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Photshop CC tools stop working

New Here ,
Sep 07, 2017 Sep 07, 2017

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My Photoshop CC tools randomly stop working. They seem to cutout and it happens constantly. Its very annoying. This only seems to happen with photoshop. I'm most often using the BRUSH or the LASSO. They just cut out. The only remedy I've found is to add a new layer and use the tool until it becomes responsive again, which. take a bout 15-20 seconds. I don't think it's a hardware issue as I'm running a brand new 27" Imac with 32 GB of RAM.

Any idea whats going on?

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Adobe
Community Expert ,
Sep 07, 2017 Sep 07, 2017

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What have you done for trouble-shooting so far?

Restoring Preferences after making sure all customized presets like Actions, Patterns, Brushes etc. have been saved might be a good starting point:

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/basic-trouble-shooting-steps.html

What are your Performance Preferences settings?

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/optimize-photoshop-cc-performance.html

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New Here ,
Sep 13, 2017 Sep 13, 2017

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I tried restoring preferences, but no change. As for Performance preferences, I had them on default, (memory usage; 70%, Cache; 4,) but also tired changing memory usage to (85%) and increased Cache Levels to 8. Unfortunately the problem persists. Any other suggestions I can try? Thanks for you time and efforts.

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Community Expert ,
Sep 13, 2017 Sep 13, 2017

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If you use a tablet can you try disconnecting it to see if it also afflicts the mouse or trackpad?

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 07, 2018 Jul 07, 2018

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I have this issue too — for me it happens when I switch from photoshop to pull up finder or the internet.

it helps to open a new file then the tools there work and in turn work on the original, but I haven’t figured out a way to fix them besides that 😕

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New Here ,
Jun 26, 2020 Jun 26, 2020

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Did all of the above and still happens, will switch to a cusor prior, no tool selection works, no keyboard shortcode works, etc. just stays on the cursor until photoshop is restarted. 

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 15, 2020 Sep 15, 2020

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Windows 10 user here (new Intel Nuk) This same problem started happening. Everything is working fine & suddenly the hand tool just stops working mid-drag using keyboard shortcuts (Spacebar & B), then the rest of the tools don't work, even when I select them from the panel with my mouse and try to use that way- the cursor stays a white pointer and does not swap to the correct tooltip nor do the tools work. 
The program is still considered 'responsive' and it is not frozen, as I'm still able to save and quit.

I dont understand why BASIC functionality is such an ongoing issue. 

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New Here ,
Oct 07, 2020 Oct 07, 2020

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It's just so bizarre. Started happening to me today.. completely randomly and now it's every 10 minutes. Will have to find an alternative program I guess

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New Here ,
Oct 15, 2020 Oct 15, 2020

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Mine was doing the same thing. I had Caps Lock on. Turned it off and tools started working again.

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Community Beginner ,
Dec 09, 2022 Dec 09, 2022

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Same exact thing for me, while using the spacebar hand tool. Now my cursor is just the standard arrow; I can select layers and different tools, but none can affect the canvas. I have a second file open, and tools work fine on THAT canvas... this is like the eighth time it's happened in 2 days and I'm sick of restarting the app.

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Community Beginner ,
Oct 08, 2020 Oct 08, 2020

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same here. And when it does this not even mount/keyboard commands make the file work. Can still save what im doing close that file but not the program. Once I reopen the file it works again till it happens again. Can go anywhere from an hour of not issues to contantly for an hour till I just get frustrated and have to walk away from it for a while. 

Mine is not hardware either nor is it drivers for I have all drivers for Windows 10 and Nividia up to date. Even went into CC to see if there was updates but nothing. 

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New Here ,
Oct 15, 2020 Oct 15, 2020

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Mine was doing the same thing. I had Caps Lock on. Turned it off and the tools started working again.

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Community Beginner ,
Oct 15, 2020 Oct 15, 2020

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It is not as simple as a caps lock. And it does this when my cintiq is on my lap and im just focused on that not using keyboard commands even yet. Its like the work area screen freezes up. Minimising it just makes it even worse till you close the file out and reopen it. This has been going on for a few months and I thought it was just me till recently its now almost every hour it starts up. Before I could go a few hours or even a few days before it does it again. 

