Photoshop CS6 icons sometimes do not appear on Macintosh

[clinton_dyches]

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

[Kurt Lang]

Again, we do, and have been, and will continue to do so.

Apologies. I didn't mean that PS CC isn't writing the icon and preview to the data fork, but why don't they ever work if Max Comp is off? I have tried reinstalling both Snow Leopard (less likely to work with the new structure anyway) and Mountain Lion after installing PS CC. It just doesn't work. Max Comp off, no icon or preview, despite the preferences being on in PS CC's prefs.

[Kurt Lang]

To be a bit more specific. This is true of both PS CS6 and CC with Max Comp off.

If the .psd or .psb file is one layer only, and that layer is defined as Background, then you do get a visible desktop icon and preview. If there is more than one layer, or the file has a single layer that has been changed to a floating layer rather than Background, then you get nothing.

Why is that? Why does it work correctly only one way?

[Chris Cox]

MacOS apepars to be trying to read the composite image (which requires max. compat ON), and may be ignoring the thumbnails/previews in the file.

[Kurt Lang]

That sounds very logical and is likely correct. I think it may be a good time to present Apple with a bug report.

Edit: And an old memory just came back to my noodle. This has been a Mac OS X problem with .psd files for years! Way back in Panther, 10.3.x, the OS properly read the icons and previews of any .psd file, whether they had layers or not, and with Max Comp off. I'm pretty sure it was Tiger, 10.4.x when it broke, and has been broken since. It may have been Leopard, 10.5.x where the break occurred, I can't recall for sure.

I did report this to Apple long ago and nothing was ever done with it. But I think at the time I just did that through Apple's standard contact page, not the bug reporting site.

[Was DYP]

Since every other file type PS CC writes produces a simple and SMALL icon and preview to the data fork which the OS can see and display, why can't it do the same thing for a .psd and .psb file?

Are you sure about that? I though it writes to the resourse fork?

[Chris Cox]

Photoshop CS6 wrote thumbnails to the resource fork and data fork.

Photoshop CC writes the thumbnails/previews only in the data fork - the resource fork went away, but the thumbnails/previews in the data fork are still there.

[Was DYP]

Thumbnails = icon or not?

If so does the OS in somes case have a problem reading the thumbnail/icon created by PS form the data fork?

If PS icon creation is turned off and I OS icon is turned on is the OS creating the icon from the full image?

[Chris Cox]

Photoshop already includes standard thumbnails and previews in PSD/PSB files.

MacOS just doesn't always read them, and tries to read the composite image instead.

[bellevue scott]

Still Chris, I don't care. Adobe and Apple should work together to fix this. It happens to only affect Adobe Photoshop, so I would say this is Adobe's problem.

I understand your position, but as a consumer I have no control over the in-fighting between Apple and Adobe. This but continues to be a huge pain in the rear for us at work. It causes lost productivity, and we routinely reboot the Mac to refresh the OS, and for a spell the icons work correctly again.

We use that icon to drag and drop files from PS to our RIP and to other Adobe apps, so losing the icon causes us to open finder and hunt and pec for files. It's more than just a little annoying. It really does cause us a lot of time.

Please note that it has been six months since I left a comment about it, and six months later Adobe is still spewing the same lame response. "it's the OS". OK, maybe it is, but work with Apple to fix it if that's the case. To me, as a consumer, it's an Adobe bug, because I only see it in Adobe PS 6. Not 5.5 or previous versions. Only 6.

The long lack of resolution to this is more than annoying, as is the same broken response. And don't get me wrong, Chris, this is not a personal attack. I know you're just one guy, and highly qualified, but this issue grates on me like fingernails on a chalk board.

[Was DYP]

Going forward it appears that your going to have to use the OS to preview icons. I have this done since a few month after CS6 ([ off topic bits removed by admin ]. This is the only way I know to be able view icons so you can see them to drag and drop to various apps.

And of course CC will not write icons to a resourse fork at all. At least CC has no way the start the icon view problem that CS6 will start if you have icon creation turned on.

[Chris Cox]

It does not affect only Photoshop, and is not an Adobe problem.

We are working with Apple, making sure that we comply with their guidelines and making changes to accomidate their OS changes.

