CS2: tools no longer work right (brush, text, etc.)

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Posted By
MaryAnnW
May 19, 2005
Views
1544
Replies
36
Status
Closed
Version: Photoshop CS2 (education)
OS: Windows XP service pack 2
Computer: Dell Dimension 8200
Installed RAM: 512
Video Card: ATI Radeon 9800 (sound card audigy has been added as well) Free space: C drive (windows) – 11.2 GB, E drive (Photoshop) – 115 GB

Problem:

After a while ALL the tools that require clicking the image I am working on will stop working. The cursor doesn’t change either, it is just stuck at the mouse. I have used every single tool and I can only use things that don’t require me to click the image. In short, the tools on the menubar (I don’t know what it’s called) don’t work.

In order to solve this I have to close CS2 and then reopen it, but a few minutes later it generally happens again. Nothing really seems to trigger this. It can happen immediately to over an hour later. This also happened to me with the CS trial I had (I thought it was just a problem from when I downloaded it).

I’ve reinstalled CS2 once. I generally am running programs in the background but it happens even when I am not. I don’t think this is an installation problem because the CS trial had the same problem, so I’m guessing it’s just a plain computer problem.
Related Tags
brush long text tool work

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LenHewitt
May 19, 2005
MaryAnn,

It sounds like it may be a video driver problem. Check your Vid.card manufacturer’s web site for updated drivers and (as a diagnostic) you could also try turning down Hardware Acceleration to zero)
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MaryAnnW
May 21, 2005
That’s no good. The drivers are all up to date and I turned the hardware acceleration thing all the way down to zero. CS2 just froze up on me again. This time though I noticed the program messing up first. The tools slowly stopped responding. I was cropping an image and to select it I had to click a few times to get it to work..

So in other words I have no idea what’s wrong and it’s neither of those two things.
JJ
John Joslin
May 21, 2005
Have you got a Wacom tablet connected to the computer?
Y
YrbkMgr
May 21, 2005
Then, a shot in the dark…

First reset your preferences per the procedure in the faq. If that doesn’t help, clear out your temp folders under Windows and under your user profile for XP (assuming XP).

Then run scandisk.

If you have a tablet or any funky input device, unplug/swap it.

If that’s no help, then use MSCONFIG to limit what starts up when Windows boots – first disable everything; if it clears up, use the "halves rule" to isolate the conflicting program. Disable half of what’s loading on startup and test. If it goes way, it’s in the half you disabled, and if it doesn’t it’s in the half you didn’t disable. Etc…

Peace,
Tony
CM
craig_mullins
May 22, 2005
Mary Ann,

This sounds like the problem I am having. Follow it here:

craig mullins, "CS2 Unresponsive" #12, 21 May 2005 4:48 am </cgi-bin/webx?13/11>

I have emailed my speil so we will see what happens. I am surprised to see you with an ATI video card. Up to this point I (and others) had suspected that this was a driver/video cards bug probably specific to Nvidia.

Don’t bother reinstalling windows or other nasty shots in the dark till you hear further. I have gone down that road with no results.

Here is the mail I sent, in case you want to see if it is the same problem.

———–After PS has been running a while (from 10 minutes to 1 day) I notice the cursor disappear when I move it from one screen to another, or move it over the pop-up brushes palette. At that point, all menus and dialogs cannot be used. I can still paint, I can use the keyboard to save the active document. I can also use alt-keyboard to access menus. But curves or levels or save-open dialogs are not visible. It seems PS is thinking that the dialog is there, and waits for my input, but it will not respond to any pressed key. I can start imageready, then close it, and I have control of PS back for a few moments. Eventually, the alt-keyboard control of menus fails. Then a windows error, “this program needs to close, etc.” The system is left in a stable state, no need to restart (I have tried this, of course) and can restart PS with no problems.

Here are some screengrabs of the problem. In file "25.jpg" I am selecting the "window" menu. You can see it is depressed, but no menu.

<http://goodbrush.com/ftp/cm_screengrab.zip>

The machine is new and pretty standard in all respects. I have reinstalled windows on a fresh format with only PS installed.

The video card is Nvidia Quadro FX 1400. It does display flaky behavior in some games. These might not be card related, don’t know. No other major problems.

I have tried the adobe certified driver (70.78) and also the most current (71.84) Drivers were uninstalled with restarts before new install.

