Guides in CS4 cause screen to black out

GS
Posted By
gary_smalldon
Jan 28, 2009
Views
354
Replies
6
Status
Closed
I’ve just installed CS4 and whenever I try to drag a guide from the rulers the canvas blacks out and I get the spinning colour ball. I can’t believe that guides are memory intensive. . . any answers?

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AS
Ann_Shelbourne
Jan 28, 2009
Tell us a bit about your System; how much HD space, ram and which video card you have; and what maintenance you have done.
GS
gary_smalldon
Jan 28, 2009

2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo IMac with 2G Ram 300G available HD, NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT – maintenance?
AS
Ann_Shelbourne
Jan 28, 2009
Recommended Maintenance includes repairing permissions before and after installing software; running Cocktail or Onyx to clean out caches and do other tasks; and running DiskWarrior to repair Directories.

Also try disabling Open GL in Photoshop CS4 because that video card may not support it.
R
Ram
Jan 28, 2009
I still advocate Repairing Permissions (with Apple’s Disk Utility) 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. Try it anyway, though.

====

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.

NOTE: There have been comments to the effect that Apple "fixed" this in 10.4.2 and later versions of the OS, but I have not been able to verify this to my satisfaction. The reference in the 10.4.2 release notes are far from explicit on this subject.

= = =

If you have DiskWarrior, run it regularly too.
GS
gary_smalldon
Jan 28, 2009
Thanks Ann. I repaired permissions with Apple’s Disk Utility – no change with my guides problem. However, when I disabled Open GL (even though CS4 said my card did support Open GL) guides are now working just as they should. Thanks again.
AS
Ann_Shelbourne
Jan 28, 2009
Gary:

I am glad that you managed to find a solution. This document may be helpful too: < http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb 404898>

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