I have three Macintoshes in my office, all various G4s, all running OS 10.3.3… and in the history of Adobe Applications, I’ve never seen anything crash more often than Photoshop CS. I’ve read the threads – various discussions about fonts, RAM settings, etc. – but it baffles me that through testing, Adobe could release a product that is so easy to crash.
I’ve trashed preferences, changed time zones, checked hard drives, etc. – and I’m still waiting for the magic blue pill.
Everytime I open a JPG file – usually large ones from my digital camera – on any of these three Macs, about 50% of the time, I get a crash.
Whatever the deal is, it blows me away that I’ve been able to replicate the situation without trying – just normal operation – three separate times.
I’ve trashed Suitcase auto-activation plug ins, etc. – still nothing has had an effect.
Any suggested threads that I haven’t read, of course, would be helpful… but it still just amazes me that this product could be so easy to inadvertendly "set up" (I suppose) in such a way to promote crashing this frequently.
For the record, I’ve been defending Adobe in the design community and the incredible stigma that the CS suite has ceated for so many professionals telling me that they wouldn’t upgrade if they were given the suite for free.
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I could cite specific design firms that have ruled it out for purchase because of crashes when they tried it.
I’ve been into an Apple Store, tried to open a JPG file and crashed it.
I swear – I haven’t even added any extensions or anything. Litterally at one point, I bought a brand new G4 Mac, installed it – thinking that without installing anything else or changing any settings, I could finally prove to myself that it IS stable – but sure enough…. as long as I opened a JPG file.. it crashed.
I want it to work as bad as you can imagine, but I end up going back to 7.0… which works just fine everytime.
Again, if there are any suggestions, I’m open to trying just about anything…
Vic – it would be nice if those specific design firms contacted Adobe when they got crashes – because none of them have contacted us (except for a few individuals, as noted earlier, that found something wrong on their own system).
There is something you’ve added to your system (like Suitcase, haxies, etc.) that is causing it to crash.
if there are any suggestions, I’m open to trying just about anything
Check your RAM (do a search on mismatched RAM in this forum), check your available memory percentage in Photoshop’s preferences (it may be set too high or too low), Repair Permissions (through Apples Disk utility), run DiskWarrior, trash preferences again and reinstall the application. If necessary back up everything and erase your hard drive, write it to zeros and re-install everything you can from original install disks . What you are going through is not remotely normal.
Oh, and make sure you have nothing with the name Norton installed on your drive. Leave out third-party fonts for now.
I would be so happy to find something wrong with my own system. Then, I’d know for sure. Every other program works fine. Illustrator, Quark 6.1, iLife products, Final Cut Pro, etc.
RAM was installed by Apple – so I don’t suspect any issue with my RAM. No idea how to set memory percentages.. I thought you didn’t do that in OSX…
Thanks for the other suggestions, I’ll try running Disk Warrior – but having to erase a new hard drive and reinstall just doesn’t seem appropriate for an Adobe application. There’s been no other signal that there is any trouble with the hard drive. Not many other applications at all, either. Everything was done pretty fresh from out of the box with no fiddling around.
No haxies, just SuitcaseX1 – no Norton either. Honest, I’m not the type to heavily customize the computer. I just need it to work and not crash.
I’ll also try repairing permissions, but again, no idea what that is – and I’m suprised I’d need to do anything like that in order to get this to run.
Only fonts I have running are a few Adobe Fonts and the basic Apple ones.
I’ll tell my associates at the other firms to try and take an hour or so off their day and call in to try and get help so their software can work. Doubtful, though. Everyone I talk to just gives up and says they’re just going back to 7.0. …just not worth the wait & hassle when you’ve got to get work done. Maybe an intern can sit on the phone and try to figure it all out.
Sorry for my rant… just frustrating… so I decided to stop my late-night work for an hour and see if the forums had any clues.
Again, much appreciate everyone’s suggestions – and taking the time.
I’ll post if anything new develops… for now, I’m back to 7.0
You should Repair Permissions before and after installing any new software (Apples Disk Utility).
As far as the available memory limit goes, just go into Photoshop > Preferences > Memory & Image Cache.
Make sure you have your Cache Levels set at 4, and Memory Usage > Maximum Used by Photoshop set to a percentage that leaves enough for the OS and any other applications you may want to run simultaneously. (In my case, with 2GB of RAM installed I have it set to 75% which in my particular circumstances translates into approximately 1,401MB. ) After that, quit Photoshop and re-launch it again.
These are all very interesting suggestions – and I’ll try them all. I’ve never heard of using Disk First Aid after installing every applicaiton. Stunning requirement. Also, thanks for the suggestion on the memory cache… mine was set at 50%… so I upped it to 75% – although I don’t have 2 gigs of RAM, just 1 GIG.
Shutting down Suitcase is something i always try – but you’d think after 10 versions of the thing, you’d be able to trust that IT wasn’t crashing Photoshop????
I’ve never heard of using Disk First Aid after installing every application
That’s NOT Disk First Aid but Apples Disk Utility and the recommendation is to Repair Permissions before and after installing any new software.
75% might be too high for the memory limit with only 1GB of RAM, but you can play it by ear.
I was one of the earliest supporters of Suitcase, back when it was essentially a one-man operation and I was a beta tester for its author, Steve Brecher. I abandoned it when ATM Deluxe came out (Steve had sold it by then). I tried it again in its version 10 in Mac OS 9.2.2 and it gave me nothing but trouble. Now I have FontAgent Pro and Panther 10.3.3.
Keep in mind that the maximum memory percentage refers to % of dynamically changing available memory not total installed RAM. That means % of available RAM at any given moment (it changes continuously) after what the OS and other applications have claimed already.
I have been responsible for a couple of dozen or more Macs over the years since 1991, under a variety of Mac OSes since 6.0.8 or earlier. After doing any significant installations or reconfiguration on any system — all of them by the book — I have often found system corruptions (although usually minor), and fixed them, rebuilt the desktop, reallocated memory, etc. And before starting any such installations or reconfiguration, I have always first verified that there were no problems going in.
RAM can be bad, even if from Apple. Still, make sure that the RAM is major brand, designed SPECIFICALLY to exactly match the full specs for YOUR computer model. Do not use "generic" or "off-brand" RAM, which may be fine for your Word documents or surfing the Web.
Make sure that connections to your drives are solidly inserted, on both cable ends.
Make sure that the file you are testing with is NOT damaged.
Make sure that you have installed CS EXACTLY per the written instructions.
Photoshop, when installed properly on a properly running system is stable as a rock. But it does push a computer hard, like few other applications ever will.
I agree with Neil. Your RAM could be bad. Run Apple’s hardware test. I was having a problem with Photoshop CS also. I tried everything but getting new RAM. When all else failed, I got new RAM and it solved my problem.
