Vexing problem — Text boxes and dropdowns in toolbars don’t work

PF
Posted By
Paul_F_Johnson
Oct 19, 2008
Views
318
Replies
2
Status
Closed
I’m hoping someone has experienced this problem and found a solution!

Recently Photoshop CS3 started acting up (after over a year installed). Toolbars and dialog boxes won’t let me type into text boxes or select from most drop-down lists. This makes it completely unusable.

The textboxes and drop-down lists "lose focus" instantly after being clicked. This occurs even if no other applications are running.

For example in the Brush toolbar, when I click to open the Brush Mode dropdown, it opens, then immediately closes before I can even release the mouse button. However the Brush Size works fine (because it isn’t really a dropdown, it opens another window). The Opacity textbox won’t let me type, but the slider opens under it and operates normally.

Similarly in the Text toolbar, it is impossible to select a font or font style, but I *can* select one of the standard font sizes (because that is a different type of dropdown). But I can’t type a specific size into the textbox! Same type of issues in the character/paragraph pallette.

To try to resolve this, I upgraded my computer from XP SP3 to Vista SP1. (To eliminate any possible "contamination", I reformatted the C drive, installed Vista & SP1 from CD, installed anti-virus, then reinstalled Photoshop and Lightroom from scratch – and NO other applications yet).

After all that, I still have the same probem under Vista! With no other programs installed.

My computer is an HP Intel Core2 Duo, 4GB RAM, nVidia 512MB 3D graphics card. (I upgraded the RAM from 2GB and the video card both under XP to see if they helped – before doing the Vista upgrade)

No other software has ever exhibited this problem – or any strange issues.

I’m completely unable to process photos for my photography business, and at my wit’s end.

Any help is MUCH appreciated!

Paul

MacBook Pro 16” Mockups 🔥

– in 4 materials (clay versions included)

– 12 scenes

– 48 MacBook Pro 16″ mockups

– 6000 x 4500 px

J
Jim
Oct 19, 2008
wrote in message
I’m hoping someone has experienced this problem and found a solution!
Recently Photoshop CS3 started acting up (after over a year installed). Toolbars and dialog boxes won’t let me type into text boxes or select from most drop-down lists. This makes it completely unusable.
The textboxes and drop-down lists "lose focus" instantly after being clicked. This occurs even if no other applications are running.
For example in the Brush toolbar, when I click to open the Brush Mode dropdown, it opens, then immediately closes before I can even release the mouse button. However the Brush Size works fine (because it isn’t really a dropdown, it opens another window). The Opacity textbox won’t let me type, but the slider opens under it and operates normally.

Similarly in the Text toolbar, it is impossible to select a font or font style, but I *can* select one of the standard font sizes (because that is a different type of dropdown). But I can’t type a specific size into the textbox! Same type of issues in the character/paragraph pallette.
To try to resolve this, I upgraded my computer from XP SP3 to Vista SP1. (To eliminate any possible "contamination", I reformatted the C drive, installed Vista & SP1 from CD, installed anti-virus, then reinstalled Photoshop and Lightroom from scratch – and NO other applications yet).
After all that, I still have the same probem under Vista! With no other programs installed.

My computer is an HP Intel Core2 Duo, 4GB RAM, nVidia 512MB 3D graphics card. (I upgraded the RAM from 2GB and the video card both under XP to see if they helped – before doing the Vista upgrade)

No other software has ever exhibited this problem – or any strange issues.
I’m completely unable to process photos for my photography business, and at my wit’s end.

Any help is MUCH appreciated!

Paul
I would have tried resetting the preferences first.
Jim
AD
Anthony_Darling
Oct 29, 2008
We are having the exact same issue as well. Rebooting sometimes resolves it for a few minutes, but that is it. Nothing seemed to change on our end that would cause this…it is very frustrating. We are running on a Dell Latitude 820 laptop with 4 gig of ram running XP.

Master Retouching Hair

Learn how to rescue details, remove flyaways, add volume, and enhance the definition of hair in any photo. We break down every tool and technique in Photoshop to get picture-perfect hair, every time.

Related Discussion Topics

Nice and short text about related topics in discussion sections