P: Freezing, cursor stuck when scrolling/flick panning

[jethrodesign]

Hi, over the years we've generally found Photoshop to be one of the most stable of all apps we use. But lately, it's been freezing a lot when doing relatively simple editing. We've updated to the very latest version (21.1.2) on a late 2013 Mac Pro with 24GB RAM. 

What seems to be causing the freeze is just scrolling around a zoomed-in image when using the spot healing brush tool on grayscale TIF images that aren't overly huge or complex. But this may just be coincidence since it's a pretty common task. But using the space-bar scroll will just suddenly freeze and the image becomes completely unresponsive. Fortunately, I am typically still able to access menus, including 'File/Save'! Sometimes I'm able to just save & re-open the file to get it to work again, other times I must restart PS.

- Is this common? 

- Anything we can try to resolove (if clearing prefs, any specific - as they seem to be pretty widespread and in multiple places)?

Seems like this has only recently started happening, so not sure if one of the recent updates has caused this. We've never experienced this kind of thing with PS over the years.

Thanks! 

[tarunt9633801]

I was having this problem too and it was rather frustrating. However, turning overscroll on and flick panning off seems to have resolved this issue, for now at least. I'm not sure if the issue is resolved completely, I might encounter it in future again, but for now when I tried panning while zoomed in, it didn't stop. So you can try it as well and see if it works out for you as well.

[Katterfelto]

Well, dawidzadlo, looks like it's been over a year since you posted this complaint and Adobe still hasn't done anything about it. The same thing has been happening to me ever since you posted this message, so I keep checking to see if anything has changed, but nope. I guess it's another one of those bugs that we're expected to just "learn to live with." (sigh) Which is a shame, really, considering how much we're paying for the full Creative Cloud suite of utilities.   

[Ianolitooo]

Same here, I had the same problem for 1 year, having to save my file, closing it and reopening it right after each time, sometimes 20 time a day wasting time and inspiration. The worst about it is that I searched 100 times how to fix it, only finding people having the "caps cross-air arrow" issue on tons of forums. Hope they'll consider fixing it one day.  

[Talikira]

Bump... still having this issue!! 😩

[czsarnay]

Add me to the list as well.  It's very frustrating!!  Unchecking Flick Panning solves the problem but I like the Flick Panning function!!  Adobe why can't you fix this issue!!

[Sharobur]

I have the same problem and it's a dealbreaker for me. I use spacebar (with overscroll option checked) all the time for painting.

It started to occur in 2020 update, then it seems to occur more frequently with each update... This happens to me every 20-30minutes for me and altough I can save and reopen, it still wrecks my workflow quite a bit. To the point I'm considering switching main paiting app, really annoying.

[Ham15D5]

Still not resolved (July2021) but at least you have given me a quick workaround that I have been deperate for, thanks so much. So fed up of closing the document and opening again.

[jettpack]

I have had this problem on two different MSI laptops for about a year. It can happen as often as every hour or every 5 minutes. So incredibly frustrating. It happens very occationally on my work mac pro but not enough to be a problem. It insane that Adobe hasnt fixed this problem yet. it seems like its been floating around for years. using the window>Arrange>new window work around has been okay but this is ridiculous. i use photoshop every day, its really destroying my work flow. 

[KUUSOJA]

first of all, I apologize for my bad English (not my native language). I also have this problem on a daily basis. All updates are constantly made, but more than 10-20 files crash at once. e.g. today I started at 11 am, it is 14.25 and still has not been able to open files. The only thing that has sometimes helped is that before Ps starts working, I make a restart for the computer. Normal! Ps all files in the cloud, i.e. can not be in hard disk memory either

[defaultmyf299sx9hge]

I have the same issue! Can Adobe get on this?? Thanks @dawidzadlo Dawidzadlo for the quick fix solution.