But we have to live with the limitations of the OS.

If the Finder has a bug that sometimes prevents icons from showing - we cannot fix that.

If the Finder will not show icons without a certain preference enabled - we cannot change that.

But we cannot force Apple to change anything about their OS or their bugs.

And I guess you blame Honda for all the potholes on your road, because you only feel them while driving your Honda?

[Robert_Ripps]

I don't have time to read thougth 557 posts, but it doen't look like this issue was solved.  For the record, I did just install CS6 on my Mac running 10.6.8.  First two days of saving files, as PSD, I got icons.  Then, all of a sudden, no icons.  Today, saving files as jpg files I got icons, then again for no reason I can see, I didn't.  No preferences changed, they just stopped.  Now I am saving PSD & PSB files, but again, no icons.  I always had icons in CS5 and below.

[hutchcolor]

For whatever reason I haven't had an icon problem since about Christmas.

I'm running CS6 13.04 x4 under OSX 10.8.4 on a late 2012 MacbookPro (2.6 GHz Intel Core i7, 16GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 1024 MB).

........................................................

Don Hutcheson

[station_two]

hutchcolor wrote:

…running CS6 13.04 x4… on a late 2012 MacbookPro

Is there any particular reason you stayed away from the Photoshop 13.0.5 update?  Just wondering if you know something I don't but should. 

FWIW I am running 13.0.5 since it was released and do not have an icon problem, not in the Finder and not in the Open dialog box in Ps.

[scoop_hk]

Running 13.1.2 on an early 2011 MacBook Pro - oops - 10.8.4.

Had icons & images before the last cloud update - noticed that a psd that I created and saved this morning has no icon and no image preview for the.psd file - the jpg that i created from it has both the icon and the preview.

[station_two]

scoop_hk wrote:

Running 13.1.2 on an early 2011 MacBook Pro - oops - 10.8.4.

The last and current Photoshop CS6 update for the Mac is 13.0.5.  I just double checked.

Are you running a Windows version on your Mac under Parallels or such?

[clinton_dyches]

I think that 13.1.12 was the last CS6 Creative Cloud version of CS6. I'm running Photoshop CC, v. 14.0 now with no problems.

Clinton

[station_two]

clinton_dyches wrote:

I think that 13.1.12 was the last CS6 Creative Cloud version of CS6…

Even for the Mac? ???

Somehow I recall that being a windows-only update.

[clinton_dyches]

May have been - to be honest, I don't recall... I've been using PS CC since it was released so I really don't recall the LAST non-CC (CS6) version that I was running...

Clinton

[station_two]

Thank you for the courtesy of qualifying your previous post, clinton_dyches.

I'm pretty confident that 13.0.5 was the last release for the Mac and it remains current. 

[scoop_hk]

CreativeCloud Photoshop CS6 13.1.12 is showing as the lastest available for me - on my Mac. The point is that I was showing icons and previews and going up to 13.1.12 has hiddden them again. Hoping that 14 shows up in my updater soon if you say you are not having any problems.....

[clinton_dyches]

Open Creative Cloud and download Photoshop CC (my version is 14.0 - yours should be as well).

Since I began this thread - concerning the beta of CS6 - I've 'stopped' having the problem. Certainly don't have the problem with PS CC.

Clinton

[station_two]

scoop_hk wrote:

CreativeCloud Photoshop CS6 13.1.12 is showing as the lastest available for me - on my Mac…

Well, that was never available to perpetual-licensees of CS6 non-cloud.

Message was edited by: station_two

[scoop_hk]

13.1.2 in my 'get info' file 13.1.2 x 64 in the 'About Photoshop" under the Photoshop menu item. The Creative Cloud updater insists that Photoshop CS6 is up to date. No problem can wait it out - I have been on Creative Cloud since before its release unfortunately - as my discount pricing sadly vanished a few months ago.

Understand that the non-cloud is different - wish they were the same enough so that neither of us had this issue!

[gener7]

This icon business has been going on a while. No problems on my Mac so far,but Windows had thumbnail issues as well,and what helped that side was a third party software company offering thumbnail codec software for $20. Better to pay and get it over with than stewing in the forums for months.

I wonder why no third party Mac developer didn't pick up that gauntlet?