Palettes dissappear — can’t bring Photoshop to front

MB
Posted By
Martin_Bergstrom
Sep 11, 2006
Views
691
Replies
26
Status
Closed
Here at work some of the retouchers are running G5s with Mac OS X version 10.4.5 some are running 10.4.7.
All run Photoshop 9.0.1.

Several users have reported that sometimes after a long Photoshop session suddenly all the palettes gets hidden and Photoshop kind of hides itself. After this one can’t bring Photoshop to the front, but it’s still running in the Dock with a black arrow underneath. At this state I came to the users computer and opened Activity Monitor. Photoshop used up more than 2,5 GB memory on that 3 GB machine and everything ran very slow. I had to force quite Photoshop and when that was done the machine became zippy again getting all the memory back.

Any ideas on what to do about this?
Photoshop 9.0.2 maybe? 🙂
Related Tags
palette

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R
Ram
Sep 11, 2006
* Pull back on the available memory allowance in Photoshop’s preferences (60% or less);

or

* Get more RAM.

But make sure there’s no user error involved in triggering the issue (like the user inadvertently causing the problem).
MB
Martin_Bergstrom
Sep 12, 2006
Thanks for your reply, but how would a user possibly make this happen other than by simply using Photohsop?

You really think pulling back Photoshops’s memory allowance from 70% to 60% would help on this issue?

I also get the feeling that Photoshop eats the memory it can. There are machines with 4 GB RAM that also experience this.
R
Ram
Sep 12, 2006
Martin,

From your original post, it follows that Photoshop is set at something like at least OVER 80% (perhaps even 90% or 100%) on that machine:

Photoshop used up more than 2,5 GB memory on that 3 GB machine.

If you figure on the OS and other applications taking a conservative 512MB of RAM, then Photoshop is set at 100%. The percentage refers to % of dynamically and continuously changing available memory, not installed RAM.

That’s why I suggested pulling back to 60%.

The OS and other running apps and utilities are being starved off RAM, they have no room to breathe.

Also see the next post on routine maintenance.
R
Ram
Sep 12, 2006
I still advocate Repairing Permissions before AND after any system update or upgrade, as well as before AND after installing any software that requires an installer that asks for your password.

I have seen software installations go sour because the installer did not find everything as and where it should be.

I have also seen software installations go bad because the installer did not clean up after itself properly and did not leave everything as and where it should be.

This is just my own personal opinion and practice based on my own observations. Others may disagree and that’s OK. I can only base my routines and my advice to others on my own experience and conclusion. I don’t pretend to know why others believe otherwise.

Repairing Permissions after the fact (i. e. not immediately before and after an install) may NOT help.

====

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 by Apple, run Cocktail (shareware) as well.

Cron Scripts are maintenance routines designed by Apple to run on a daily, weekly and monthly basis in the middle of the night.

If you don’t run them, you WILL run into trouble, sooner rather than later.

Here’s an excerpt from the Apple tech doc <http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107388>

Mac OS X performs background maintenance tasks at certain times if the computer is not in sleep mode. If your computer is shut down or in sleep at the designated times, the maintenance does not occur. In that case, you may want or need to run these manually.
Mac OS X periodically runs background tasks that, in part, remove system files that are no longer needed. This includes purging older information from log files or deleting certain temporary items. These tasks do not run if the computer is shut down or in sleep mode. If the tasks do not run, it is possible that certain log files (such as system.log) may become very large.
Also, from: <http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106978>

The disk activity generated by find is a normal part of file system maintenance, used for tasks such as removing invisible temporary files that are used by the system. It is scheduled to occur early in the morning at 03:15 everyday, 04:30 on Saturdays, and 05:30 on the first day of each month.
R
Ram
Sep 12, 2006
but how would a user possibly make this happen other than by simply using Photohsop?

LOL! 😀

Google PEBKAC. There are a gazillion ways in which a user can mess up a machine.
MB
Martin_Bergstrom
Sep 12, 2006
Ok, I’m happy that someone is replying to my questions, but I must say I find them a little cynical.

