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Question

scratch disk error photoshop

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
October 23, 2021
5 replies
2800 views

Apparently I've run out of scratch disk space.
This is the first thing that is absolutely ridiculous - I have 100GB+ free in the main storage which apparently it uses by default.

I've seen that it can be purged in photoshop edit menu. Because of this error I can't open photoshop to purge it though.
This is the second thing that is absolutely ridiculous - why would the scrath disk being full be allowed to prevent ps from opening like this.

Then I've spent the last 30 minutes searching for the mysterious "chat" option to solve this here. If all there is are forums, why list "chat" as an option.
This is the third thing that is absolutely ridiculous about this.

I've also been using photoshop for years and years and years and paid one of the higher rates to be able to access all apps, yet I can't get support with this money and the literally mountains of money earned by Adobe every year.
This is the last thing that is absolutely ridiculous about this.

Why am I even having to write this because of any one of these things.. let alone all 4?!?! I consider my time pretty important to me.

macOS

V

vesper369Author

Participating Frequently

I've used PS for years and literally never once had an issue with it.

This issue is seriously poorly documented and none of the described solutions sole it at all.

Most suggest to use edit > purge. If you can't even get into PS, how are you going to do that.

Then like Dave's advice, many say to search for "Photoshop Temp". I have no files with that name. It searched my entire macbook and found nothing, 3 or 4 times I tried. Also tried other things like searching for all .tmp files, and the word "temp". Very very poorly documented.

I can't honestly see why you would allow for a situation where being could get locked out of PS by this, that's the real thing that confuses me. You could program to prevent that in so many ways (I'm a software engineer).

I hope the solution I found solved for you too. I wish I could buy that youtuber a beer.

D Fosse

Community Expert

There is no way you can program your way around lack of disk space.The Photoshop scratch disk needs a lot of it, and the official system requirements are unrealistic to put it mildly. Any experienced Photoshop user will put the minimum at 250 GB or so, more if you have big files and/or many files open. Or an extreme amount of history states.

Now, if Photoshop reports actual disk space incorrectly, that's another issue. We don't see that often, but if it happens, it needs to be reported as such in the "bugs" subsection of this forum. Normally, Photoshop will get this information from the operating system.

For Windows there is an excellent (and free) little utility called "WinDirStat", and I think there is a Mac equivalent. It shows you exactly what's on your disks:

A

Asa5E2C

New Participant

I am literally experiencing this exact same problem. This is one of the first posts i've seen about the issue, and I have had it off/on now for the past month. So darn stupid.

jane-e

Community Expert

Hi @Asa5E2C

Have you seen this Help file?

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/troubleshoot-scratch-disk-is-full.html

Photoshop needs a large amount of free space or it won't open. You can free up space or install another disk. Other options are at this link. If this doesn't help, read through this thread and give us the details we asked the OP for so we can better assist.

Jane

V

vesper369Author

Participating Frequently

For anyone in the future struggling with this who found the information surrounding this issue to be virtually nonexistent and seriously considered walking to the nearest forrest, setting up camp and living there for the rest of their lives, and never turning on a computer ever again because of this profoundly illogical system, here might be a solution for you that saved me from a life living half naked in the wilderness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kX9SbSnqY0g

This video explains that the Adobe caches that relate to this error are found on a mac by going to Go in the finder top menu, holding alt to get the library option to appear, going to application support > adobe > common > media cache files

Also go to media cache.

Delete everything in there with extreme prejudice and a gleeful glint in your eye and get back on with using the software you have paid a small fortune to be able to use as you would expect it to function.. ie. that it does function.

Thank you to Adobe devs for showing that even professionals at the top of a market can royale [Profanity removed by moderator] things up too.

davescm

Community Expert

Just for clarity

1. The video states that Preferences Performance RAM usage slider is related to how quick scratch builds. It is not. I have 256GB RAM here and Photoshop still uses scratch space as working space as soon as Photoshop opens.

2. Common - Media Cache files - Yes deleting those will free up space on your drive but they are not created by Photoshop. They are created in applications such as Adobe Media Encoder, After Effects , Premiere. They are created to speed up those applications in use. So deleting them frees up space as does freeing up any other temp files in your system, which is what you were advised to do in earlier replies.

Finally - keep your language civil on these forums, your final sentence is not acceptable here.

Dave

V

vesper369Author

Participating Frequently

Yeah the advice about temp files didn't help and just chewed up a good few hours. There weren't any temp files that could be found that way.

In fairness, I'm sure in some situations that would work. For whatever reason in this situation, the solution I posted worked and nothing else would.

The only creative cloud app I use is photoshop, and it was only after doing batch automations of image resizes by the hundreds that this happened and I effectively got locked out of PS and it as only after clearing the cache files I mentioned that I was able to use PS again totally normally, so yes, by logic those files absolutely are created by PS because there's no other apps to create them and it was solely PS actions that this situation came about in the first place.

Apologies for swearing, although in fairness I blocked out two of the letters. My time is very valuable to me, I've paid Adobe and lot of money over the years, and there are 4 overlapping ridiculousnesses when none should be happening - so pardon me if it's a bit frustrating to have to come and spend my time doing this.

I do appreciate you taking the time to comment though, although your suggested solutions didn't solve this. However it's still better than posting and not receiving any replies as is the case with many communities, and for that I appreciate the effort.

davescm

Community Expert

Can you check that you still have 100GB free. Photoshop should open with that, but if it crashed it may have left behind an old scratch file, using up space, which can be deleted. With Photoshop closed, look for a file in you scratch disk root directory named Photoshop Temp1234567890 (the numbers will be different). If Photoshop is not open, that can be deleted.

If you hold down Cmd+Opt and click on the Photoshop icon, it should open straight into the scratch disk dialogue. That will allow you to check that it is still set to the correct disk and what space Photoshop can see on that disk. You can make changes before continuing into Photoshop.

Dave

V

vesper369Author

Participating Frequently

Hi Dave, thanks

This is what I'm seeing (attached)

For both, they aren't able to be interacted with.

davescm

Community Expert

That is showing you have 2GB free which is nowhere near enough. You need to close Photoshop and free up disk space. Photoshop will often open with around 5GB scratch space but can easily go over 100 GB in use.

That looks like your main disk, and with only 2GB free you are going to run into problems with your operating system which also needs space to work. You urgently need to free up space before your system freezes completely.

Dave

jane-e

Community Expert

@vesper369

The reason we see most often when someone has that much free space is that they accidentally used inches or centimeters instead of pixels and the document is unexpectedly huge. Can you check that first?

If you don't see the chat icon, your browser may be blocking it. Try the auto-open link:

https://helpx.adobe.com/contact.html?rghtup=autoOpen

Or try these steps:
https://community.adobe.com/t5/creative-cloud-services/how-to-contact-adobe-support/td-p/11875703

Or send a tweet to @AdobeCare for support.

~ Jane