Photoshop partially freezing

[andyptak]

I have numerous issues with my system at the moment, mainly with metadata not synching in LR. Today however, PS started partially not responding to various actions. I made a curves adjustment layer and no matter where I moved the curve there was no response in the image. I deleted it and tried several times before exiting PS and then starting all over again, with success this time. This hapened several times. Next, I could not adjust the brush size or the clone stamp size. I had a crosshair symbol and no response from the bracket keys or from right clicking to open the sliders. Again, this happened several times and only by exiting PS and starting all over again could i change my brush size. Latest version of PS (2021) and Windows 10.

I've spent countless hours (days) putzing around with my LR problems and now this?  Ideas would be much appreciated. Thanks.

[TonyW]

As you are experiencing issues in PS and LR this could be indicative of a global issue in your Windows system or a hardware issue rather than the Adobe products.  Check for recent changes/updates including Drivers and applications.  Consider rolling back to an earlier System Restore point, bearing in mind loss of recently installed apps.

Should you feel that this only relates to Adobe you could try trashing preferences in PS to see if this works and/or disabling graphics acceleration

[andyptak]

Thanks Tony. You raise a good point. One I've wondered about myself. The immediate issue about these possibilities though is:

1. Everything is new. Computer, all installed software, NAS etc., etc. To make matters worse, Windows, PS, LR and my WD NAS all have had recent updates since I first set up everything and have had this system so who and what do I blame?

2. Everything was fine for two or three weeks or so and then one by one things started to go wrong. I'm suspicious about one or more of those updates being my issue, but where to begin?

3. The machine is an Asus ProArt, a machine specifically made and configured for Photo, Video, Graphic Arts etc., so for the moment I'm presuming that it should not be a hardware incompatiblity with Adobe products. As a matter of fact, Adobe have rated this machine and components highly.

I was hoping that whatever the offending item was woud be taken care of by another update and all of this would go away, but then I had this brand new problem I mentioned above just this morning. Never happened before and since I posted this message it's hapened quite a few times.

I feel like wiping everything and starting again, but it took me a lot of time to get this thing set up and configured and I could end up in the same place as I am now.

Nothing is simple is it?

[TonyW]

OK, I think that this would be my first approach before undertaking a clean install of the applications and even Windows itself!!  Please forgive me if I may be seen as 'teaching granny to suck eggs'

As everything is new and working fine for some weeks then keep in reserve (for now) the idea that there is a global software or hardware issue and perhaps concentrate on the PS problems (sorry cannot offer any insight to the metadata issue in LR).

• You say that Adobe rated the machine highly so first I would double check that your video card GPU is on the Adobe tested versions and that you are using the latest drivers.  Do not rely on Windows alone to tell you all is well.  Do a search on the manufacturers web site for up to date drivers
  
• Even If you are up to date then you may want to give a quick test if the issue is GPU related by disabling the GPU.
  Goto PS Preferences > Performance and uncheck Use Graphics Processor.  Close and restart PS and use for a while to see if the problem disappears.
  
• PS preference file gets loaded on startup and can cause problems if it has become corrupted.  Once the file is removed/trashed it will rebuild on the next new startup of PS. 
  In Photoshop CC on a Windows PC, go up to the Edit > Preferences > General > Select Reset Preferences on Quit and confirm in the dialogue box.  When you next restart PS the Preferences will be set to default - note you may need to reinstate any preferences you had previously set.
  

Hope something of help

[andyptak]

Thanks again Tony. I reset the Preferences on quit (my video card is all ok) and now Lightroom doesn't pass the image to Photoshop when I choose "Edit in Photoshop".

Always something, isn't t?

[andyptak]

Opps! False alarm. I'm okay. Let's see how this works out today.