While I find PEBKAC funny I think it’s foolish to assume the user is the problem first thing one do. Like in this case — it makes me feel you tell me PEBKAC or something…
That I don’t know what I’m talking about and that it is my way of managing the computers here at work that makes Photoshop behave strangely.

Thanks, but I know about repair permissions, cron scripts etc. I’m quite sure they have nothing to do with the Photoshop problem I’m describing in my first post.

But — it’s good to know that it’s not a Photoshop programming error (which you seem to have totally excluded from the possibilities…). 🙂

I’ve lowered the memory usage to 60% on one of the machines with 4 GB RAM. Let’s see what goes…
MB
Martin_Bergstrom
Sep 12, 2006
I’d also like to add that the retouchers running Photoshop here are quite professional. If there is one application they know it’s Photoshop. More the usage of it than the technical part, but I’m positive most of them don’t fiddle with things they don’t know about.
R
Ram
Sep 12, 2006
Martin,

You’re not addressing Adobe here. We’re all users just like you, trying to help each other out.

Sorry you don’t like my answers. You get what you pay for. 😀

No, really, I was just laughing at your question as to what a user could "possibly" do to cause the problem.

I’ve lowered the memory usage to 60% on one of the machines with 4 GB RAM.

With 4GB of RAM you should be fine at 70% or even 85%.

It was the implied 95% or 100% on the 3GB machine that led me to suggest pulling THAT machine to 60% or so.
MB
Martin_Bergstrom
Sep 12, 2006
Oki. =)

I see your point with the memory setting. It just happened on a 4 GB machine that was set to 70%. I bet it’s a Photoshop problem. Too bad Adobe aren’t listening… 🙁

It’s good that it doesn’t happen every day though: 🙂
R
Ram
Sep 12, 2006
Too bad Adobe aren’t listening…

Oh, the do listen. See the "Contact Us" button at the top of this page. They’re just not reading every post here, and when Adobe staff do show up here, they do so as volunteers, on their own time.

That’s why you should contact them directly.
B
Buko
Sep 12, 2006
I agree with only 3GB memory allocate 60%. I have a G5 with 4GB and PS set to 70% I’ve never seen this problem. what is the scratch disk size? and is it on a second hard drive? How big are the files being worked on?
ML
Mark_Larsen
Sep 13, 2006
Martin, this reminds me of a problem I saw a fair while back. Where OSX allows an application to have up to 256 files open at any one time. In the case that Im trying to recall the problem was down the the invisible files being wrote to the private/tmp were not being released, so the application would slow down until reaching the max, then require a force quit or re-boot to flush. In PS’s case im unsure if purging would be of any use. The problem could have been down to faulty permissions on this folder I can’t remember. Follow the previous advise on repair and speak to Adobe. You can find files of processes in terminal (not really my bag) but ManPages "lsof" is what you want a heavy set of pages though. " lsof -c P" should narrow down the list to processes beginning with P. DO take advise from else where on this if you choose to investigate.
MB
Martin_Bergstrom
Sep 13, 2006
The files are on a networkvolume on a server that’s shared over a gigabit network. Hmmm… When I think about it, one user have had this happen and she always copies the files she’s working on to the local hard drive because she can’t save directly to the server (permission issue with the server and 10.4.6 and later — 10.4.7 is running on that machine).

The scratch disk is the same as the startup disk. In the case with the computer above (the one that doesn’t work with Photoshop files over the network) it has 75 GB free and the computer has 4 GB of RAM.

Thanks Mark for the info. It sound like a similar thing that happens with Photoshop. I’ll see if I have time to do some investigation on it…
AS
Ann_Shelbourne
Sep 13, 2006
The scratch disk is the same as the startup disk.

That is a situation that you should try to avoid if you want optimum productivity.

