• Global community
    • Language:
      • Deutsch
      • English
      • Español
      • Français
      • Português
  • 日本語コミュニティ
    Dedicated community for Japanese speakers
  • 한국 커뮤니티
    Dedicated community for Korean speakers
Exit
0

Photoshop CS6 icons sometimes do not appear on Macintosh

Community Beginner ,
May 21, 2012 May 21, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Yes, this is a question.

I've been using my trial of Photoshop CS6 Extended for 10 days now. I have run into a peculiar problem - when saving a file Photoshop does not display any sort of icon. No thumbnail, no generic, nothing. It's not a huge problem, I can always open the image but not by double-clicking on the icon: it's just not there.

I'm wondering if anyone else has had this problem and if there is a resolution to it - or is it just a bug? I didn't have this problem with the beta version and I've repaired all permissions on my hard drive to see if that was the problem.

Any help would be appreciated.

Regards,

Clinton

Views

148.9K

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines

correct answers 1 Correct answer

May 25, 2012 May 25, 2012

The thumbnails in the open dialog are provided by the OS (as is most of the open/save dialog).  So there is still a problem with the OS creating or displaying thumbnails.

It's not a matter of blaming Apple without reason, just that Apple has an awful lot of bugs in the OS that don't get fixed very quickly.

Here we know that the OS is responsible for the thumbnails, that clearing the OS cache of thumbnail and metadata fixes it for some people, and that even after that the OS can't always draw the t

...

Votes

Translate

Translate
Adobe
replies 664 Replies 664
New Here ,
Dec 29, 2012 Dec 29, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I was having problems with icons disapearing. I went to Photoshop preferences and turned off Icon under File Handling - then all my Icons behaved correctly - I am running OS 10.8.2 and CS6 - I have never had this problem with previous operating systems or previous versions of photoshop.

I tryed deleting the DS_Store, which did work for a little while - then I used to log out and then in again, but this was a pain. Switching off Icon check button in preferences appears to have done the trick - all my icons are back and everything I save saves with the correct icon.

Hope this helps

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Engaged ,
Dec 29, 2012 Dec 29, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

@ conroy

First let me apologize for being such an imbecile. For some really dumb reason, I wasn't thinking of the fact that the app which creates a file is also the one that creates the desktop icon stored in the resource fork. I know that. I've known that for a long time, but no one else would ever think so after reading some of my later posts in this topic.

Preview icons can of course be seen on the Desktop if a file has no custom icon and Quick Look is able to generate a preview icon. It's custom icons that are not displayed in an Open dialog.

So it's Quick Look that's screwing up the display of previews of .psd files saved without Max Comp. Sure wish Apple would fix that. It worked in earlier versions of OS X. I did report it long ago on their bug reporting site, but they closed it as "solved" without ever fixing anything, or even commenting on the post.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Dec 29, 2012 Dec 29, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Why do you say Quick Look is "screwing up"? QL is not coded to build a composite image from Photoshop layers. That's a reasonable limitation and not a screw up. QL would need to be nearly as complex as Photoshop for it to be able to render a composite of contemporary layered PSD files containing Smart Objects, vector Shape Layers, adjustment layers, vector and pixel masks, Layer Style Effects and custom blending. No graphics application except Photoshop CS6 itself can do that, let alone a preview generator, hence the reason for the Maximize Compatibility option.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Engaged ,
Dec 30, 2012 Dec 30, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

QL is not coded to build a composite image from Photoshop layers. That's a reasonable limitation and not a screw up.

Then what was OS X using to display .psd files saved without being saved with max comp in 10.3.x (and if I remember right, also 10.4.x), if not Quick Look? As I've mentioned a couple of times, it used to work. That's quite a few years ago now, but it did work no matter how many layers a .psd had.

The only preview OS X will display now for such a .psd file is if it has only one layer, and that layer is defined as Background.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Dec 30, 2012 Dec 30, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Kurt Lang wrote:

QL is not coded to build a composite image from Photoshop layers. That's a reasonable limitation and not a screw up.

Then what was OS X using to display .psd files saved without being saved with max comp in 10.3.x (and if I remember right, also 10.4.x), if not Quick Look? As I've mentioned a couple of times, it used to work.

I never used PSD files in OS X 10.3.x or 10.4.x, and I know neither what OS X was doing with PSD nor the complexity of PSD back then, so I can't answer your question.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Dec 18, 2012 Dec 18, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Kurt, have you installed updates to Photoshop since having reinstalled the OS?

