Adobe Photoshop CS4 Crashes Constantly/For No Apparent Reason

[mike1450]

Hey guys...

Just to chime in. I had all these crazy crashes... everything in CS4 made me crazy with crashes... and although Photoshop still locks up every now and then... since doing a clean install with snow leopard and then re-installing CS4 from scratch, it's all working great. No crashes on quit etc...

 

[kathmat]

CS4 Crashes

Glad to head. I did exactly the same thing however, and I am still getting my camera raw freezing. Do you use camera raw a lot?

 

[mike1450]

no, sorry... i know that's a pain. I'm doing only digital post. have you put in a support ticket with adobe, or tried creative cow for a workaround?

 

[farrago]

Re: Adobe Photoshop CS4 Crashes Constantly/For No Apparent Reason

My Illustrator CS 4 crashes only when I open a file and don't browse directly to the file. In other words, if I click "open" and then use the search feature to find a file by name ...then click on a file in the find results; I get the spinning beach ball and it never ends.

Has anyone had that one? Does a re-install fix that issue?

-Tom

 

[AML]

My crashes are consistently and continually coming from PS. I have kept count today, and it has crashed 4 times! Most of the time it when I try to save as a .pdf. Other times when i don't talk to it just the right way and threaten to throw it out my 9th story window. This release is out of control with crashing and I am thanking Buddha that I kept CS3 on my machine at home. This release is pretty disgraceful.

 

[Phrasikleia]

For me Photoshop (CS4) regularly crashes when my computer goes to sleep. Not always, but often.

 

[hzc71]

Still Crashing.

Has anyone else experienced similar problems or am I alone in this?

My experience with Adobe, specifically Photoshop CS4, is that it does indeed crash often. Sometimes when I select a tool or when I scroll the mouse in the Layers palette. Really, it just crashes whenever the heck it feels like.

Also, all Adobe software takes long to load and is slow. I don't use Acrobat or Reader anymore because of that. They have been avoiding rewriting their software using the Cocoa platform; I think most of their Mac software is Carbon-based. If they had done that years ago, they would be a lot more prepared now to release 64-bit versions.

I understand that it's a lot of work, but if you're not willing to keep up-to-date, then you shouldn't write software. They charge so much for their software too, I think they owe it to their customers to keep up and provide better quality software.

I wish I weren't so familiar with PS. It would make it easier to dump this bulky, slow and buggy crap app. I dread it every time I have to launch it.

Even their flash plug-in for Safari crashes a lot now too. Another one of their flagship apps.

It's understandable that all software will have bugs, but they are so slow to release updates for CS4 that I now consider Adobe a horrible company and won't be buying anything from them soon.

 

[pauljaw]

I am not saying that this is the issue. But it is well documented on the Digidesign user conference forums (over 60 pages) that the "m-box"(firmware/audio card) is/was causing all sorts of issues crashing apps (other than pro tools!!) all over the place. (esp with apps running on Leopard, I think) It is/was a known critical bug.

People were sending macs back to the shop and having motherboards replaced and all manner of ways of trying to figure out why their apps were crashing all the time with no apparent reason, not for a moment thinking that their audio card could be the cause of crashing seemingly unrelated apps. I don't know if it has been fixed yet (digi fixed it with Tiger and early Leopard, but then it came back again - i know they were/are in talks with Apple to sort it out). It was around for over 18 months, I think.

Just goes to show that you that sometimes it is not the apps that crash that are the problem, and that sometimes you have to think laterally.

I'm saying this Just on the off chance that there are any mbox users having problems here.

(BTW Im STILL on Tiger 10.4.11 on a dual G5 and am running all the CS4 Design Premium apps; Final Cut Studio; After Effects; Shake; Logic (and an mbox 2 !!), with Leopard 10.5.8 running on a partition. I have hardly had any crashes in the past two years or so. Rock solid. And long, I hope, may it continue - touch wood).

 

[hanbi]

i have the SAME problem!

OMG///
Im seriously soooooo frustrated!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My InDesign + Illustrator + even firefox crashes with no reason!!!
At first the InDesign crashed whenever i try exporting inn. to pdf and now all the program crashes!!!!
omg.. im so mad right now...
i loved mac and now....... nah -_-.....

