Photoshop CS5 all menus grayed out

[rickaz1]

Photoshop file after working on image all the menus go grayed out. Able to save file but can not select any menus. After you save the image quit and then reopen file works fine. This has happened 5 times today.

Tried the file in CS3 Photoshop and have not had this problem

Imac G5 2 GHz Intel Core Creative Suite Master Collection.

[Guest]

Can you reproduce this after restarting Photoshop?

[rickaz1]

After I quit photoshop and reopen the menus get grayed out after working on the photoshop image for about 10 minutes

[J453]

Can you try and get a screen recording of what you're doing prior to this problem occurring? (Jing is a free screen capture program) start screen recording after you restart and stop it once the issue occurs.

[Chris Cox]

Could a few people who sees this problem regularly please go to Help -> System Info..., and email us the text from that?

We'd like to see what plugins are installed and get a few more details.

Email it to ccox [at] adobe {dot} com , thanks.

[Dan at Power]

Yep, I'm having the same issue. I just installed CS5 a few days ago (CS3 is still installed). I'll send you the System Info... output here shortly, and I'm a programmer, so I'll be happy to do any debugging you might need.

--Dan

[Irina Satanovskaya]

Did you use anything from File > Scripts or File > Automate before this problem started happening?

Do you have any CS3 or CS4 plugins installed into CS5?  Thanks!

[Chris Cox]

From the system info logs I've gotten:  there are no third party plugins installed.

(Irina sent her message just before talking to me 🙂

[rickaz1]

Nothing at all. So far I have not had the problem in the last couple

of days

Rick

[Dan at Power]

No, nothing was run from File->Scripts or File->Automate, and as Chris said, no 3rd-party plugins are installed.

This only occurs with one particular file that I've been working with for the past week. It occurs immediately after I SAVE the file (regardless of whether I hit CMD-S, choose Save from the File menu, or close the file and answer Yes when it asks me if I want to save changes. It occurs regardless of the changes I make to the file. It can be as simple as turning on or off a layer of just clicking into a text layer.

Rick, do you remember what file you were working on when you were having this problem? If so, can you please open that same file, make a small change, save it, then see if the menus go gray after saving it?

--Dan

[martinbay]

Of course, this can be reproduced.  I have PS CS5 Print One Copy and Print going gray with a 4 MB file.  Upon restart, it comes in black (active) once, then goes gray again.  This is a nasty high priority bug, and Adobe released this product? Sloppy QA.  Microsoft-like.  I've been using Photoshop for over 20 years since the earliest versions.

I'm certainly not paying for "tech support" on a bug.  On a trial version?

And what is the Window > Arrange > Float All in Windows nonsense of having to choose that function, which used to be the default.  This is stupid beyond belief. Who works on just one PS file at a time? This is a knucklehead change from my CS3 version.

[J453]

The disabled menus problem happens with slower drives/machines. It will be fixed in an update in the very near future.

You can disable tabbed documents in Photoshop's preferences:

Preferences>Interface...

Uncheck "Open Documents as Tabs" and "Enable Floating Document Window Docking"

[Sam Breach]

I know it's a couple of years old but is  a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 2GB of RAM really condsidered a "slow drive" these days? What should I be looking at upgrading to?

[Tai_Lao]

Martinbay,

Your two last posts are totally blank.

That happens often when users attempt to reply or post through email rather than the web interface.

[strl94]

Hi, this is quite an old issue, but it happened to me with the very last version (20.0.1): all menus grayed out, even short cuts not work (ex Ctrl J to duplicate layer)!

When I uncheck "Open Documents as Tabs" and "Enable Floating Document Window Docking", its works fine (but not very practical workspace !

After having opened the file with these options unchecked, I could edit it. If I go to Window>Arrange>Consolidate All to Tabs, the issue is back again (grayed menus and shortcuts inactive, Ctrl J for example)

From time to time, if I restart the computer, it works normally - quite annoying !

One more thing, if I open the same file with the release 19.1.7, it works just fine

[LucasCavalheiro]

Same here. Seems like Adobe is doing the same mistakes after 8 years. Thanks, strl94​

[Guest]

LucasCavalheiro  wrote

Same here. Seems like Adobe is doing the same mistakes after 8 years. Thanks, strl94

What version of Photoshop do you have and if it's 20.0.1 are you opening images from Lightroom first

[LucasCavalheiro]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Ged+Traynor  escreveu

LucasCavalheiro   wrote

Same here. Seems like Adobe is doing the same mistakes after 8 years. Thanks, strl94 

What version of Photoshop do you have and if it's 20.0.1 are you opening images from Lightroom first

Photoshop 20.0.1

Lightroom 8.0

And, yes, sending RAWs from LR to PS with this settings

TIFF

AdobeRGB

16bit

300

ZIP

[Guest]

Hi

There is a known issue with opening images from Lightroom into PS, the workaround is to have Photoshop opened first, Adobe are currently working on a fix.

[cepalmer]

Hi,

I have the issue opening images from Lightroom into PS. The workaround I have found to work is the same that was suggested in 2010 in this thread. If I uncheck open documents in tabs in my PS preferences, all menus seem to work as expected. I can launch and open a photo in PS from Lightroom normally.

[Dan at Power]

martinbay wrote:

Sloppy QA.  Microsoft-like.

Oh, now that was a low blow. Insults are uncalled for.

Seriously though, this is hardly the kind of bug that any programmer or QA dept would have even imagined. For something this wacky to happen just because a file is being saved to a relatively slow hard drive? No one could have foreseen even the possibility of such an oddball bug. That's just the way it goes sometimes, especially with huge applications like Photoshop.

Sam Breach wrote:

I know it's a couple of years old but is  a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 2GB of RAM really condsidered a "slow drive" these days? What should I be looking at upgrading to?

Yes, Sam, it wouldn't matter if your laptop were only two weeks old, laptops always use very slow hard drives to reduce both power consumption and heat, that's just one of the tradeoffs you make when you choose a laptop instead of a desktop.

What should you be looking to upgrade to? Well, there does happen to be a high-spead option for laptops today that was not available when you got your laptop a couple of years ago: solid state drives (SSD), which are now an option (albeit expensive) in MacBook Pros. They are amazingly fast.

[Lelia25]

I am having this same exact problem, and I believe I notice it after saving a file. It doesn't happen EVERY time I save, but it has happened enough times for me to be awfully annoyed. I have to save all files (cmd +s) and completely QUIT the program to get it to work again.

Keyboard short cuts work, but all menu options are greyed out. I do not have any third party plug ins installed nor have I made modifications.

[Irina Satanovskaya]

Could you please delete preferences on launch by holding down Cmnd+Opt+Shift, and try to reproduce this issue afterwards? Does it still happening?