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Answered

Your disk copy of image was changed since last opened or saved (Mac OS)

Forum|Forum|14 years ago
March 11, 2011
26 replies
69908 views

I am occasionally getting a message that "the disk copy of image was changed since the file was last opened or saved". The OS is 10.6.6 and I am using CS5. It happens on no specific file. All of my files are pretty big. The current one that this is happening on is a psb that is 3.26 G unflattened. I have from ignorance always ignored the message and saved anyway. I have never detected any damage or discernible changes to the files after ignoring the warning, but after searching Adobe forum and reading a thread about this happening in CS4, I guess I should be more cautious and do a save as and change the file name. I started this thread because no one has reported the issue happening in CS5.

The files were all given to me by ftp as either psd, tiff or camera raw files. I work on duplicates of the originals in no other program but photoshop and opened and closed the files a few times before getting the message about the disk copy being changed. All of my files are saved to an internal harddrive and backed up on a time capsule device. I am on a network, but am the sole user of the network. The files are worked on and saved to an internal hard drive on the same computer. They are never opened on another computer which is usually turned off. I am running no virus protection software except what ever is native to the OS. The only other applications I am running when getting this message are safari, mail and sometimes bridge.

Why am I getting this message and what is causing changes (that I can't detect) to the disk copy?

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer Chris Cox

The mesage means what it says: something outside of Photoshop has modified your file on disk since the time that Photoshop saved the file.

We don't know what might be changing them -- just that the OS returns a different modification time for the file than what it was when Photoshop saved the file.

A

avalent

Known Participant

Super late reply, Lightroom can trigger this behavior if you opened a RAW image from LR in Photoshop.

Reproduce issue: In Lightroom choose 'Edit in Photoshop', continue working inside PS, save as a .psd

Lightroom makes the .psd part of the catalogue and creates previews for on any changes made in PS.

Solution: In Lightroom, remove the .psd from catalogue/collection. This will not delete the file.

A

avalent

Known Participant

Alternatively, the auto-save feature can do this too I think 🙂

A

Alex Furness

Participant

Hi everyone, on Mac / System Pref / Date & Time / Time Zone... by unchecking 'Set time zone automatically using current location' the problem has resolved for me on CS5.5. hope that helps.

Deedge

Participating Frequently

That's interesting Alex. I've been meaning to post here that I haven't seen the problem since CS6, but if it does return, now I know one way to fix it.

O

Optimistic_introvert16B8

Participant

I just had this problem on CS6... first time I ever encountered it.

I believe the reason was that after opening some images using Bridge, I changed the star rating while the photos were open.

M

mindsi davino

Participant

I am seeing this message constantly, now. It appears most frequently with larger files. I don't have any other clues to offer. I originally thought it was time machine related, but afer reading other posts and watching time machine patterns, I don't think it's involved.

I don't use Suitcase. I do use dropbox, but these files are all stored locally.

Please keep offering suggestions and ignore off-topic rants. It just makes reading the thread longer and more painful.

Thanks to all.

A

Anonymous

Previous discussion, either in this thread or another, illustrated that DropBox was messing with files it was not supposed to.

How do you have Finder set to display previews?

A

Anonymous

Re: "Your disk copy was changed..." Here's what fixed it once and for all for me (Mac OS 10.7.3, Adobe CS5, Suitcase Fusion 3 version 14.2.0):

In Suitcase Fusion drop-down menu, go to "Manage Plug-ins..." and disable all plug-ins for Adobe CS products. Manage fonts and sets manually (i.e., either leave desired fonts active permanently or activate temporary sets at startup). Quit programs and restart.

R

Rick Meikle

Known Participant

FWIW, Daring Fireball (John Gruber) provided a link to this article by Pierre Igot that points the finger at dubious decisions by Apple in their new autosave scheme, which indicts Lion's file version management: http://www.betalogue.com/2012/03/27/lion-autosave-2/

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Anonymous

Very interesting article. Thanks for the link, Rick.

A

AnnaStesia1632

Participant

Hello,

just wanted to chime in and say I've encountered this annoying behavior since a few weeks. I can't imagine what has caused this bug, no spectacular changes to my system (at least none that I'm aware of). This thread hasn't been very enlightening for me so far… I'm using CS5 and Snow Leo, no extensions, no Suitcase, Dropbox, Spotify, whatever else has come up as possible error sources.

What I ask myself now: could these messages be a sign of a damaged or dying hard drive? Because my hard drive seems to "working" more than necessary (by that I mean the reading/writing noise) and I believe I always get the message while the HD is busy. Oh, and also when the interval between saving the document is rather short, like less than 2 minutes or so.

Deedge

Participating Frequently

Anna, your experience summarizes exactly what I've been experiencing.The behavior has started despite major changes to my system.

However, I doubt the hard drive is damaged or dying, because a) it would affect more than Photoshop, and b) other people would report hard drives dying in this thread.

On the other hand, a busy HD does back up what Chris has been claiming on this thread: That some other program is overwriting the PS files.

I tried intentionally re-creating the error this week, but have been unable to do so. If I can make time to try again, I will post results on this thread.

M

mac_gabe

Participant

I get a similar message, not in Photoshop or in Lion (I'm still on Snow Leopard), but it is entirely Adobe generated, reproducible and may possibly have a related cause, so I'll relate it FWIW.

I get the message (somthing to the effect of 'file has been modified by an external application' etc) in Lightroom after using Photoshop Elements as an external editor to edit the file - in one particular circumstance.

Normally there is no problem, the two programs talk to each other properly and the file is saved in Lightroom OK, with no message.

