Help! Actions Palette Menu GONE!

I started up PS 7.0 today and low and behold I cannot access my Actions Palette Menu. The arrow at the right border depresses, but the menu does not appear.
Now, I relaunched PS 7.0 and held Ctrl+Alt+Shift to reset preferences, but it did not work... I would prefer not to have to reload PS 7.0 as I have too many prefs, brushes, actions and pluggins installed.
What next? I am using Win98

Thanks in Advance.....

You probably have too many actions - delete some and see if your palette doesn't return to normal behavior.

Peace,
Tony

Thanks Tony

That was the problem.....

Hi - I'm having the same problem. I deleted a lot of actions and restarted Photoshop 7.0 but the Actions menu still does not appear. Please help.

Thank you.
Laurie

From where did you delete the actions?

Worst case scenario, if deleting or moving actions doesn't help, reset your preferences per the procedure in the FAQ's. I don't know if Photoshop rebuilds a the Actions.PSP if it's missing, but if resetting preferences doesn't help, you can try renaming your Actions.PSP, then start Photoshop and that should set your palette back to the default.

Peace,
Tony

Hi Tony - I deleted the Actions through Windows Explorer in my Presets/Photoshop Actions folder. I also reset the preferences, reinstalled 7.0 upgrade AND renamed the Actions.psp file and I still cannot depress the arrow. Is there a way to get the actions to work if you cannot open the window with the arrow? Of course, if I could get the pop-up to open that would be ideal :-).

Thanks!
Laurie

reinstalled 7.0 upgrade

Do you mean 7.01? If not, start there.

Your Actions.PSP is what represents the actions palette in Photoshop. In fact, you can copy that file and bring it to another computer running photoshop, and all of your actions from the first machine will be in the palette of the second machine.

So... if you've deleted or renamed that file, reset your preferences (or deleted the Adobe Photoshop 7.0 Prefs.psp) and reinstalled, and the problem hasn't been solved, I don't know what to tell you.

The only variable I can think of, is that you may not have done what you think you did in regards to the Actions Palette.psp, unlikely as it may seem.

I'm not sure what else I can contribute.

Peace,
Tony

Thanks Tony - I went through and deleted even more Actions and re-did everything and still nothing happens when I depress the arrow. I'm not sure what I'm going to do...keep plugging away I guess and see what happens.

And yes - 7.01 is correct.

Thanks again for your suggestions,
Laurie

Laurie,

Make sure you have photoshop closed when you delete those files, and THEN open photoshop. They are saved upon exiting photoshop, and recreated (if they don't exist) upon launching.

Peace,
Tony

Rats..okay..now instead of "some" of the actions still being visible..albeit none of them worked automatically when depressed..I went through the whole process again..deleting preferences, renaming them, etc. and Now I just get the Default actions appearing. They DO run automatically though. I still can't depress the right arrow to get the rest of the actions to appear. Something is amiss.

Laurie

too many action for win 9x/me. upgrade to xp.

A-Ha! I just found something...If I open the old 6.01 Photoshop still residing on my computer..I CAN access the Actions. Hmmm...at least that's something.

Laurie

Laurie:

RE: [when] I open the old 6.01 Photoshop still residing on my computer..I CAN access the Actions.

That's a start.

BTW: What version of Windows are you running? (2000? XP? ME? etc.)

As you know by now PS saves actions in a file named Photoshop Actions.psp. PS6 and PS7 have their own copies of this file.

Since you know the PS6 version is good, something else you could try is:

* Shutdown PS 6 and 7

Assuming a C:\ standard installation,

Just to double-check, verify there are no .atn files in: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop 7\Presets\Photoshop Actions

If there are, create a new folder on your desktop and drag any .atn files from \Presets\Photoshop Actions into the folder just created. How many did you drag into this folder (if any)?

CTRL + DRAG (to copy) file Actions Palette.psp

FROM
C:\Documents and Settings\[user name]\Application Data\Adobe\Photoshop\6.0\Adobe Photoshop 6.0 Settings

INTO
C:\Documents and Settings\[user name]\Application Data\Adobe\Photoshop\7.0\Adobe Photoshop 7.0 Settings

You want to replace the Actions Palette.psp written when PS7 was last shutdown, so give an OK to the "Do you really want to replace this file?" warning msg.

Important: Be sure you're copying the PS6 version into the PS7 folder.

That PS6 file is your lifeline (only backup).

Then bring up PS7.

In theory PS7 will read the file created under PS6, which we know is not corrupt, and populate the actions palette with it.

Can't hurt to try, right?

HTH...
~Danny~

Danny you are a genius! THANK YOU! That worked perfectly. To answer your questions...Windows 98 (I know, I know - switch to XP)..and there were 179 Actions that I moved to the Desktop. Needless to say, I think I'll just load them as I need them instead of keeping them in the Photoshop Actions folder.

THANK YOU A MILLION AND ONE! I owe you.

Laurie

now...about this DMX Behavior problem I'm having in MX vs. it works fine in 6.01. Something about me and upgrades just don't get along
;-).

Laurie:

Thanks for the kind words. In all fairness my advice was just a repackaging of things I've learned from Tony and Dave, so they are just as deserving of high 5's -- and give yourself a boatload of credit, too, for discovering all was still OK with PS6. Having that file to work with was a lifesaver.

RE: All those .atn files in that desktop folder

Consider renaming that auxillary actions folder something like \#My Actions. That way when you engage the Load Actions... dialog and click the Desktop button, that folder will be the first (or pretty close to the first) folder listed (due to the leading #) = easy access. If you wanted to you could create folders inside \#My Actions to further organize your actions.

Go ahead and reload the sets you use most often back into that preferences folder, just not all of 'em! :)

RE: W98
If W98 is working for you (more or less), there's probably no compelling reason to leap to XP just because of this incident. It's a limitation: Now you know about it, what the symptoms are and how to deal with it in the unlikely event it happens again. On the other hand if there are other issues beyond this one, do what you gotta do.

Glad this had a happy ending. Happy Photoshopping.

~Danny~

btw: check out the actions tutorial recently posted here: <http://www.atncentral.com/installing.htm>