What is this blue pulsating circle?

[victore2045391]

This is a screenshot of the circle I'm referring to. It was changing over time, sort of pulsating. The screenshot is of a portion of the screen showing my browser window. This blue circle stayed in front of any screen I switched to, until I switched to Photoshop. Then it disappears. That leads me to believe it's Adobe software doing it. I'm using a 16" M4 Macbook Pro. Searching the internet for explanations I see other Adobe products are implicated in this same issue.

What is the animated icon meant to represent? How can I prevent it in the future? I really don't know what I did to have triggered it. Hovering over it and clicking it did nothing. So it's a useless feature. Worse than that, it's an annoyance, since it encumberts other applications.

[Bojan Živković]

You are the first person to report this, so it's not an Adobe feature. I believe it's a coincidence that you do not see the circle while working in Photoshop.

[victore2045391]

That does not follow. Being the first person to report it proves nothing.

[melissapiccone]

Is it tied to your cusor? I use a cursor highlighter that is similar when I teach. 

[victore2045391]

No. It shows in a specific spot on the screen, above any other windows.

[c.pfaffenbichler]

Can you reproduce the issue at will? 

[victore2045391]

No - after I got rid if it somehow, it has not come back again. Having said that, I don't often use Photoshop. Usually I do my work in Lightroom.

[lordofdarkness]

It looks identical to the blue ring around the discover light bulb in the top right corner of Photoshop 2025. It's animated on my sytem, and even gets it's own place on the dock when I minimize Photoshop. Very annoying, wish I could remove it.

[victore2045391]

What is the discover light bulb?

[victore2045391]

OK. I just opened Photoshop, and when I did, the very same animation was displayed around an icon that looks like a present. Hovering my mouse over it, it says, "Explore what's new and tips for using Photoshop." It's located exactly in the spot where it was happening before. This time I did something to dismiss that. I bet if I hadn't, it would have persisted. I'm not sure how to get it to show again. Maybe it won't show again until there's another Photoshop update.

[melissapiccone]

There are blue dots marking things that are new. The present in the home screen also shows you what's new. Usually it opens automatically after an update. The blue dots appear in the tools panel and drop down menus. I haven't see the blue circle. The discover panel (from the lightbulb) is for tutorials and learning. Did you open PS for the very first time or maybe click on an in app tutorial? The tutorials pop up blue boxes and outline things in blue to have you follow along. 

[fdch]

Same problem on MacBook M4

When opening PS, no blue circle is visible around the lightbulb, but after a short time the blue circle pops up, even without working in Photoshop, overlaying every other window.

When minimizing PS, the blue circle also appears in the dock.

Yes it is the circle from the discover panel, no i did not opened PS for the first time. 

[Energetic_self6989]

This is also happening to me on Macbook M4 Pro, the blue ring is because of some tooltip/highlighting system, it will show through overlayed even when using other programs, extremely annoying and I don't see options to turn this off.  

[davescm]

Try enabling quiet mode to take away the highlights and prompts for tuturials etc in Photoshop:   Preferences > Notifications > Enable quiet mode.  
I've not seen it over other applications though, as reported by the first poster.
Dave

[Tom_Cheatle2588]

I was also having the same issue purely in lightroom, closed and reopened and it has disappeared.

[Homicidal_Pixels]

I'm also having this issue: Apple M2 Max running Sonoma 14.7.6 -- PS version 26.10.0
Really distracting and annoying. Though mine does not persist over other applications, it minimizes a few seconds after I minimize the PS window.