Existing type layer replaced by text with other type layer's text upon changing text properties

[Darrell_Estabrook]

Okay, this is weird.

I have a type layer with some text in it (a headline, let's say). I click on the layer, I click on the Character Panel, and first thing I see is the color in the Panel is not the color of the font in the layer.

I then click on any Panel property, and the text in this layer is replaced by text from another layer in my document ( a paragraph layer, let's say), but the color is not the same as the layer the text came from.

Seems like a glitch, but I don't know how else to diagnose it.

[BJN3]

I have the same problem with Photoshop CS6 Creative Cloud on Win7 x64. I also discovered that the broken text layers that are somehow cross-linked to each other will break if I resize the document the same as when I try to edit them and they become text from another text layer. Also, the font size properties are misreported for the affected type layers.

Here's an image pair that demonstrates the text layer behavior:

When I click on the text layers in the design above, or resized the image, this is how the text jumps around:

I've made duplicates of the text layers and moved the text that's jumped layers to the correct positions. Now I'm going to edit the file using CS5 since I don't trust CS6 not to mess the file up again as I edit it. This is not a bug I can live with, and it's not comforting to find out that it was documented in Beta and it was allowed to go out like this.

[Chris Cox]

We haven't figured out how the files get into that corrupt state.  The damage was done long before you see the problems.

But the text team is working on it.

And the shadow looks like a V tail single engine with it's gear down, shot from below. (angles aren't right for a shadow, or a standard tail)

[BJN3]

It's a Bonanza V, the shape is a path made from a top-down view of the airplane not a shot from below. The image isn't gear down, that's a blip in the corn field rows but I should remove that detail since it does look like landing gear at low res.

At dawn, the shadow wouldn't really make it to the ground in a recognizable shape, so I may have to invoke the "suspension of accuracy" privelege granted by Artistic License™. But I'll play with making a mask from a top-down front view of the aircraft and then placing it into the scene with perspective. Pilots can be a pretty retentive group as you may know 😉

I don't really grasp how the text layers could be corrupted "long before" the problems became apparent. But I have seen many instances in various versions of Photoshop where type size is misreported in layers, and that seems to track with scaling a document. Since absolute type sizes change when the glitch is manifest, perhaps there's a link between this problem and document resizing (or perhaps type layer scaling). This illustration started out as a low res comp and I resized the document to a much larger pixel area file to work. Anyway, if I wanted to try to replicate the issue, I'd build a document with text layers and resize the document.

[Noel Carboni]

Sounds very much like a problem first reported during the public beta:

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/990370?tstart=30

Chris' "long before" comment implies the corruption is saved in the PSD file from a prior edit (which could have been only minutes before, but minutes are "long" for computer geeks like me and Chris). 

-Noel

[Chris Cox]

>> Pilots can be a pretty retentive group as you may know.

I know that far too well.  (and I haven't been to Oshkosh or Fond du Lac in 20 years, back when my grandfather was judging and hanging with the IAC folks).

Yes, Suitcase could be partly responsible -- we'll have to test that and check with other users experiencing this problem.

[BJN3]

Hey Chris,

I created a couple of 3D layers from high and low wing airplane models, and generated perspective shadows using 3D light and perspective. The illustration still cheats on altitude and cast shadow size, but I may get away with that.

[mzagor]

Well, i've got the same problem. It is quite annoying, PS6 keeps changing the text layers. I need to try to find out when, but it is surprising. Any ideas why?

[JY_Design-80qYIl]

I’m experiencing this issue as well and it’s turned into a freelancer’s nightmare. I’m a consultant, and this has now corrupted at least four very important PSD source files for two different client projects.

The first project involved three very large (in file size) heavily layered files. Photoshop seemed pretty slow to save, and the next morning my colleague and I both experienced the same messed up type layer behavior - when attempting to edit a type layer resulted in the text completely changing, to something from another text layer, and also changing font size and color. I figured it might be my system, or that the files were so large something went awry.

Then I started working on a different project, with a much more modest (in file size) iOS mockup. Things went along fine, no lagging in PS performance, then the same type layer corruption started happening on this other project.

This is horrible, my clients are anticipating having access to my layered files. I’m now looking at hours of lost work that will likely have to be recreated. Now I’m contemplating having to do this with my older version of PS CS 5, but worried about this bug lurking in my source files.