 

[cyber4n6gumshoe]

Snow Leopard Application Crashes - Apparent Solution

Regarding Snow Leopard crashes, I've had so many I was nearly shocked into reverting back to Leopard or, worse yet, Windoze, but I have found what seemed to be the problem, at least for me and many others experiencing this problem. It was during most any operation requiring a save and many programs save all the time (databases, autobackups, etc). Photoshop, Filemaker, Acrobat, Mail, Safari, iPhoto, you name it, it was crashing. I went as far as creating my profile manually, painstakingly rebuilding everything manually as it was hypothesized that the problem was some garbage setting inherited from Leopard during migration. No joy; same problem persisted.

Anywhere, here was the fix:

Go to System Preferences / Sharing. Under File Sharing, turn it off and then delete any shared item so as to clear the window of any shared drives or folders. At this point, the instructions I found called for turning file sharing back on and the logging off and then logging back on. When I did, all my crashes disappeared and life was the way it should be. If, however I defined a share and that share involved where a file was to be saved, the crashes reappeared. Well, it's wonderful to have Snow Leopard that doesn't crash as often as Democrats lie, but it is sure annoying to be limited in the ability to share out resources. I thought it might matter as to the type of share (AFP or SMB), but it didn't seem to matter. So far, I've gone 48 hours without a crash and I have been doing some very heavy lifting just to test the waters. I haven't crashed any application in Snow Leopard since blowing out all my shares.

Now this isn't to say that this is the answer to all problems, but I'm hearing from many folks who are saying that this is fixing their crash problems as well. Photoshop, FileMaker, and many other programs were almost unusable and are now rock solid. Of course if this is the root of all evil, when is Apple going to fix it and why did they release such an ugly bug?

Steve B
normally from Delaware - presently in Riyadh, KSA

 

[Soom]

Adobe increases bug-count without fixing old ones

I'm on MacBook Pro, 10.5,
I've just installed Photoshop CS4 2 days ago and I already had 3 crashes! This is just fantastic, how packing CS4 with features corresponds to packing it with bugs also! Flash CS4 is ridiculous and I had to go back to Flash CS3. Bridge CS4 also had about 2 or 3 crashes for last 2 days. I would gladly go back to Photoshop CS3, but I need the new Bridge functionality... I 'm close to smashing my computer and go back to hand work!!!!!!!
I used to respect Adobe for their effort to create a good graphic software, but not any more. They don't have any rivals after destroying Macromedia and looks like the ONLY interest they have is packing the market with new versions of untested/half fixed/bugged software with a shiny shell.
My friend once told: the only fix I could find in Adobe Flash is the square red logo

 

[mike1450]

Reinstall

Cs4 used to crash every hour or so. Once I wiped my system and re-installed, I haven't had a single crash in cs4 and I push it hard!

 

[kathmat]

CS4 Crashes

Not sure how much good this will do - have mixed feelings, but I did find that once I disabled open GL that it helped somewhat. I still get the odd crash especially when working from the bridge, and the most annoying crash of all is when you have completed a step in your image process and then hit save and that lil old wheel of death just spins and spins and you know you are going to have problems and then bingo! - there goes the whole kit and kaboodle along with your work as CS4 crashes - without saving I might add.

 

[kathmat]

CS4 Crashes

PS - Welcome to MacForums Soom - some really good advice here, even though I have been accused of "whining" by one unsympathetic soul a while back when I vented on a Mac issue. He must have been having a bad hair day! Just ignore the jerks as the constructive helpers abound.

 

[chrono1081]

CS2 IMO was the last good photoshop adobe made. Ever since then their quality has been on a spiral down.


CS3 == unusable for me because my most used photoshop plugin ever doesn't work, and its not the plugins fault its a fault in adobe for which the manufacturer of the plugin stated there is nothing they can do to fix it because it lies in the way adobe handles saving changes.

CS4 = better, but more of the same.

Adobe also doesn't like to issue ANY updates for anything that they stopped shipping which is rediculous. Their software is very expensive, and sure, for large studios they may be able to spend $2500 every 18 months for a new adobe product but for the average user who needs these programs its a ton of money to throw out.

I'm against software piracy but right here is one of the things that cause it. A few people I know who use the same plugin I do pirated CS4 because it works in CS4. Why should they pay $2500 when they just bought CS3 a little over a year ago? Sorry Adobe I'm not with you on this one.

 

[graphitegal]

Crashes not just specific to the Mac.

Hi everyone

The crashes you mention on Photoshop and other Adobe products are not just happening on the Mac system, it's true of the PC as well running Windows Vista (and no I won't hijack the thread to talk about what problems that creates).