I'm just wondering if it's a workaround that will need to be applied repeatedly.

If you can recover functionality by reinstalling the OS, then Adobe ought to be looking carefully at the differences between an OS then Photoshop install and a Photoshop then OS install.  Could it be there's a conflict between Adobe and OS software, and what's going in the PATH (in a different order in the two cases) is important?  I'm just blue skying.

-Noel

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Engaged ,
Dec 18, 2012 Dec 18, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

have you installed updates to Photoshop since having reinstalled the OS?

Yes. All updates have no negative affect, just the initial install. I'm currently using the CS6 Master Collection, and PS CS6 Standard is on our other station. Both were affected the same way. Install the Adobe software initially, some icons are broken and the ugly save errors pop up. Reinstall the OS and its updates afterwards, all is well.

I wish I had the ability to dig further, but my programming career ended long ago when I dabbled in Turbo Pascal for DOS and wrote a few small programs, one of which made a few bucks for me as shareware.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Dec 17, 2012 Dec 17, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

(not all of this is directed at you)

If you are not contributing to the topic, or are posting B.S. that will confuse readers - expect it to get deleted or edited by admins.

If you are duplicating topics, using profanity, engaging in personal attacks, or otherwise violating the forum rules - expect it to get deleted or edited by admins.

We're trying to answer questions and solve problems here.

And yes, this is a professional forum - which is why we have active administrators to help keep it that way.

We are not deleting things we don't like, we are simply trying to keep the conversations on track.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Dec 17, 2012 Dec 17, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

1) I'm not with Customer Service. I'm a senior engineer writing Photoshop and debugging issues like this.  If straight facts are a "poor answer", then you may wish to pursue a career in politics.

2) We have investigated.  This is a bug in the MacOS, plain and simple.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Dec 17, 2012 Dec 17, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hello Chris, Im not sure why you've decided to reply to my question as a point of difference instead of assisting me in getting through this error. Im just a guy, using the product I bought from Adobe to run a business and I'd like to continue providing my customers the same product that I've always supplied them. But for some reason this week my software isn't letting me do it and I've had to find a work-around solution. I've owned and used PS 2,3,4,5 and now 6  and never had anyhting but great things to say about Photoshop and Adobe. I've never been part of a online forum before but have just found this conversation yesterday when trying to find out whats gone wrong with my icons and thumbnails.  Sorry you aseem to be getting so much flac. I'm only after a solution so I can get back to work as I've always known it.

I can see you've got no answer as to why Icons are not being created by PS6. However can you please explain and/ hopefully resolve why Bridge CS6 does not show my 'thumbnails' or 'previews' in the Bridge browser vindow when they've been saved by the equivilant version of Photoshop 6. They always have in the past until 2 days ago. The only way I can use my Bridge as a browser to view the Jpegs that PS6 has created is to re-save them using PS3 and then they appear fine. BTW all my raw file previews are fine in Bridge it's just the Jpeg files created by PS6 that arent able to be viewed.

Hope this question gets a more productive answer.

Thanks.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Dec 17, 2012 Dec 17, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Once again: Photoshop is not stopping you from doing anything here.  Photoshop is working correctly in this regard.  Photoshop is creating icons that match standards and OS requirements, and work for most users.

But your OS has a bug - and for some people, in some folders, sometimes, MacOS doesn't show the thumbnails (and/or drops metadata).  For many users affected by this OS bug, it can be resolved by deleting the OS thumbnail/metadata cache file in the folder.

I don't know why Bridge is failing for you - since it is not failing for other users.  Also, Bridge doesn't rely on the OS thumbnail, it reads in the full file and creates it's own thumbnails and previews independent of the OS.  For Bridge specific problems, it would be best to post in the Bridge forum and get help directly from the Bridge team.  (of course, the first thing they'll ask is if you've installed all the updates)

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Dec 17, 2012 Dec 17, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Thanks.

I think you amay be automatically assuming that my issue may be the same as what other users are discussing. I'm not sure how you have come to that decision without going through any fault finding steps first..

I'm surprised that Adobe does not have any suggestions like clearing cache or reloding software or reset any particular settings as a first stop before sending me off to Adobe for help. I'm sure I would find it more helpful to go through a fault finding exercise of this issue on our particular system.

By saying nothing can be done sort of sends a sence of hopelessness to your customers I would think. Eg:Someone in my office may have unchecked the create preview box or we may have some 'corrupted' cache files, or anything simple like that for all I know. We are not technicians here, nor have any aspitations to be.