I tried the two most recent wacom drivers, no help.

I tried moving the hardware acceleration slider one notch back from “full.” This seemed to help, the problem is less frequent.
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MaryAnnW
May 22, 2005
Not exactly. You’re having menu problems, while I’m just having problems with the tools. The menu works fine. It seems to have slown down a little since I tried to clear the temp files. I deleted all the temp files I could, but there’s one that says "access denied". I’m an administrator on this computer so I don’t know what’s up with that, I’m assuming it’s a file that doesn’t belong there and doesn’t want to leave.
DM
dave_milbut
May 22, 2005
it’s a file that’s in use by some program.
M
MaryAnnW
May 28, 2005
Nothin is workin right. Photoshop now seems to hate me and won’t let me do anything, I was going to start working with some brushes to make someone a signature but immediately it froze up on me.

Some new discoveries:

When I open a menu of sorts (i.e. I open the layer style options box) it starts working for about a minute or two. I did that when I wanted to get a picture done and had realized things worked for a bit afterwards. Sometimes when I click and am trying to use the rectangular marquee tool it starts working after I click and stops soon after. It sounds a little like the driver problem, but I didn’t see any updates or anything on the manufacturers website.

I’m at a loss right now folks, and I’d like this thing to start working, and my mom is mad because she paid a pretty penny to buy this for me. Right now I’d really REALLY appreciate any help.
I
ID._Awe
May 28, 2005
MaryAnn: Did you reset your prefs yet?
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MaryAnnW
May 28, 2005
I did that a while ago. It didn’t change anything, not to mention they were default anyway. I haven’t had the program for long, I got it the tuesday before last so I hadn’t messed with that stuff.
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MaryAnnW
May 29, 2005
Ok, my brother just told me that we an Omega Driver. I don’t know if this will interfere with the program, so I thought I’d that. I didn’t even know we had it until a couple minutes ago when I was talking to my friend. Could this be my problem? If so, how do I fix it?
AS
Andrew_Song
May 30, 2005
MaryAnnW, I’m having the same problem with my Photoshop CS2/CS.

The problem starts when the cursor turns into one of those arrows when you try to resize a window (like the History window, Layers, Color etc.) After this, none of my tools work.

Resetting the prefs. used to work for me, but it doesn’t work anymore.

I’d like to hear a solution to this as well.
D
deebs
May 30, 2005
Are you using a cordless keyboard/mouse combination and a graphics tablet as well?

I notice that sometimes onscreen movement with pen and graphics pad is not quite as smooth as it was.

Moving cordless keyboard & mouse a bit further away from graphics tablet seemed to help.

If this holds in your own cases it may be a good idea to avoid desktop clutter and create a bit more space between the interface units

Just a guess?
AS
Andrew_Song
May 30, 2005
I’m using a cordless keyboard, but a corded mouse. No wacom/tablet.

My reciever is very close to my KB, so there’s really no problem there, and my mouses is corded :\
M
MaryAnnW
May 30, 2005
I have nothing wireless set up except a wireless router, and I highly doubt that’s the problem. I also have not tablet either.
Y
YrbkMgr
May 30, 2005
Then you have to do one or both of the following.

Easiest first. Reinstall PS. It’s painless.

Then be sure and reset your preferences (again) as they aren’t touched during reinstall.

The other thing is to run MSCONFIG and disable your startup entries (run and services – non-microsoft). Then see if the problem goes away. If it does, re-enable half of the items and test again (after re-booting) to try and isolate a culprit. Rinse and repeat until you find the offending startup item.

If that doesn’t help, and all of the suggestions above don’t help, you’d be hard pressed to find an easy answer.
AS
Andrew_Song
May 30, 2005
I tried the reinstall/reset already. No dice.

My msconfig is already nice and clean, and everything isn’t affecting my Photoshop.
Y
YrbkMgr
May 30, 2005
Andrew,

My note was directed at MaryAnn – sorry for not stating it.

