I think I scream at Adobe for this glitch about 2 times a day. It has been doing this in pretty much all OS X Photoshop users for the past few versions of photoshop. All of a sudden you will be doing something simple such as Save for Web, Text Editing, moving a layer, and the Beach Ball of Death will appear and spin for no reason from 1-10 minutes. It only happens with Photoshop at least on my computer. Adobe and Apple are probably ( I am not joking ) responsible for a good 2-5 hours wasted a week between all the people in my office who use photoshop.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:29 am
NO SHIT! I curse and spit at PS the same. Just did it again this morning just selecting a different Folder. AAARRRRRRRGGGGGG!!!!!
February 20th, 2009 at 11:40 am
yes, f that. and for me at least, the drop in productivity is magnified because I end up going to my browser and browsing the web for 20 mins each time it happens. totally breaks the workflow.
February 20th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Something’s paging. How’s your memory?
jd/adobe
February 20th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
I am sorry, it’s horrible, but this made me laugh out loud so hard:) Seriously sucks, but I can’t help but laugh…SORRY! (you are quite adorable when you are SLIGHTLY ticked, and that is what I am picturing;)
February 20th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Hey John, thanks for the comment.
I (and pretty much 100% of all designers I know) have this problem and have had it since the CS line. I have had this problem with G4 with 2 gig, G5 with 4 gigs, 1.6 Core Duo with 2 gig, and currently at work I am running a Dual-Core Intel Xeon 2.66 GHz with 3 gigs of ram.
You can probably find threads and forums about this as it does not matter how fast your computer is, (in my experience and from other people I know who have maxed out comptuers) it is a hang up (bug) that happens on the most simple of tasks. Moving a layer, copying a layer effect, save for web, etc etc. I bet if you polled your customers you would find most of them have this problem across the board.
It is one of the most frustrating aspects of using photoshop.
February 20th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
2G is usually more than enough for straight-up work at normal res (System Reqs are 512M minimum, but one gig preferred, and for big imagery the costs go up).
If it’s pausing at moving a layer, though, then that’s no good, agreed. Assuming the imagery is proportional to the memory, check for any background operations going on at the time — other apps, utilities which work across apps, etc — these are another way to increase the memory-swapping necessary.
If you think it’s really out-of-the-park, though, I’d encourage you to contact Adobe Support — they can follow through better than me, and if there’s a recurring way to get such misbehavior, we need to address it, thanks.
jd/adobe
February 20th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Thanks John. Just never had time to follow up on it because I assumed Adobe knew it was happening consider every person I see in a forum curses the beach ball of death in photoshop everyday.
It pretty much happens during SAVE FOR WEB or when you are moving layers/effects and sometimes when you do text edits and such.
It just seems like something gets stuck.
its like Photoshop is having a heart attack and it is trying to push out the blockage.
February 20th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
That happen to me during the SAVE FOR WEB too, I thought it was my disk, but now I notice that I’m not the onlyone.
February 20th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
For me it’s gotten better with CS4 + intel machines with lots of memory (4GB+). I rarely run into this anymore. Though, i still get the “Could not complete your request because of program error” kind of thing.
CS2 + CS3 were kind of unbearable though.
In my own experience beach ball appearances increase when you:
- use a G5
- use vector/smart objects !!
- edit text or load in new fonts (i.e from suitcase)
- save for web
HA!
February 26th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Haha – nice to hear that somebody else is struggling with this problem. My work CS3 macbook pro (2008) does this all the time, just like you described. Home PC with less power doesn’t.
Previously illustrator crashed also hourly, now it’s pretty stable (some weird reason :)
How is life when using CS4 and Mac, the same? Heard firsthand PC users comments that it’s just slow and freezes and new text editor is superslow. Not that keen to upgrade.
March 24th, 2009 at 4:41 am
The beachball of death is responsible for wasted class time in 90% of my classes at school. Everytime it comes up you just hear students growl under their breath and teachers have to wait for us to catch up. Doesn’t help that our school decided to build a new dormitory instead of upgrading our processors. priorities CCAD, priorities..