Please, Is there any fault finding steps you can offer.

Re: The Bridge preview fault - it started at the same time as the icons issue so you can perhaps see why I would think they are connected. I do understand that the previews are different to the icons which is why I found it strange that Bridge was not able to show them at the same time as all my icons stopped being created.

YES We have all current versions of PS6 and Bridge 6 undated and loaded.

FYI, this icon/preview fault actually occurred very soon or immediately after downloading the new Camera Raw 7.3 this week.

I'll take a look at the  Bridge forum as suggested.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Dec 17, 2012 Dec 17, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

You might have a different issue - but you posted on the topic about a particular issue.

And there are troubleshooting steps here and in the FAQs and online help documents.

Ah, any chance you have Bridge set to open JPEG files in Camera Raw?

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Dec 17, 2012 Dec 17, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Thanks

I posted here because this forum contained information that was was also part of what I was experiencing on my system.

NO the the Bridghe is not set to open Jpegs in Camera raw..

I think its time to call phone support. I'll try Adobe and also Apple.

thanks anyway.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Dec 18, 2012 Dec 18, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I've known Chris Cox for nearly 20 years, and he is a very talented software engineer.  He's not feeding us a line of BS here, he's speaking from experience.    I agree that the issue is most likely an OS issue that Apple needs to resolve.  I do wish Adobe had more influence with Apple these days, but that doesn't seem to be the case.  While I've been an Apple user since 1984, I've been less than pleased with things there since the passing of Steve Jobs.  My chief wish is that Apple and Adobe could join forces and solve this damned problem.  I'm calling Tim Cook's office tomorrow and registering my unhappiness there.  The only time I've generally gotten results on Apple issues is to take it to the top.  Of course, nothing may come of my complaint, but if I don't get some assurances that the issue will be resolved by Apple, there's always the possibility of turning to some of the well known folks in the tech press who are not afraid to put the heat on.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Dec 17, 2012 Dec 17, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Chris Cox wrote:

What you're doing is like blaming your car maker for the lack of repairs on your local road.



A user wrote:

I have to resave EVERYTHING using an old version of PS3 on a pre intel Mac.

Chris, I don't mean to be critical, but someone could be forgiven for pointing out that what YOU'RE doing is like claiming it's impossible to design a car that works on that local road because of it's condition, while watching someone drive happily by in your very own model from a few years ago.

An anecdote:

A few years ago, right after Windows 7 was released, I had some of my customers report a Photoshop crash after using my plug-ins.  They hadn't seen this crash before with Vista or XP, and other operations they were doing were not crashing.

We took the reports seriously.

It was an intense days-long investigation, since the crash was intermittent and occurred in Photoshop LONG after the original memory corruption, but we finally found that it had to do with using a patterned pen with the Windows GDI to draw a dotted line.  It even appeared to work, successfully drawing the line, and we verified over and over that everything we submitted to the OS in the API call was correct

We immediately reported it to Microsoft, with all the details, including some sample code showing exactly how to reproduce the problem, and some suggestions about where to look.

But we didn't stop there and claim to our customers, "it's a Microsoft bug". 

We found a way to do the same thing a different way, which did not cause the GDI code to corrupt memory.  Then we tested the changes and released an update, which our auto-updater presented to every user of the software, whether they had upgraded to Windows 7 or not.

This reworked code was more complex than the code it replaced, and as such a little less maintainable.  Our original code was right, and we'd certainly rather not have had to redo it, but we felt a responsibility to our customers to make our product work regardless of whether the new version of the OS was at fault.

The entire process, from the report of the bug to delivery of the update took less than a week.  We put off all future feature development, and worked all night for several nights.

This thread is 3 months old.  Perhaps I care more for my customers and/or I'm more hungry for business than Adobe.  Perhaps my source code, development reviews, build process, testing, and update delivery system are better structured than Adobe's.  But should I really be able to do software engineering and customer support 20 times faster and better than Adobe?

The answer "we're waiting on Apple" is no longer valid.

-Noel

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Dec 17, 2012 Dec 17, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

We took this quite seriously, and spent a lot of time investigating.

*Every single bit of evidence* says this is a bug in MacOS (probably related to metadata, but we won't know for sure until Apple tells us the nature of their bug).

And again, we can't work around an unknown problem -- Apple would have to tell us why their code is failing before we could work around their bug (and from the outside, we don't know exactly why they are failing).

Short of not writing image files, we can't work around this -- we just don't know why Apple's code is failing for some users, on some folder, sometimes.

