The error message "Could not complete your request because of a program error" when trying to open a file that contains one or more layers that use complex blending styles. The files are not flattened and range in file size from 30mb to 126 mb. Size does not seem to matter. I had no problems when working on these files. Once closed they will not reopen in Photoshop but will open in ImageReady. However in IR there are no layers and the resolution is reduced. The files DO open in Photoshop 7 with no problem and all layers show. If I simplify the layers in 7 so that there is only one blending style item the file will open in CS. This is very disturbing.
Specifics: Win XP (up to date), Pentium 4 1.2 mhz, 1gb memory, Matrox Parhelia video card with 128 video memory. All resources are fine, and I have the system set with 2 paging files on 2 separate drives. My Photoshop 7 is on a backup system with only 1/2 the memory and although it is a much slower system, version 7 can open the files with no problem.
Could you describe one of your complex blending styles? Just curious if I can reproduce the problem on my end. If so, I will add it to my list of things I’d like to see fixed.
Ho: The problem occurred with two image files I worked on, and I didn’t realize there was a problem until I tried to open the files the next day to print. I’ll give you an example of one of the files because it closely approximates the second. I’ll note the commonality at the end.
There were, working from the bottom up: Background layer Levels adj layer – luminosity blending Curves adj layer – luminosity blending Selection layer, of a shadowed area(Layer via copy) – had been saved as an alpha channel. This layer was blended with drop shadow, outer glow, bevel & emboss. Each of these had some adjustments in color and opacity but cannot recall exactly how. A background duplicate layer from which I made a frame and named it "Frame Layer". I punched out the middle of the layer leaving a 1/2" edge to which were applied a drop shadow, inner shadow, Bevel & emboss, outer glow, satin, pattern, and maybe texture??
Trying to correct the problem, I was able to open the file in Photoshop 7.01 on an older computer. One by one I did the following, returning the corrected file to Photoshop CS after each step and trying to open it:
Eliminated the alpha channel Merged down each of the adjustment layers Eliminated the outer glow and bevel and emboss from the Selection Layer.
At this point the file still did not open in CS.
Then, I eliminated AT ONCE the Satin, Pattern overlay, and texture from the Frame Layer. At this point I was able to open the file. Then went back to the original "bad" file and did nothing but take out the Satin, Pattern, and texture from the frame layer — in other words left everything else as it was when the file could not open — and the image could be opened in CS.
Sorry I did not determine if it was just one of these options or just the combination and number of options I put on. I was experimenting with looks and thus the number of options.
I have the same issue and have submitted a bug report to Adobe. But, I called a tech and he could not reproduce this error. My layer style that is causing the error is the Bevel and Emboss, Texture layer style. The following produces the error: 1. Open a new file, 4 inches high, 2 inches wide, resolution 480 pixels, white background. 2. Double-click on the white background layer to get it to rename to Layer 0. This is to be able to add a layer style to this layer. 3. Click on the layer style button at the bottom of the layer palette and select Bevel and Emboss. 4. Click to select the Texture check box, leaving all defaults, and then click O.K. 5. Save the file as a psd file, close it, and it will not re-open. I get the error: "Could not complete your request because of a program error."
This problem doesn’t exist on my Windows 2000 machine, but does exist with Windows XP, Service Pack 1 with all the critical security updates installed, 500MB ram, plenty of multiple hard drive space, and Photoshop 7.01 and Photoshop 6 also installed in different folders. The tech suggested I reinstall Photoshop CS into a new folder and try it with the default preferences. Haven’t done it yet.
Ric: For some strange reason the description of the problem I sent to Ho doesn’t show here, although it did this morning. We have two commonalities in the problem. I also was using texture and Bevel & Emboss, among other things. Did you see that post? Don’t know what happened to it. If you didn’t I can repost as I saved a copy.
Come to think of it, when I said I was able to open the "bad" files in PS 7.01 on my old machine, I neglected to say that the old machine is running Win2K Pro also, with all the service packs. My current machine is also Win XP Pro, SP1 with all the security updates, 1gb ram, etc. etc. It does not have Photoshop 7.01 on it, only CS. I am using 7.01 on the older machine. Let me know if you didn’t see the file description details I sent to Ho.
I am seeing a fairly detailed description of your file in post 2, with the note about compression in post 3. If these are not complete, or if you cannot see them on your end to verify, email them to me at My guess is that this problem, much like Ric’s and some others I’ve seen, does not exist on all machines and therefore does not plague all users.
FWIW, I am trying to compile a list of what does and does not work on my own machine and I will send the list to Adobe in the near future. Thanks for your help.
Howard: I still am not seeing my post #2 where I described the problem, although I see all others. Below is what I wrote: —————————— Ho: The problem occurred with two image files I worked on, and I didn’t realize there was a problem until I tried to open the files the next day to print. I’ll give you an example of one of the files because it closely approximates the second. I’ll note the commonality at the end.
There were, working from the bottom up: Background layer Levels adj layer – luminosity blending Curves adj layer – luminosity blending Selection layer, of a shadowed area(Layer via copy) – had been saved as an alpha channel. This layer was blended with drop shadow, outer glow, bevel & emboss. Each of these had some adjustments in color and opacity but cannot recall exactly how. A background duplicate layer from which I made a frame and named it "Frame Layer". I punched out the middle of the layer leaving a 1/2" edge to which were applied a drop shadow, inner shadow, Bevel & emboss, outer glow, satin, pattern, and maybe texture??