If this is impacting any significant number of users, it’s very irresponsible not to alert your entire user-base. This is having an extremely negative impact on my business. I used to work for Frame/FrameMaker before Adobe acquired it and have a long history with Adobe products. I wholeheartedly regret upgrading to CS6 at this moment.

@ChrisCox I have a before/after file set that I can post for you to download. I was able to locate past version that appears “OK”, via incremental backups. I will email you a link. Please make this a top priority!

Setup: OS X 10.7.4, Adobe Photoshop Extended as part of CS 6, Suitcase 15.0.1 (although one file did not contain any non-system fonts). Once the corruption is in place, the type errors are present even when attempting to open in older Photoshop CS 5.x

I’ll be posting and tracking this on my twitter, @jydesign, with the hashtag #psd6typebug

[JY_Design-80qYIl]

I'm not sure the static screen caps do this problem justice. Here's a video of what I'm experiencing with corrupted type layers:

http://youtu.be/LghyeZelFaI

[charles_badland]

they know...

[Chris Cox]

We got some more files, and a few clues about the possible causes.

Now I have to wait for the text engineers to find the underlying cause.

(and JY's files were very helpful)

[JY_Design-80qYIl]

Thanks @charles badland - It’s quite clear to me that they (Adobe) know what’s up here. It’s the fact that the many users of Adobe Photoshop CS 6 probably don’t know about this issue and may not find out until it’s too late and their files are corrupted like ours.

@Chris Cox - Thanks for your vague response. I urge you to follow up with the specific information:

• Will Adobe confirm or deny that any files that are experiencing this form of  corruption are unsalvageable? I’m pretty much assuming that my files are toast, but I want an on the record confirmation from Adobe
• Will Adobe let us know if there’s anything that can be done to keep this from happening to our other files, when using the current version of PS CS 6, or should anyone experiencing this issue refrain from using PS CS 6 until a fix is posted? At the moment I’m using PS CS 5.x in fear of losing any more important work files.
• Will you provide an ETA for a fix on a daily or at least weekly basis?
• Will you provide me (and any other user) with an Adobe contact should we wish to get a refund?

[Noel Carboni]

I know no Adobe employee is allowed to speculate on the timing of future releases, however knowledge-based their information may be, and frankly some of the rest of it sounds like you're trying to build a legal case.

It's asking for that kind of thing that results in big companies pulling their engineers off public forums and denying everything, even obvious bugs.  I'd sure rather not see that happen; Chris is a real asset here.

-Noel

[JY_Design-80qYIl]

@Noel Carboni, I agree that asking for an ETA on an actual fix is not realistic request. @Chris Cox, I'll understand if I don't get an answer to my third bullet. Perhaps the promise of a periodic update on what's being done would be a more reasonable expectation? I'm not denying that Chris is an asset, but I'm comfortable being critical of his response seeing as there hasn't been an update for almost a week. With no clear indication of what to expect regarding next steps, I felt compelled to follow up.

Noel, if this were any other mission-critical business technology like a hosting package, a banking service, etc. would you be such an apologist? This software is an underpinning of my business, and the concerns of this thread deserve proper attention from Adobe. Otherwise, I can't dependably produce the PSD files that my clients pay me to create. I've already experienced the corruption of at least 4 major client files due to this.

Also, to suggest that Adobe would stop participating in forums when they are asked tough questions, is just as cynical as the assumption that I'm "trying to build a legal case". I don't want to be wasting my time on this forum. I simply want to safely use the upgrade that I spent real money on, so I can do my job and earn a living. Please don't attempt to keep me quiet with intimidating sounding inferences, under some misguided notion that you are protecting the harmony of a forum that’s designed to address uncomfortable issues like destructive software bugs.

A laissez-faire approach didn’t get this problem solved when people like you were experiencing this issue with the eariler BETA versions (http://forums.adobe.com/thread/990370), so I think it benefits all users when very direct questions and requests are made to resolve an issue.

[Chris Cox]

Paul and other engineers are working on the text issue right now.

(I'm working on a dozen other issues and features)

When we have news that we can share, we'll share it.

[Noel Carboni]

I'm certainly not an apologist - others can attest to my not being particularly tolerant of Adobe's problems or broken processes!

I'm certainly not trying to make light of your issue, and elsewhere I have pointed out that this bug was identified and reported in the public beta version and would certainly be what I'd have considered a "show stopper" if I were conducting a release readiness meeting, yet (irritatingly) Adobe released Photoshop anyway with the bug still in it.

