Photoshop is becoming ever more unusably unstable on my Windows and M4 machines

[bmoag]

I can't be the only one seeing this.

I use Photoshop on two Windows computers, one with an nVidia RTX GPU, one with an AMD Radeon and on an M4 mac.

Photoshop is becoming more unusably unstable in Windows and macOS with every shovelware update.  I had assumed PS was rewriten for Apple ARM but it seems just a sloppy port with nothing at all fixed from the X86 version.

The same instabilities keep popping up on all 3 machines, some random, most frequently in the camera raw filter either opening a raw image or as a layer on the PS desktop. Either PS just crashes and wants to send a report no one will read or the box comes up that the image can't be opened--the only way to fix it is to shut down PS and start over.

I've seen PS crash while I'm working on an image in On1 as plugin, both Windows and macOS.

Frequently when I start Bridge or Photoshop I have to sign back in to the same computer I just used a couple of hours ago and went through the same activation nonsense. Twice today, in fact.

If the Beta is installed if I click open with camera raw, no matter how associations are set, reset, preferences reset, chickens sacrificed to the moon, the Beta inevitably opens instead of the stable/unstable release.

I uninstalled the beta from the M4 machine, probably will have to do the same on the Windows machines.

There's more, but those are daily occurences.

If it was one machine I would think it was me but three machines in two different OSes . . .

I've been using PS since V7, maybe its time to hang it up. Paying ever more for the same eternally unfixed slop does not seem rational.

[D Fosse]

If you're using Photoshop on three machines, then yes, you need to sign out of one of them frequently. Only two machines can be activated at the same time.

File associations have always worked this way. The last installed version will claim the file associations, regardless of version number. Photoshop and other Adobe apps allow multiple versions to be installed at the same time, which most other software doesn't. So you need to take some basic precautions when installing/uninstalling/updating. Always keep in mind that the last installer activity will claim the file associations.

Having a beta installed alongside the production version is always risky. The beta is for testing purposes. If you're not testing, don't install it.