After freeze and force quit, Photoshop 2020 won't launch again without uninstalling and reinstalling

[aliciay95799402]

We are running macOS Catalina 10.15.3 on an iMac (more detailed specs below).  We have an all apps Creative Cloud subscription and are having issues with Photoshop, and now today with InDesign as well, that when Photoshop freezes and you have to force quit it, the application won't launch again.  The only way to get the app to start again is to uninstall it, reinstall it and sometimes also restart the computer after that.  So basically, every time we have to do a force quit after a freeze, the app is unusable without going through the uninstall, reinstall and restart process.  Anyone else with these issues?  A couple of weeks ago we actually reinstalled the entire machine and all of the applications, so one would think it would be in relatively good working order.  The macOS and all of the Creative Cloud apps are up to date.  We've tried about everything we can think of.  Any ideas would be much appreciated!

iMac 27-inch, Late 2013

macOS Catalina 10.15.3

Processor: 3.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5

Memory: 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 755M 1 GB

[nikunj.m]

Hi there,

We are sorry about the experience with Photoshop 2020 on your Mac.

Please go to the "System Preferences" of your Mac, then "Security and Privacy", then select the "Privacy" tab. Then select "Accessibility" from the list on the left and add Photoshop to the list. Also, grant permissions to Photoshop under "Full Disk Access". Once done, please restart the computer and check if it helps.

You can go to the "Preferences" of Photoshop, then "Performance" and uncheck the option to "Use Graphics Processor". Also, check the option for "Legacy Compositing" and relaunch Photoshop before testing the performance of the application.

You can also try to reset the preferences of Photoshop using the steps mentioned here: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/preferences.html

Please backup your actions, brushes, etc. before you reset the preferences. You can check: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/preset-migration.html

Regards,

Nikunj

[seang21414001]

More useless advice form Adobe. If I could open my photoshop then I would be able to go to the preferences, but since it's FROZEN and will NOT FORCE QUIT, that will be impossible. Any other useless info?

[M.al]

I know how to fix that 

im not sure if this would work on a Mac but i think it would but what you can do is click Ctrl+Alt+Delete then choose task manager then click on photoshop and chose end task 

this works for me everytime 

hope it helps 

[MulliganGolf]

This persistent hang still occurs in InDesign 16.0.2 on the Mac (Big Sur)... making it almost impossible to use.  Simply placing overset text locks InDesign up, and requires Force Quit to restore.  Behaviour seems to be document-specific - out of the blue, an InDesign document (a chapter document in our case) goes "unstable"... and there's no way to figure out what happened to it.

[isaiahb285683]

I can't begin to count the hours of productivity Adobe's glitchy software has cost me. Baffled how this company dominates the industry. 

[stefans43520790]

Hi there, 

good to know we are not alone with this kind of problem. Exactly same situation. Unfortunately just found this topic here today. Yesterday and day before we have same reinstalled one whole iMac machine/system to ensure everything is set up well and - bam - the same problem again. Force quit and no possibility to restart Photoshop without uninstall and re-install PS. That is really not funny and not a kind of convenient use. Hopefully Adobe shows up with a real solution and some trial and error hints.

[Cat0D44]

Hi, 

I have the same problem. A little while ago photoshop was acting up, so I had to force quit and close the app. Well, it's not responding and now it won't force quit. I can't restart my computer because the app won't quit. I've uninstalled and reinstalled photoshop multiple times since then and nothing has changed. This happened a week ago and nothing's changed. 

This is what happens when I right click

I click force quit and nothing. It's been there for a full week like that. I need to be able to quit this app and restart my computer. Does anyone know how to help?

[stefans43520790]

Hm, that is strange. One more idea is to press the alt-cmd-esc combination. An small window showing all running programs should show up. There you can select Photoshop which should be listed if running and stopp that program. Generally we found: Photoshop freezes - force quit - uninstall - restart machine - reinstall. If you do not restart computer after uninstall there might be some fragments of Photoshop left in the system and the reinstall will not work either - our experience. It is quite funny what you get for such a low monthly subscription fee.

[rye814]

I've been having the same issue with Photoshop and InDesign for almost 6 weeks. Two days ago an Adobe agent took control of my computer and used the Adobe Cleaner Tool and then also manually deleted all rogue and hidden Adobe files. Then we did a fresh reinstall of everything. It worked — for 24 hours. Now I'm back to the same problem again. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get the knowledgable Adobe agent back on the support.

The number of productive work hours I've lost would pay for several years of Creative Cloud subscription.

iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015)

Processor 3.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5

Memory 24 GB 1867 MHz DDR3

Available Storage 426GB

Graphics AMD Radeon R9 M380 2 GB

[nikunj.m]

Hi,

We're sorry that the issue persists. Would you mind creating a new user account on your Mac to test if you experience the same behavior there?

You can check the steps here: https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/mac-help/mtusr001/mac

Regards,

Nikunj

[stefans43520790]

Hi Nikunj,

as explained above we have reinstalled the whole Mac to see, if the problem depends on the current installed OS-environment or on the Adobe-Photoshop. So neither any reintalling of Photoshop nor the new set up Mac OS  - with for sure fresh and clean user accounts - could solve this problem. To precise the problem: it always happens when Photoshop already running - sometimes when open one or multiple photo files somes - worst case - during saving the done work. It hase never happend just when starting Photoshop. And after resinstalling the Photoshop app same as after reinstalling the whole Mac OS we have never created any special preferences. We just used it as it comes after gerneral first installation.

Regards

Stefan 

[rye814]

Hello. My computer and Adobe have been running smoothly for 24 hours of heavy-duty graphics work. I thought I'd post what I did to [temporarily?] fix the problem with Photoshop and InDesign crashing and not being able to relaunch, in case it is a help to anyone having this problem in future.

1. First, I upgraded the latest MacOS to 10.15.7. I don't think this was the full solution, because the problem has been persisting through several incremental MacOS upgrades for the past six weeks.
2. Next I reset the NVRAM, which is really simple. The Photoshop crash error reports mentioned 'kernal panic' and when I tried to restart my computer and update the operating system, it was also freezing — that's what lead me to a blog article about the NVRAM reset. When you reset the NVRAM, during start-up you'll hear a second startup chime — but it sounds tinnier, like the days of OS9 in the 1990s.

Previous to these two steps, the error was only affecting my Adobe apps, which would crash after 2-20min of use and not be able to relaunch without uninstalling and reinstalling not just the apps, but Creative Cloud, too. After struggling with it for several weeks, I contacted Adobe support (hint: in the CC app, go to the blue circle in the upper right corner and choose 'contact us' from the dropdown.) They used a cleaner tool on my computer and manually deleted rogue Adobe system files. This worked for 24 hours but the error returned.

Aside from one random restart in the middle of using Photoshop (accompanied by a black screen and the same tinny chime of the NVRAM reset), my computer and Adobe have been working as per normal for about 24 hours with heavy use. Fingers crossed. Hope this helps someone!

[JackinMaine]

I have had similar problems with PS since the update from PS2019.   I have spent hours on line, chatting with Adrobe, reviewing forums.   This afternoon PS2021 has locked up 7 times and won't "force quit" so I have to shut down the computer and start over.   I don't know what went wrong in the design.  PS2019 was solid as a rock.

Adobe should be ashamed of its unwillingness and inability to address an issue that has plagued scores of users over the last 2 years.  After 15 years as a PS user I am now actively looking for an alternative.

This is really inexcusable.