My most common crashes occur when I am updating the file info, adding keywords, copyright etc. It will do a few images and then crash. You reopen it and same again and so on... The most helpful thing is there is no error message or description of any type. Even the most novice programmer realises that a detailed crash report is a must, particularly for complex programs like Photoshop, Illustrator etc.

Some people say they are sending reports but I never get that option, the screen just freezes.

As you rightly say on a product which costs £2500, these sorts of problems are not acceptable. I finally bit the bullet as I was using Photoshop 7 to purchase the CS4 Master suite and wish I had saved my money.

They also seem to be following the same pattern as all software developers now in that what should be major patches, are actually released as 'new' products. Take for example Lightroom which I also have v1.4. This crashes regularly also. The patches never seemed to fix the issues everyone was having. And lo and behold, Adobe release Lightroom 2 which costs a further £100 on top of the original £130 I paid for LR 1.

 

[Popfry]

Same here.

It happens sometimes when I SAVE a file. So I could spend a lot of time doing something, then try and save it and it will crash.

It's really sporadic, and stupidly unacceptable, I've got my hopes up for CS5 since it's being rewritten.

 

[reploidx]

Crashes on quit

All my CS4 apps crash when quitting them. It doesn't happen every time, but seems to be more likely if they've been hidden for a while.

I use Dreamweaver, Flash, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Bridge, and they all have crashed while quitting.

This happened on Leopard and Snow Leopard.

When they do crash, I notice they aren't saving any interface changes I've made - like showing/hiding, or moving a palette.

 

[Mlobo01]

Rosetta

I've had issues with Adobe, it seems that if you install an Adobe program by drag and drop from another disc or volume it will give you multiple errors, see in the inspector box of the program in question has the Rosetta check box is checked, Adobe is tightening its grip on their apps by making them unusable if you have copied their disc, or if you are installing from a virtual disc etc, Snow Leopard is akin to these procedures, I tested SL on an external disc before anything and saw that I was unable to use my CS3 on it except for PS CS, cant explain the issue but thats my observation. Some here have mentioned downgrading to Leopard, it is good advice not to upgrade your stable systems until you have read initial observations and articles, these issues where mentioned before I started testing SL and so when it happened to me I was not surprised. Adobe programs (I think) are running on SL using Rosetta since Adobe has not come up with a full SL version of PS or suite, if anything Ill keep looking for articles that post a possible solution.

 

[Mlobo01]

I have had no problems with CS4 on several different types of macs... have you tried disabling your fonts? often a damaged font will cause adobe / microsoft apps to crash...

I beleive that there is a program called "font dr" or something like that, an old font carried over from another computer or sometimes from an older OS version may cause bugs.

 

[gabix]

Possible simple solution

I had similar crash problems. I went to Font Book and removed all duplicate Fonts.

Never got any more crashes.

 

[panloups]

Cannot isolate problem --- even on Mac/PC OS

I'm both a Mac and PC user and I have experienced this problem on both operating systems. I do not have this problem with any other application. It's clearly a problem that is isolated to Adobe.

I upgraded to CS4 (at considerable expense) and Photoshop crashes continuously and without logging anything to the event log. The same happens on Mac. I've updated patches, checked for duplicate fonts, all the typical rigmarole and nothing has worked. PS continues to crash frequently and without warning.

 

[DragonflyDrew]

Pulling my hair out....

No idea where to go from here, I have had CS4 since May with little or no issues, late last week Bridge pops up a cache error and bang Photoshop stops working. It does it's little "bounce" in my task bar / dock, like all programs about to start and then it closes. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling Photoshop multiple times and have even uninstalled and reinstalled all CS4, yet still the same thing. I have tried to update my video drivers as someone mentioned this could be an issue, but there aparently no updates for my computer (according to the updater.) Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[dabearded1]

IPhone also crashes

I have an IPhone 3Gs and it started crashing when downloading pics from the phone. Any suggestions on how to fix this without going to the pay per tech support at Apple or Adobe?

 

[Mlobo01]

font issues...

I have read in an older post that even you have deleted duplicate fonts its still hard to detect the bad ones, but a very thorough diagnostic could probably yield a good result, the diagnostic calls for removing all your fonts -user/library- first then the -HD/library- reinsert the fonts one by one as you check Photoshop's behavior. have you tried deleting the PS preference file? if you have Cocktail I recommend trashing all the caches and logs, can you post a crash report from your Console log regarding photoshop? thanks