We also can't make Apple fix their bugs. We can ask, we can plead - but Apple sets their own priorities and schedules.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Enthusiast ,
Dec 17, 2012 Dec 17, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

*Every single bit of evidence* says this is a bug in MacOS (probably related to metadata, but we won't know for sure until Apple tells us the nature of their bug).

And again, we can't work around an unknown problem -- Apple would have to tell us why their code is failing before we could work around their bug (and from the outside, we don't know exactly why they are failing).

Short of not writing image files, we can't work around this -- we just don't know why Apple's code is failing for some users, on some folder, sometimes.

We also can't make Apple fix their bugs. We can ask, we can plead - but Apple sets their own priorities and schedules.

So are you saying that there is some metadata being written when icons are enabled that is not being written when icons are not enabled?

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Dec 17, 2012 Dec 17, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

We still aren't sure -- but it seems like it's not the icons themselves failing, but something fails before it gets to reading the icons.

This would be much easier if Apple responded to their @%^#$% bugs.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Dec 17, 2012 Dec 17, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Chris Cox wrote:

We still aren't sure -- but it seems like it's not the icons themselves failing, but something fails before it gets to reading the icons.

This would be much easier if Apple responded to their @%^#$% bugs.

Agreed.

The fact that running Cocktail has fixed the issue for some users who are experiencing the issue points to some Apple cache or similar Apple file becoming corrupt and triggering the problem.

Those experiencing this strange issue should run Cocktail and report back rather than keep repeating their conjectures and speculations.

Those users who fixed it with Cocktail report that not only existing icons are fixed, but that all subsequent icons are then created properly.

Obviously, I can't personally represent this as a 100% effective solution, but the complainers owe to the readers of this forum at least to try Cocktail first and only then report whether it worked or not.

I can  only repeat that I am not experiencing the issue myself un a lowly Intel MacBook under Snow Leopard 10.6.8.

As far as "escalating" the issue, you guys should know that you can't really go much above Chris Cox, if at all, up the engineering hierarchy within Adobe.  If you succeed in contacting someone higher in the executive chain of command, that person would in all likelihood have to consult with Chris.

Often, I refer to Chris as Guru Chris Cox, because he has been the single most important contributor to these forums during the last ten years that I've been here, and I know him to be big enough to admit and acknowledge there are legitimate Adobe bugs.  I distinctly recall him replying to at least two bugs I've reported over the years, once with "that one [bug] is one of ours" and "Damn, I had just signed off on it [a failed fix of a printing crash]!".

I'm far from being an Adobe sycophant, having been a thorn in Adobe's side more times than I care to remember and the bane of forum administrators over the years.  But in this case, the attacks are without merit or base.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Dec 29, 2012 Dec 29, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Neil, I've been as frustrated by this as everyone else, so I spoke with Apple and they suggested I do a reinstall of Mountain Lion.   I was skeptical, but figured it was worth a try, so I did, and now I haven't had any icons disappear since that reinstall.  Hopefully this might work for you and everyone else who's been having the issue with disappearing icons.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Dec 29, 2012 Dec 29, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Up above in this thread is the suggestion by Kurt Lang to reinstall the OS after installing Photoshop, backed up by quite a bit of disciplined testing and observation.

Apple probably read that.

-Noel

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Dec 17, 2012 Dec 17, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Personally, I do not see the issue with CS6 running under Snow Leopard, but some users who did under more advanced versions of the OS have fixed their problem by running Cocktail.  Worth a try.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Dec 17, 2012 Dec 17, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I hear Adobe replying saying that the "no icon being created" fault is an inconsistant problem.

Well not for me. It's a constant malfunction on every saved file that my PS6 creates. I get no icon viewable on any computer finder and from today I have no thumbnail viewable in Bridge (5.0.1.21) that PS6 (13.0that my .2x64 ) creates.

I have to resave EVERYTHING using an old version of PS3 on a pre intel Mac. (((((

HELP pls

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Enthusiast ,
Dec 17, 2012 Dec 17, 2012

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

There is no help available. If you look at this thread you'll see Adobe blaming Apple, and saying it's not their fault.

As for me, this has affected my work flow, it costs me time and aggrivation every time I use Photoshop now, and I'm very unhappy with Adobe. I don't care if it's Apple's fault. It's Adobe's software, and it's their responsibility. If Apple is playing mean, then Adobe should sue them, but telling users that it's Apple's fault and then saying there is nothing they can do is absolutely unacceptable. Adobe loses my love on this one.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines