VHPro]

Thank you for your reply.  Have you purchased this software and had success fixing the issue?

[gener7]

These codecs are for the PC, Mac is not supported. This will at least work on the Windows end. Ardfrey does support PSB, FPV has not as of now.

The cost for FPV is 9.99 now http://www.fastpictureviewer.com/codecs/

Ardfrey is 19.99. View Photoshop PSD PSB PDD PDF AI EPS INDD files in Windows - x64 PSD CODEC for Windows 7, Windows 8...

[Chris Cox]

You've gotten things a bit confused.

In this case Photoshop is doing what it is supposed to, and working exactly how the OS vendor tells us to - but the OS itself has issues and bugs that sometimes prevent previews and thumbnails from working.

On the Windows side, we embed a thumbnail, but the OS doesn't read it by default and requires third party software. When we tried to write our own software to do that, we encountered ugly bugs in the OS that have yet to be fixed in the OS.

As for your analogy, it's more like the car maker sells the car as working on pavement and off road situations, but the wheels immediately fall off if you leave their parking lot.

[gener7]

Is a third party thumbnail solution possible for the Mac? It seems no developer is stepping up to the plate.

[Chris Cox]

Theoretically it is possible for a third party to do that on MacOS, but I haven't looked at those OS APIs to see how well it might work.

[VHPro]

I just got off of a long call with Apple Tech Support.  The technician I spoke with happened to be a photographic expert and is well versed in Adobe programs in particular Photoshop. During our call he researched through Apple's own internal forums and discovered they had had numerous discussions regarding this issue.  Essentially what Apple has determined is that in PS CC and CC 2014, thumbnails are now no longer saved primarily as standard .png or .jpg files but as proprietary .psb files.  Apple's OS will not read these .psb files as thumbnails due to the architecture of the OS. 

The tech suggested that I ask; Has there been a change in the way thumbnails are now generated in CC and CC 2014 compared to previous versions of Photoshop?  That is, is the default thumbnail file saving done as a .png or .jpg file (which is the only way Apple's OS can read a thumbnail) or is it now done as a .psb file?

The technician personally runs 10.9.4 on a G5 tower as well but has not encountered the issue because he is still operating CS5.5 on his machine.  So he could not repeat the issue himself.

In the end, something is causing me to not be able to see my thumbnails any longer and I simply want to correct the problem and move forward.

Please advise, thank you.

[Chris Cox]

Unfortunately, you just got B.S.'d by a apple tech with no idea what he was talking about.  If you have a case number, we need to forward that to Apple so they can take care of the tech who exaggerated their experience and made Apple look so foolish.

We're still writing thumbnails exactly where the Finder/Metadata code at Apple is looking for them, which we have confirmed several times in discussions with those teams.

The thumbnails are still normal JPEG thumbnails, usually written in the common and well documented EXIF and XMP locations.

PSB is a publicly documented file format, but has nothing to do with thumbnails.

The only change is that Photoshop CC dropped resource fork thumbnails - AT APPLE'S REQUEST, because the MacOS resource manager is deprecated and the Finder/Metadata code had several bugs regarding resource fork thumbnails.

[VHPro]

Great information to have.  I have scheduled another call with Apple for this morning.  This time I am going to gather all the relevant case information and explain what you have written in detail to them. 

[VHPro]

I just spent nearly 90 minutes on with Apple tech support this morning.  First with a front line CSR who then connected me to top tier representative. I was able to explain and show in detail what the problems I was encountering.  Apple shared my screen, was able to verify this issue I was having and captured all my relevant data, and is now sending the issue to Apple Engineering to take a look at.  They have said they will get back to me with 48-72 hours.  I will post the results when they coma available. 

One interesting thing that we discovered was that the generic Tiff file icon that Apple considers "normal" in their OS is not the same as the current Tiff icon produced by Photoshop.

They both say Tiff on the icon but Apple's generic one features a loupe and two little photos whereas the current PS creates the icon featuring the geometric shapes.  They did not say whether or not this has anything to do with the issue but felt it was worth noting.

[Noel Carboni]

Zero response speaks to Apple as "not too many folks care about this".  A purely business-driven management process would necessarily prioritize it at the bottom of the list.  But they don't realize the implementation is probably just a few hours work, starting with the PSD format code.

-Noel

[Chris Cox]

Actually, I put almost those words in a RADAR bug a few years ago...

[cyborgsam]

Graphics Converter and many other apps I run in Mountain Lion have no problem adding custom icons to files.  While it's true that Mountain Lion has major issues with .DS_Store and custom icons, they do work.

Adobe used to have this working in Mountain Lion in CS6, to me it appears that Adobe changed something and is blaming Apple's deprecation instead of fixing Photoshop.

IBM's arrogance led them to fall in the 80s, Microsoft's arrogance is leading them to fall now, how long before Adobe's causes their fall?

[Chris Cox]

I'm sorry you want to blame Adobe for following Apple's guidance, but we have to live within the limits of the operating system.

[cyborgsam]

Chris->

Apple doesn't even follow its own guidelines.  IMHO Adobe could use a workaround to circumvent Apple's issues.  if the old style still works, use it.

The limits of Moutain Lion are that custom icons work, even if Apple is deprecting them.

Take a look at the Console messages on a boot: there is a lot of Apple software using deprecated calls...

[Chris Cox]

The old style doesn't still work. Resource forks already have a lot of problems, and Apple won't be fixing those problem because the resource APIs are deprecated.

[cyborgsam]

Then how are apps like Graphics Converter working?  And how come I can copy/paste custom icons in the Finder?

Am I missing some key concept here?

[Chris Cox]

You seem to be missing that not all applications have updated yet, and that some applications may not know or care about the problems with the resource APIs and the Finder/Spotlight issues with resource forks.

[cyborgsam]

Nope, I've got that.  I guess I find that the old stuff is working enough to be useful.

One thing we can all agree on is that Apple's consistency in their APIs and support has gone downhill, icons are not the only issues developers are having.  Several apps I use are off the market because the developers can't work around Apple's "walled garden."

My productivity has taken a hit because of the dysfunctional GTD apps and Finders in 10.7-9.

In any case, it's the weekend, take a break from helping us and enjoy it!

[Noel Carboni]

cyborgsam wrote:

can't work around ... "walled garden."

Really useful tools for people who create content and know what they're doing just don't fit that model.

But the computer operating system makers are ever more ignoring that simple truth.

We suffer.

-Noel

[bellevue scott]

I have heard you blame this on Apple for years now Chris, and I don't buy it. This is an increasing problem with Adobe PS CC and CC 2014 to the point that it's making our work flow impossible. You keep blaming Apple, and yet I can take a tif file I created in PS that won't display a preview image, open it in GIMP, or in Apple's preview thing and when I save I get an icon. When I do it in PS I get a white square. It's Adobe. It's not Apple.

I've been putting up with this since CS6, and now I'm on CC 2014, and it persists. It's total nonsense. It's ONLY Photoshop, and it's 100% reproducible 100% of the time.