[misterzee]

Same here. Started experiencing this problem on my Mac using PS v19. Switched to powerful Windows PC and the same thing is happenning in v22.5 Have to close the application and open again to continue working. Having to do this many times every day. Super annoying and is messing with my work-flow. Seems to happen less when flick panning is disabled and I have overscroll active. I am really amazed that Adobe has not fixed this issue as it's clearly quite common across various operating systems and has been an issue for quite some time! I always hope that the next update will address the issue but this has not been the case unfortunately. Come on Adobe! Photoshop has gone from being super-stable to annoying and unreliable - wtf is going on?!

[chad.rolfs]

Is this happening with a mouse or stylus or both?  

[alfonsop15173063]

I have the same problem... This is frustrating and I can't find a solution...

[claudel84161621]

Turning off flick panning in the Tools settings did the trick for me.

I did need to get used to not being abble to flick pan, but after a couple of days I didn't miss it anymore.

[PECourtejoie]

Hi, I'm changing the discussion to a bug report, and pinging @BrettN @J453 

[Barry Seah Photography]

I am now still facing the problem on the latest update of photoshop and this problem has not been solved. I was using the pen tool and it still changes to white cursor arrow in between and it is hogging my work. (21st Sept 2021) I am using Windows 10 and Wacom Intous Pro Medium. Please have a fix soon!

[Diode SA5D99]

Add me to the batch list. I am experiencing the same issue on a Mac Pro 2013, especially when zooming and scrolling, even on a basic image with no layer.

Annoying. Hopefully I can save my work and I don't need to restart photoshop. But sometimes it occurs every 5 minutes.

We have 9 Mac Pro. Only 1 with this fckg issue.

[sputnik42]

This issue has plaged me for a very long time and across many versions of photosop. I've finally found a fix that wokred for me. Seeing all this Wacom/Windows Ink talk made me hopeful but I'm on a Mac. I notcied that I had some old wacom drivers installed for a tablet I don't even use. 

So what worked for me on OSX:

1. Quite Photoshop
2. Use the installed app Walcom Tablet Utility to remove all users preferences and...
3. Uninstall tablet driver (instructions from wacom)
4. Restart
5. Search for "Wacom" in finder and delete everything. ( the wacom utility left a bunch of stuff. I actually left the wacom bursh folder)

I've been flick panning aggressively all day and I haven't had an issue. If you plan on using a wacom tablet it might be worth giving this a try and reinstalling the drivers for your current table but who knows. Hope this helps someone cause it was driving me up the wall for a very long time.

[Fihn]

Thanks sputnik42, I've tried going one step further and wiped out my OS drive and reinstalling everything  (win10 here) with the latest version to no avail. Even on different computers. There have been a few updates since I did that though so I'll try again next week to see if anything changes.

[Diode SA5D99]

Adobe is a shame. We pay monthly licence and the phone number seems to be a fake...

As Adobe Support doesn't exist for real, and has no reachable phone number, I was able to solve the issue thanks to the prvious posts.

Mac Pro 2013, Catalina, then Big Sur, clean install gave nothing.

But the trick seems to be located in "tools" from "preferences".

Uncheck some feature and it goes well:

[davidg93644855]

Disabling features is not a fix. Considering the features that need disabling are necessary to what I require from the software.

[davidg93644855]

Hi Chad,

Thanks for getting involved. For me its mouse as I only use that. However there are other chats on the same subject (its a bigger issue than just this chat feed) that have mentioned stylus. 

[chad.rolfs]

Agree, the workaround is not a fix.  We have a bug logged on this and I've escalated this. 

[chad.rolfs]

@davidg93644855  Just so I'm clear, you (and others) are still seeing this in the latest release (22.5.1)?

[Michael Lande Publicis]

@chad.rolfs I have had flick panning off since reporting the issue here. I'm running 22.5.1. I just turned flick panning back on. I would be happy to followup if the issue persists in this version of Photoshop.

Thanks for reaching out in regards to this issue.