Error and shut down

JW
Posted By
Jessica_Williamson
Aug 6, 2004
Views
342
Replies
14
Status
Closed
All to frequently I’m getting the message "An unexpected and unrecoverable problem has occured. Photoshop will now exit" and the program terminates.

I’ve trashed prefrences and the .plist file, but it takes rebooting to actually get it to work again. I’m going to jack up the Photoshop memory allocation and try that, but any other ideas why this is happening?

Running a dual 1.25MHz on a G4, Panther OS with 768MB RAM, Photoshop 7.0.1, no third party software.
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R
Ram
Aug 6, 2004
More details. please. What is the maximum available memory allowed to be used by Photoshop now? How large is your hard drive? How much space available on it? Does it happen with all files or just some? How big are the files?

Try Repairing Permissions (with Apple’s Disk Utility) BEFORE and AFTER any system upgrade as well as BEFORE and AFTER installing any software that uses an installer.

I know it sounds like OS X voodoo, and it is; but it fixes and prevents a bunch of problems.

Additionally, if your machine does not run 24/7 so that it runs the daily, weekly and monthly Cron Scripts in the middle of the night as intended, run Cocktail (shareware) as well.

Just in case you are on a network, keep the following in mind:

If you are opening files over a network or saving them to a network server, cease and desist immediately. That’s a BIG no-no.

See:

Buko "Issues When Working from Networks or Removable Media" 3/23/03 11:02am </cgi-bin/webx?14/0>

and:

<http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/19dd2.htm?code=TA>

Copy the CLOSED file from your server to your local HD, work on it, save it again to your HD, close it, and copy the closed file back to the server.
R
Ram
Aug 6, 2004
Have you run DiskWarrior?
JW
Jessica_Williamson
Aug 12, 2004
Well, I have to work off a server, that’s the breaks when you’re not the head of IT and making the decisions.

We have no outside disk repair software available, repairing permissions fixes nothing.

I’m sure this is a memory thing. Is there a way to reallocate memory in Panther as there was in the 9.x OS? It happens in the latter parts of the day and reboot fixes it, along with deleting the prefs and the other mentioned files.
R
Ram
Aug 12, 2004
Jessica,

Two very important things. If you disregard the first one, ALL BETS ARE OFF. Let me repeat it:

1.– If you are opening files over a network or saving them to a network server, cease and desist immediately. That’s a BIG no-no.
See:

Buko "Issues When Working from Networks or Removable Media" 3/23/03 11:02am </cgi-bin/webx?14/0>

and:

<http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/19dd2.htm?code=TA>

Copy the CLOSED file from your server to your local HD, work on it, save it again to your HD, close it, and copy the closed file back to the server.

2.– You can’t allocate RAM in OS X as such as you can in OS 9, but there is a maximum percentage of available RAM you can allow Photoshop to use in Preferences. Although it may sound strange to you, you may have that set TOO HIGH, as you only have 768MB of RAM total, and that may starving the OS.
R
Ram
Aug 12, 2004
You may also be running out of available hard disk space. That would explain the process you are seeing and why it gets fixed when you quit Photoshop and/or reboot.

Your hard disk has to have at least 20% free space available, and that available disk space has to be large enough to accommodate the scratch disk for your files. (30 to 50 times the size of your largest file would be desirable).
R
Ram
Aug 12, 2004
But I bet it’s the server issue. πŸ™‚
AS
Ann_Shelbourne
Aug 13, 2004
Jessica:

If you continue to work directly off the Server, you will almost certainly end up (and MUCH sooner than later) with damaged Photoshop files which cannot be repaired.

Your IT people need to have this explained to themΒ….
JW
Jessica_Williamson
Aug 13, 2004
Ok guys, here’s the deal.

There are 300+ people in the facility. Five of those are on Macs, the rest on PCs. We are lucky to have what we have, we don’t argue. As graphic designers, we need to be on Macs and we just keep a low profile. We have worked off of servers for over 10 years and that will never change. Back-ups and data recovery are IT’s biggest issues and they are blind to the fact that this can be done on Macs.

These aren’t large files, maybe 24MB at the most. I have plenty of hard drive space, plenty of RAM. Is there a way to change the memory allocation in Panther for an application- I’m thinking that’s the real problem.
R
Ram
Aug 13, 2004
Jessica,

Proceed at your own peril. You are not "lucky" to have what you have. What you have is not a professional workflow but a minefield. You may have been doing this for 10 years, but 10 years ago you were NOT using OS X or Photoshop 7 or 8.

Especially with such small files, it it is very unwise not to follow the prescribed procedure: "Copy the CLOSED file from your server to your local HD, work on it, save it again to your HD, close it, and copy the closed file back to the server. " This can be done within your current IT framework.

That being said, as for your question re RAM, I refer you back to post #4:

2.– You can’t allocate RAM in OS X as such as you can in OS 9, but there is a maximum percentage of available RAM you can allow Photoshop to use in Preferences. Although it may sound strange to you, you may have that set TOO HIGH, as you only have 768MB of RAM total, and that may starving the OS.

That’s right, TOO HIGH. 768MB is not "plenty of RAM"; it may be adequate.

To reset that percentage of maximum available RAM, go to the Photoshop menu > Preferences > Memory & Image Cache > Maximum Used by Photoshop> %.

Note that it is not % of installed RAM, but % of continuously, dynamically changing available RAM after the OS and any other application that may be running grab what they need at the moment.

With only 768 MB, I’d set it no higher than 60%. I hope that your "tons of HD space" amount to at least 20GB.

Good luck.
L
Larryr544
Aug 13, 2004
Ramon – ‘If you are opening files over a network or saving them to a network server, cease and desist immediately’ did you used to be a lawyer? πŸ™‚
JW
Jessica_Williamson
Aug 14, 2004
Interestingly enough, quitting Classic resolves the issue without a reboot. I still had to toss the prefs and the like, but that seems to resolve it without a complete reboot.
R
Ram
Aug 14, 2004
Interesting indeed, Jessica.

Let us know if this proves to be a long time solution. I hope your problems don’t return.

I’ve used Photoshop 8 often when Classic is running, as a matter of fact even at the same time that Photoshop 7.0.1 is running in Classic (so I can run certain plug-ins that only work in Classic), and I haven’t seen the problem.
P
progress
Aug 14, 2004
i’m going to upset the party and say that we run files to/from on/off opened/closed off our win NT server, windows xp machines and through apples windows enviroment…0 problems so far (except for when the NT box has a permission fit)…thats in the last 6-7 years…
R
Ram
Aug 14, 2004
Progress,

The caveat about not doing that comes from the unpredictability of the many variables involved in networking.

You say you haven’t been having problems, but if and when you do have any malfunction, you’ll never know for certain if it was caused by working over the server. πŸ˜‰

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