Photoshop Resetting

[guyb]

Periodically it seems as if Photoshop 7.0.1 resets itself--sort of. I will open it and it asks me if I want to change my color settings. Whatever I answer it seems that I am left in Photoshop with the toolbar and palettes looking as if I had just installed it. Note: it has kept all my settings except the mentioned color setting e.g. brushes previously loaded, changes to brush sizes etc.

I cannot seem to ever remember an error message that displayed at the end of the previous use. I don't seem to have updated my installation. I don't seem to have done anything different in the program than what I normally do in a day. I think it is within Photoshop as I have no other problem with the computer. This happens about once every 2 months. It doesn't really hurt anything, but as I use two monitor for Photoshop it takes a little while to get everything back where I like it.

I know that I gave a limited explanation. If it is needed I will give more. Does anyone have an idea of what is going on in the program; I really don't see how I could be resetting this myself?

As one further bit of info I am a computer professor so feel free to give as much info as needed.

l8r,
Guy

P.S. Sorry if the message is a little disjointed as I have not slept in awhile.

[jonbalza]

I don't know about the random resetting of the palettes, but you can fix it quickly with the two monitors. If you go to "window->Workspace", you can save and load the positioning of your palettes in there as a workspace. Get your palettes set the way you want, and then save the workspace. That way, when PS goes about the "resetting" (I've never heard of that problem by the way, anyone else?) you can just reload the positions of the palettes instead of having to drag and drop all over again.

ps. welcome to the forum.

[guyb]

It is funny I tend to move my Windows desktop around so much that I never think of saving a version although I could.

I guess I got into that habit. It will be useful in Photoshop. I just did the suggestion. What an obvious solution. I wish I had thought of it ;) .

[sPECtre]

If asked about similar problems, Chris Cox, one of Photoshop engineers will in 99.9% of the cases point the finger to bad hardware!

I've seen similar problems on machines that had overheating problems (old gen scsi HD's, Dual P2 in a small case...)

Check the ram , run scandisk, etc...

Try also to delete your preference files, if they are corrupted, they might not "remember" that Adobe Gamma was applied before...

[bigcloud]

FWIW.. I've seen "strange" things happen on an older laptop that I had PS installed on. Can't remember the details all that clearly but one that sticks out is the "resetting of colors". It was a slower PII with much less RAM than I cared to work with. There was nothing custom about the laptop, just old and slow. Didn't have the laptop long enough to find a decent resolve.

-Paul :)

[Mindbender]

This possibly could be an os issue that's just starting to show up in Photoshop first... corrupted preferences are pretty common. I would make sure to run a disk integrity check utility. If this is windows, checking the registry for errors is a good thing to do as well since this is where a lot of data is stored. Last time I worked on a windows machine, I was running Norton System Works and it seemed to keep windows in line and fix most minor issues. If this is a mac, especially os9 or prior, then you would want to for sure run norton, nuke the prefs file, and rebuild the desktop.

It really sounds like file or disk corruption to me, but I've seen over heating cause it as has been mentioned by other people.

I'm assuming this isn't a much older machine at this point or else you'd want to be checking things like cmos/pram batteries and burnt out hardware. I don't think any machine that is to that point in age would be running ps7 on dual monitors anyway, hence my assumption ;)

[dWaterman]

If this happens often and you don't find an easy fix, I would suggest changing your preferences file to "Read only". Doing this has a few drawbacks as your preferences will not be updated when you load more brushes ond/or color palettes etc…That may be better than having to reset everything each time this happens though.

[guyb]

Thanks for all the responses.

I am running a Pentium IV at 2 gigahertz with 512 MB RAM and a NVIDIA video card with 128 MB of RAM. So I don't have a minimal system. I have all current updates and service packs installed. I suppose it could be a problem with newer technology.

However, this is the only program that is doing anything odd. Between all of the above I don't think it is a hardware problem or a problem with anything other then Adobe. Obviously I could be wrong.

I think I will write protect the file as suggested. It may give me a message when it can't modify it that would lead me to the answer.

You know if it hadn't happened multiple times I would think I was doing it myself and having anteriograde amnesia ;) .

[dWaterman]

As a side note: I have heard of preference files being corrupted by interupting Photoshop during shutdown. Opening another program during shutdown can interupt Photoshop when it is updating the preference files.

[guyb]

I figured it out! The last poster was correct. It just happened. I sometimes get impatient at shut down and have shut down Photoshop thru task manager. That is when I have the trouble. I just never associated it. I know that it can cause problems, but I did it anyway. I guess I just want a computer to turn off when I tell it to like other electrical equipment; I don't want to wait for it to clean itself ;).

No Adobe problem exactly, all me. Thanks for the help.

[Mindbender]

Glad you figured it out. I knew it sounded like some kind of bizzare corruption problem.

There's an object lesson in why you shouldn't rush clean up procedures on a computer, especially on windows. With the system tracking and memory manager in windows, it's suicidal to interupt shutdown procedures. That's why a power failure can wreak so much havoc, there are tons of things scattered everywhere and they're just dropped when the power is cut before they can be put back.

Good call DW, I didn't really think about that because most people don't just flip the power off on their computers anymore, in fact, most new compuers won't even let you.

[guyb]

This is a case of do as I say not do as I do :) .