HDs are very inexpensive now so I recommend that you install an additional one for Scratch in each computer.
MB
Martin_Bergstrom
Sep 13, 2006
Hi Ann — thanks for your input. I’ll so some testing with a secondary hard drive as scratch disk see what goes.

I forgot to tell the size of the pictures they are working with. They can be anything from about 50 MB to about 1 GB when many layers are used.
PT
Phil_Taz
Sep 13, 2006
command-tab – choose photoshop usually brings it back for me….I dont run enough ram and some apps like excel and word seem to bump photoshop sometimes.
JH
Jonathan_Hitchcock
Sep 19, 2006
Hi Guys and Girls
Just to say that I have the same problem from time to time, but my system is stand alone (scratch disk on the same disk as Photoshop).

All I can do is force quit PS and curse lots. Command tab trick doesn’t work, quitting every app including the finder to force it back doesn’t work either.

I don’t think file size or memory usage is an issue as it occours if I have a large or small file/s open.

(G5 Dual 1.8, 1GB RAM, 15GB HD, OS 10.4.7, PS CS1 (V.8))
AS
Ann_Shelbourne
Sep 19, 2006
1GB RAM, 15GB HD

There’s your problem — if that is really all the RAM and HD space that you have. (Although I suspect that your HD is actually 150 GB and not 15 GB?!)

You need a great deal more RAM than that and certainly not much less than 3 GB.

And you need TWO internal HDs— both of them with as large a capacity as you can get but with the second (non-bootable) drive partitioned to give you perhaps 60 GB in the first partition which you should then set aside for Photoshop’s Scratch.
JH
Jonathan_Hitchcock
Sep 19, 2006
Yeah, it’s 150GB (D’oh).

Still can’t see how that’ll help.

It’s not like when PS slows during heavy workloads or the beachball of death appears – then eventually it lets me ‘back in’ when it’s finished doing what it’s doing. This is during having a small/ish file/s loaded, jumping out of PS and then trying to get back into PS.
AS
Ann_Shelbourne
Sep 19, 2006
How much of your VERY small amount of RAM is allocated to Photoshop? Not more than 50% I would hope.

This is during having a small/ish file/s loaded, jumping out of PS and then trying to get back into PS.

This is because you have insufficient RAM.

Seriously, you NEED more RAM (a lot more!) if you want to run OSX 10.4.7 and CS2 — in addition to apparently having other programs open as well.
B
Buko
Sep 19, 2006
Here is something on memory allocation and usage in Photoshop it also covers scratch disks. this is from the "Memory allocation and usage (Photoshop CS2)" FAQ
<http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/320005.html>
MB
Martin_Bergstrom
Sep 19, 2006
"Good" to see we’re not the only ones with this problem.

I also find it a little strange why all would suddenly get fixed just because one gets more RAM. I don’t doubt that things get faster but why should the problem just go away? We have machines with 4 GB of RAM and this is not enough? Is it documented that this problem occour if you have too little RAM? You make it sound like it is…

I for one think It’s a software problem.
Anyway, thanks for your input guys. =)
JH
Jonathan_Hitchcock
Sep 20, 2006
No worries. Final thing – I also get minimised windows and Quicktime movie windows stuck in the dock from time to time too. I can click til my finger bleeds but they won’t come back, don’t know if this has any bearing what-so-ever with the PS problem but I thought I’d mention it.
AS
Ann_Shelbourne
Sep 20, 2006
Cmd Option Escape will open the Force Quit palette if you need to dislodge something like a Quicktime Movie from your Dock.

For more on RAM and Scratch Disks see:
<http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/320005.html>
M
macrat
Sep 20, 2006
This happens to me once in a great while as well, but only when I hide Photoshop to go do something else. (G5, 2GB ram)
MB
Martin_Bergstrom
Sep 22, 2006
Hmm… the same thing happened today for one user running Quark XPress. Maybe it’s not a Photoshop issue after all. OS X anyone? =)

How to Improve Photoshop Performance

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