Scratch Disk Error: No disk even connected

[design224]

UPDATE 8/14/23
Bought a brand new external terabyte ssd yesterday and got the attached error this morning. I think I MAY have an answer but I can't find any tech on this. After 32 years (I started using it in 1992 for 'real') I know the basics so I search for deeper reasons past bad dev's being forced to meet a sprint and turning in crap.

Is it possible that using the same scratch disk for After Effects and Premier is what is causing issues? Even though I'm not 'using' AE or Premier, they are all set to the same dedicated scratch disk and thus have created their own folders as needed on the drive.

The proper thing would be to remove all folders except for Photoshop and test it but yee gods, surely someone actually *knows* whether or not it could be an issue? In 2023, disk access, especially with SSD shouldn't be still in testing phases but I can certainly understand how it could be.

And now, 4 hours later, I do not even have an external connected and have plenty of space on my root drive (about 950 megs) and the error popped up when just choosing "open".. didn't even get to select a file.

Something is causing PS to generate a false positive about scratch drives. Any ideas?

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

Hi @design224 that error is usually correct and not a miscommunication from Photoshop. It could be hitting a bad sector of the disk or your external is not connected via a fast enough connection to register. If you aren't connecting via USB-C or faster, that could be the cause. If you are using a fast connection, then I would try swapping ports, cables to see if that makes a difference. Otherwise a reformat may be in order.

If you didnt already - you need to change the preference under Preferences/Scratch disk to make your newly available local HD checked on and listed first or it will give you issues with looking for the detached external.

[davescm]

I would never recommend using an external drive for scratch disk, both for for speed and reliability of the connection. Use it for file storage by all means but scratch in Photoshop is used for swapping file information with RAM as you work. No matter how much RAM you have (I have 256GB here) you are still going to use that scratch disk. You therefore want the scratch file on a fast local, not external, drive. 

As stated above , that error tends to be accurate and is probably caused by your preferences set to look for a drive that is not connected. Reset your scratch preferences to just use the local drive and restart Photoshop.

That said, 950MB free on your local drive is not sufficient for scratch use. I have just opened Photoshop and my scratch file is 6.8GB before I open any files. It often grows to a few hundred GB as I work , then is removed completely as Photoshop closes. It looks like you may need to do some housekeeping and move some files to your external drive in order to use scratch space efficiently.

Dave

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

Good catch@davescm - the minimum scratch disk for PS is 50 GB.

[design224]

I'm bringing this back as the error is consistent. I get the error message (see attached screen shot) and PS has to quit.

I've purchased a new external via USB-C and have tried multiple disks. I generate NO ERRORS in/with After Effects, Premier Pro or Illustrator. I have tried to cause a problem as I can in Photoshop in these programs and I never have the problem./

What I've discovered is PS doesn't like have other programs (AE/Illus/PR but mainly premier) assigned to the same external scratch drive. All the other programs do not mind. Even though I have specified a folder for each, if I am working in Premier and/or After Effects, poor little Photoshop will generate the error either within about 15 minutes of using the other programs or if I use Screenshot while in one of those other programs and come back to Photoshop.

Again, it is not the external drive and is not the USB-C connector as I spent an entire day with multiple drives connected via the same plug and just avoided using Photoshop.. (had to use photopea and Express onlne to run my test) and had no problems all day. Yes, I used AE/Premier at the same time... even popped into Audition one time.

Following day, I started Photoshop and after about 2 hours, boom. The error happened.

Someting about Screenshot is still a problem in Win11 and maybe it's tied in some other way to the scratch disk error, but nope.. this is not "usually correct".... not after the good tests I ran.

I have re-installed a couple of times. The only other idea I have is that by having PS Beta also installed coud be causing something even though only one can be opened at once.