To me, with the particular knowledge and experience I have, I recognize this as a management/process problem inside Adobe.

I was commenting specifically on what appears to be your specific desire to get Adobe to open up to you - NOT criticizing.  I know enough about how things work in corporate culture to know that it's a touchy thing to demand a greater level of transparency when there are those who likely think too many beans are already being spilled.

But we have gotten some new information.  Specifically, that engineers are actively working on it - which very likely means 13.0.1 isn't just around the corner.

-Noel

[JY_Design-80qYIl]

Hi @Noel I appreciate your response. Despite the banter brought on by the reactions yesterday, I'm glad it prompted another update from Adobe staff. This is a real, known-since-beta bug that's keeping me from using the software and I won't tolerate a 'blame the victim kind' of treatment. Yeah, my post was a bit pissy, but so be it. In an era of twitter/facebook/social blowback on any number of corportate infractions, Adobe can't afford to count on a lot of patience & reverance for it's development team. Especially when it feels as though Adobe chose to ship software based on an arbitrary release schedule, rather than when it was ready. I look forward to a fix, as I'm sure both Adobe and its user community does.

[Bo_LeBeau]

Just noticed that people that were formerly identified as "Adobe Employee" are now merely called "Staff".

This seems to have been applied retroactively. (unless this is just one of the seemingly endless ongoing adjustments to the Jive forum software)

Hopefully this doesn't portend the withdrawful of the very useful contributions of Adobe employees to these fora. (Yes, they may not always give you the answer you want, but generally they are helpful and are very knowledgeable about the software)

If Marketing/Legal seems to think that the only solution is to limit/forbid employee contributors they are making a big mistake!

[Noel Carboni]

Bo LeBeau wrote:

unless this is just one of the seemingly endless ongoing adjustments to the Jive forum software

This is just one of those.  See this thread:

http://forums.adobe.com/message/4525942#4525942

-Noel

[Bo_LeBeau]

Noel, thanks for the info.

Now if they could just get the forum software to correctly display the correct chronological order of questions.

It's most disconcerting to see a question that was posted and most recent reply was 10 months ago suddenly appearing between questions that were just posting within the last few minutes or hours.

[Chris Cox]

That happens when someone moves a post from another forum, or when we have to delete SPAM that was added to an older topic.

[station_two]

Bo LeBeau wrote:

Just noticed that people that were formerly identified as "Adobe Employee" are now merely called "Staff"…

Staff seems a bit more dignified than employee to me.  No need to read much into it.

staff 1 |staf|

noun

1 [treated as sing. or pl. ] all the people employed by a particular organization: a staff of 600 | hospital staff were not to blame.

• the teachers in a school or college : [as adj. ] a staff meeting.

2 [treated as sing. or pl. ] a group of officers assisting an officer in command of an army formation or administration headquarters.

[BJN3]

I agree with Noel. It's one thing to want to express the serious nature of an issue (but I'm sure that's beyond obvious in this case) and it's quite another to drop in with a douchebag legalese laundry list. I'm sure that if you peruse your terms of use agreement you'll find that you accepted all risks inherent with using the software. If you sincerely want a refund, take that up directly with Adobe customer support.

[MikeKPhoto]

I agree, I was a member of a forum for a graphics product that with one spectacular release actually deleted files instead of saving them; and you can guess how well the auto-save feature worked. The end result was a successful lawsuit, but was the end of a great user forum. Fortunately the product survived.

Having access to engineers is a great help. That said, I do understand your frustration, and loosing work through a bug really generates bile, but feel free to reach out to some of the senior Adobe executives and let them know as they are really the only ones that can change a policy and approve customer facing communications.

MK

[PDFerguson]

James,

Data corruption bugs like this are considered a very serious problem, and this text issue is receiving the appropriate attention at all levels of the Photoshop team. We are sharing as much information as we can with you and others regarding this bug; I'm sorry we don't have more definitive information about the status of the engineering effort or any potential resolution date. As Noel noted, we cannot speculate publicly on future releases, or provide daily (or weekly) ETA's.

If and when we can offer interim advice about how to avoid or work around this problem before we resolve this, we will do so. In the meantime, we appreciate your patience and thank you for contributing your files to the effort.

Paul