Have you set your video hardware acceleration to NONE as a test?
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MaryAnnW
May 31, 2005
Nothing is working. My brother messed with the MSCONFIG and that didn’t work, the hardware acceleration is set to none, I’ve reinstalled PSCS2 twice (I had this problem with the trial of CS as well), I’ve reset the prefs. I just can’t see what the problem is. The drivers are also up-to-date. The only thing I can guess is that CS2 won’t work with the Omega driver
MD
Michael_D_Sullivan
May 31, 2005
What is the Omega driver? The ATI site seems to refer to Catalyst?
PC
Pierre_Courtejoie
May 31, 2005
Omega is a third party driver.
MaryAnn, have you also tried with a Catalyst driver?
AS
Andrew_Song
May 31, 2005
Omega drives are a second set of ATI drivers. Some believe that they’re better then the ATI Catalyst ones (I haven’t really used them, so I wouldn’t know.
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MaryAnnW
May 31, 2005
Pierre, I’m not sure what you mean. I’m not computer illiterate but I’m also not exactly skilled with hardware so some of this is over my head. But tried what with a catalyst driver?
PC
Pierre_Courtejoie
May 31, 2005
Sorry, have you tried Photoshop with the regular Catalyst drivers rather than the Omega ones, to see if your issues occur or not.
M
matt11601
May 31, 2005
Finally I’ve found people with the same problem as me. I too canno figure out why my tools stop working. They may stop within 10 minute or within 60 minutes and I have no clue what’s wrong. I’v reinstalled times and have cleared my prefs as well and I still get this problem Like Mary Ann I’m using an ATI card, but it’s a Radeon 7500 and th latest Catalyst Drivers are installed. I sure hope we can figure ou what’s wrong because obviously this isn’t an isolated incident.

-Mat

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matt1160
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MaryAnnW
May 31, 2005
I don’t know how to do that. I might get yelled at by my brother as well, this is a family computer. Being the youngest and the only girl doesn’t help me when I need to change the settings on the computer seeing as I get blamed for all the problems. If someone can tell me how to do it I’ll give it a shot though
DM
dave_milbut
Jun 1, 2005
the caralyst drivers are available directly from www.ati.com
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matt11601
Jun 1, 2005
MaryAnnW, have you tried emailing adobe for support? I haven’t gotten response yet, but maybe you’ll have better luck

—
matt1160
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AS
Andrew_Song
Jun 1, 2005
I’m wondering why people think this problem is related to the drivers. Would the drivers really affect a Photoshop bug like this?
MD
Michael_D_Sullivan
Jun 1, 2005
The video drivers seem to be related to many problems people are having. Accordingly, it is an important variable to check when having a problem that is not pretty much universally encountered.
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matt11601
Jun 1, 2005
Adobe says in the ReadMe file that issues regarding unresponsive tool is usually related to video drivers and I agree because I get the sam problem on a desktop AND on a laptop. Both the desktop and laptop hav ATI on it so I’m leaning towards a video driver problem

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matt1160
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matt11601
Jun 1, 2005
To the people that are having problems, are you guys using WindowBlinds

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matt1160
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MaryAnnW
Jun 2, 2005
I have a problem here. I asked my brother for help and he said that pretty much unless someone really knows what they’re doing and are geniuses when it comes to computers, I won’t be able to remove/turn off the omega driver. I’m really stupid when it comes to drivers myself so I don’t know what I’m talking about or what to do.

Here’s what my brother said:

"Omega drivers are very, very bad. They supercharge the computer and are IMPOSSIBLE to uninstall…..basically, you’re screwed, unless someone with a lot more computer knowledge than……anybody
else you probably know can get ahold of the computer."

If this is what’s messing up Photoshop I don’t know what to do..
DM
dave_milbut
Jun 2, 2005
just get and run the ati driver. i’ll replace the omega driver.

whew! that was tough! 🙂
I
ID._Awe
Jun 2, 2005
MaryAnn: You can uninstall the ATI card through the control panel and let XP install a generic driver for your ATI card to see if that helps.

I think your brothers either funnin’ ya or a scaredy cat. Hard to tell from his comment.

Would be nice if ATI had a driver uninstaller like Matrox.
AS
Andrew_Song
Jun 2, 2005
ATI does have an uninstaller. I just used it to get rid of my Control Panel/Display driver. I installed the Omega drivers, and so far, the problem hasn’t come back (though I’ve really only used Photoshop for ~4 minutes since installing).

I’ll report my findings.

By the way, the Omega drivers can be uninstalled with ease. The Omega drivers are just geared towards people who want to customize/tweak their video card a bit more (read: mostly gamers). It doesn’t "supercharge" the computer by any means.

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