The problem arises when I quit Photoshop Elements while the photo in question is open and unsaved. I then am prompted to save, which I do, and Elements immediately closes. But apparently there isn't time for it to talk to Lightroom with all the info, and that's when I get the message when I return to LR. I usually accept the changed file if I can decipher which version the one I was just editing was.

I have a relatively old computer (2006 iMac) and wouldn't be surprised if the speed of writing to disk had something to do with this, so am not looking for a solution or "helpful advice" for my problem here! I'm just chipping in in case other people may be using Lightroom or hitting close/quit then save.

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-_JM_-

Known Participant

I can recreate the problem if I alter the metadata in Bridge, for example "starring" an image, but I wouldn't consider this a problem, it's doing what it should be doing.

for those people that see this problem often and it's a problem, can you simply "save as" the file that you have open in PS and then inspect both files? other than the obvious changes to the modification dates/time, image changes etc, wouldn't this point you in a direction to see what has changed?

A

Anonymous

The file change can be as subtle as a preview icon being added in Finder.

L

LonnieSlowrider

Participant

Marian Driscoll & Chris Cox should take the same amount of time they have spent replying to all these posts and DO SOMETHING about this problem. Instead Ms. Driscoll likes to quote people's posts and make fun of them. I have been having this same problem since I upgraded my OS to 10.7 I hate this error! I run into it 10-20 times a day. It is up to Adobe to fix this problem! Do something please. I am not running a font suitcase or dropbox. FIX THIS!

Chris Cox

Legend

Adobe has done everything we can. Every single time we've looking into this, we've found a cause outside of Photoshop.

Not once have we found that this was caused by Photoshop.

Unless you come up with a reproducable case that involves only Photoshop changing the files -- then there is nothing Adobe can do about this problem.

The files are being changed outside of Photoshop, and the user needs to know that when saving to avoid losing work.

Photoshop is doing the right thing here in telling you about an external change to your file.

Something else on your system is doing something wrong by changing the file when you do not expect it to be changed.

J

JRJenny

Participant

I know it's maddeninly unhelpful, but I have this problem as well. It happens most often when I'm working on a file that's 50MB or more, and most of the work I do in Photoshop CS5 easily swells past 100MB (large illustrations will do that to ya before you flatten them). I started noticing it after reformatting my hard drive this December, which had originally been partitioned into a Boot section and a User Data section. My scratch disk settings use my external hard drive as the primary and my internal hard drive as the secondary. I am running 10.6.8, Snow Leopard, no Suitcase or Fusion or anything. Time Machine is inactive. I have 4GB of ram. Whenever the message pops up, my computer begins to run slower as well, and for the past few weeks Photoshop has needed to be force quit because it freezes when I quit out of the application. Does anyone think reinstalling the program would help? This is my second install of this disc onto this machine, but when I got it reformatted, I missed a few programs during the uninstall. Will that impact my ability to reinstall?

To everyone in this thread, it's little comfort, but you aren't alone. Maybe Adobe will figure this out soon.

R

Rick Meikle

Known Participant

(A side comment first that these forums would benefit from being able to make a general reply, rather than to a specific post...unless I'm missing it somewhere.)

Since my earlier post confirming that the "Suitcase fix" resolved the problem, it has cropped up again, but only rarely. Given the widespread nature of the problem affecting different users with different configurations, it appears that the Photoshop behavior described by Chris can be triggered by any number of scenarios. Adobe may not consider it to be a problem, and in fact may view it as a feature, even though for many users it is nothing but a nuisance. It appears to be something we have to live with until such time that Adobe either improves or fixes the "feature" and/or makes it something you can turn off.

That's my pragmatic take on it at this point, with the real purpose of this post being to confirm that the Suitcase fix is not a complete fix, nor apparently even close to being one. It just removes one of the more common triggers.

C

caligula1Author

Known Participant

I also want to confirm that the issue has never completely gone away for me. I am the original poster. The issue has occured on both Lion and Snow Leopard. A clean install of the OS, reinstall of PS and replacing bad memory and risers all helped, but occasionally, although much less frequently, I will get a disc copy error message. It doesn't matter what size the file is or how long the file has been open for me. I don't have Suitcase or fusion.

Deedge

Participating Frequently

Just want to chime in that I too have been having this problem. I am using CS5.5 on OS X Lion 10.7.3. I started noticing the problem since installing Lion, so it's been about a year, and I finally looked it up and found this thread.

Sometimes, I open a file, make one small change, save it, and get the error. Other times, it happens to files I have been working on for a longer time. Sometimes, when I am working, it happens every time I save as I work.

Until reading this thread, I thought the issue was purely Lion-related. (Time Machine local backups also seem to be chewing up disk space, and I suspect there is a connection.) However, I see here that many people are having the problem on earlier versions of CS as well as OS X.

I do not use Suitcase or Fusion. I do use Topaz plug-ins. I did change my scratch disk preferences a while back, and also suspect it could be something to do with that. The problem occurs when Bridge is open, and also when it isn't.

My system is old and full of crud. I haven't done a clean install for years, thought I do try and clean it up from time to time.

So... not very helpful, I know, but another voice saying, "Hey, there may be more of us than you think!"

A

Anonymous

If it's any help, I'm still on OS 10.6.8, CS4 and I don't run Time Machine, Suitcase or Extensis and I get the message occasionally, but only on the rare occasion when I'm saving large document files. I don't know why some third party thing would only target those files so I'm not buying adobe's claim that it's not responsible. But there isn't any real world problem, save as works, the files aren't broken or anything, it's just a minor nuisance.

Dave

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