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New Here ,
Mar 09, 2021 Mar 09, 2021

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I didn't have Caps Lock on, but I turned it off and on anyways to see if it helped, and this worked for me! Thanks!

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Community Beginner ,
Mar 10, 2021 Mar 10, 2021

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I'm having this as well for quite some time now. It's really frustrating. I've tryied the caps lock on/off trick, but it doesn't work.

 

I can just save my file, close Photoshop and reopen it. During the last hour, it happened 3 times !

And I'm using my tablet + a few keyboard shortcuts (space / z / b / i / e). That's all.

 

Windows 10 up to date, Photoshop up to date (22.3.0), wacom drivers and all other software up to date.

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New Here ,
Oct 20, 2020 Oct 20, 2020

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Started getting the same problem, was the problem ever solved?

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New Here ,
Nov 03, 2020 Nov 03, 2020

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Hello, Same problem happening to me on fairly new mac. Mostly happening when zooming in on a image, then all tools stop working only giving me the black pointer regardless of which tool I'm selecting. Also, when this happens I cannor resize the window in which the image is displayed. The window changes size but the image inside gets distorted and loses its original ratio. Only fix for me is to close document and re-open. It's driving me insane. Please someone find a solution.

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 28, 2021 Jul 28, 2021

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I'm replying to this as I share your frustration - I'm having the exact same constant issues nearly 9 months down the line. This is on a relatively standard Mac using a common AMD Radeon 5300 card.

 

Turning off graphics processor enhancement is apparently still the recommended 'workaround', but I'd rather not have Photoshop operate with the speed and efficiency of Microsoft PowerPoint with no end in sight.

 

It'd be great if there was an official response as to when this issue might be properly resolved.

 

 

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New Here ,
Nov 18, 2020 Nov 18, 2020

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I have this same issue where I cannot use any of the tools and nothing affects the canvas, as if the whole image has frozen and the tools have become inert. I am baffled how adobe has yet to do anything about this issue. It is as if my productivity is going down with each update they roll out, adding new features while they break the old ones that you really need.

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Community Beginner ,
Nov 18, 2020 Nov 18, 2020

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So Im hoping im wrong with this but i notcied something while working and having a monitoring software going. PS is a huge ram hog. I have 32gigs that should never be used up but the progrma itself with even a small file can easy eat up half of that under low program load. So im sure when we are putting in commands decently fast it just hogs more and more ram thus maxing it out on the PC. Which it thus can not give to the program making our work space just freeze up and only way to fix it is to reset it. 

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Community Beginner ,
Dec 07, 2020 Dec 07, 2020

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I've started experiencing this glitch/malfuntion as soon as I updated to Photoshop CC 2021. This has rarely happened before in previous versions. I don't think it's a result of caps-lock or RAM. This is a software malfuntion. Help us out Adobe! 

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New Here ,
Dec 31, 2020 Dec 31, 2020

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I've had this same issue for a while now! All I use photoshop for is to remove the background in pictures of the furniture I build so that I can list them on my website. Everytime I use the Select and Mask tool, halfway through selecting the tools stop working and the cursor turns to the pointer. Photoshop doesn't freeze because I'm still able to save and exit but the tools completely stop working. Adobe, please help!

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New Here ,
Jan 09, 2021 Jan 09, 2021

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UPDATE: FIXED!

I worked with Adobe and they said there has been an issue with some graphics cards and the latest version of Photoshop. We uninstalled the latest version and reinstalled a previous version, Version 22.0. The problem has not occurred since we did this!

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New Here ,
Jan 11, 2021 Jan 11, 2021

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i have the same problem I'm running Photoshop 21.2.4 on a iMacPro .
does anyone have any idea how to fix this annoying error?

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New Here ,
Jan 24, 2021 Jan 24, 2021

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I started having this issue since last week. I literally have to restart Photoshop every 5 minutes and I am becoming super counter productive and on stake with a couple freelance gigs.  I have tried installing all the 4 versions available. I updated the Nvidia graphics driver and currently updating Windows OS. Has anyone found a working solution to this?

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