Trying to correct the problem, I was able to open the file in Photoshop 7.01 on an older computer. One by one I did the following, returning the corrected file to Photoshop CS after each step and trying to open it:
Eliminated the alpha channel Merged down each of the adjustment layers Eliminated the outer glow and bevel and emboss from the Selection Layer.
At this point the file still did not open in CS.
Then, I eliminated AT ONCE the Satin, Pattern overlay, and texture from the Frame Layer. At this point I was able to open the file. Then went back to the original "bad" file and did nothing but take out the Satin, Pattern, and texture from the frame layer — in other words left everything else as it was when the file could not open — and the image could be opened in CS.
Sorry I did not determine if it was just one of these options or just the combination and number of options I put on. I was experimenting with looks and thus the number of options.
Thanks for your response.
———————————— Post #3 just said the files were saved as .tif with LZW compression and RLE layer compression. As I told Ric, the backup machine running Photoshop 7.01 where I could open the files is a Win 2k Pro machine with all service packs. It has only 1/2 the memory of my CS machine. My current machine, with CS and the problem, is XP Pro SP1 and current on all security and driver updates.
I no longer have the "bad" files as I didn’t want to keep them around, but feel I can reconstruct one for you. Unfortunately, it won’t be a small file. To make it small I have to change something, such as merging all layers, changing format etc. Because I connect to the web with 56k dial-up, I will be happy to put the file on CD and mail it to Adobe. Can you give me a street address? These "bad" files started out as Nikon Raw Formats (NEF) and were converted via Photoshop raw and saved as 16-bit files. Don’t think that created the problem. At some point they could be opened in CS. At some point I converted to 8-bit. My point is that making them small enough to email as attachments changes them significantly. Assume you saw that there is at least one other person having this problem. Feel free to write me at my email address if you want to send your address.
Here’s my latest. Turns out that I can now switch the problem on and off at will with either Windows XP, Service Pack 1, or Windows 2000 Professional operating systems. The keys are the Texture and Image Cache. Here’s my new procedure to create the problem. To solve the problem I simply changed the Image Cache back to 4. Do you have the same problem with this new bit of information about image cache? The technician had me reinstall with a default set of preferences and everything worked. With the addition of my own Preferences settings, I then backed out of them a few at a time until I pinpointed the problem.
1. Open Preferences, select Memory & Image Cache dialog, and set Cache Levels to 8 (same problem with anything above 4). Close Photoshop CS and re-open. This apparently activates the new Preferences settings. 2. Open a new file, 4 inches wide, 2 inches high, and set resolution to 480. 3. Double-click background layer to get it to Layer 0. This will allow adding a layer style in next step. 4. At bottom of layer palette, click layer style icon and select Bevel and Emboss. 5. Click on the Texture check box, accept the default settings and say OK. 6. Save as psd file. Close file, and try to reopen it. The texture addition plus the image cache setting greater than 4 seems to keep the file from opening for an image of this size and resolution. I tried it on very small files of 72 pixels per inch resolution and sometimes didnt have a problem.
Ric: I have my cache levels set to 8. Am going to pull out the "bad" file from my backup drive. To do that I have to cold swap my third drive which is used only for backups and I use two physical drives for backups and swap them at the end of the month. My bad files, unfortunately, are on November’s backup drive. I want to try it on those files because of their size and complexity, which is how I usually work. Will do that now and get back to you.
Ric: Did you ever nail it. I didn’t bother swapping out the drives; just took the file I had fixed by removing texture and a another blending option or two, put back just texture and saved. Didn’t even close Photoshop, just the file. Could not reopen the file with cache at 8. Changed cache to 6, reloaded P’shop, and still could not open that file. Changed cache to 4 and lo and behold the file opened with no problem.
Not sure that texture itself is the culprit. It could be a combo of factures — cache setting, amount of memory allocated to P’shop, and several other things. It’s definitely a bug but at least we have an easy workaround. Don’t know what if any difference I’ll see at a chache set to 4, but will try it.
Hi. I spoke with an Adobe technician who was able to replicate the problem on his own machine with the procedure I sent you last message. They’ve sent it on up the chain to their engineers believing that it is likely a legitimate bug to fix. I can live with a cache level of 4 until the fix appears on the web. Hope you can, too. Thanks for posting your error. I probably wouldn’t have pursued the issue without knowing someone else had the problem, too.
One final thought. I read about cache levels last night. Seems that every time you click to enlarge or shrink an image in your window that Photoshop uses the cache to store the full image at that magnification. Fewer cache levels means that at some magnifications the program will have to build the screen image each time. At least, that’s my understanding. I don’t think it’ll make that much difference. By the way, although I’ve read that 8 is a good cache level if you have the RAM, the Adobe technician said they recommend a maximum of 6. When the bug fix comes out, I’ll probably use 6 for a while and see how it works. Thanks for your kind words and the gold star. I like gold stars. Let’s share this one. You deserve it, too. Thanks again for your information and help. Ric
You took the words right out of my mouth…except my images that won’t open re-open, run he gamut from 4 MB to 125MB. It does not matter the .psd file size as far as I can determine.
All I can say is Thank God I didn’t delete my old version 7.0, or I would have lost files I spent more than 20 hours composing.
I’ll set my cache level to 4.
Comp Stats:
I have WinXP w all upgrades, Intel Pentium 4 2GHz, 1GB DDR Ram, GeForce 4200 w 128MB ram graphics card and 9 hard drives on motherboard IDE and RAID card = 1.1 TB of h.d.d. space…in other words all the Scratch Disk space on 4 seperate hard drives that Photoshop could ever want…(none of the scratch disks are the same drive as C:Photoshop installation.
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