program not responding?????

[ignatiusjk]

My photoshop has been getting this prompt lately what does it mean. The program has been running slow lately. P.S. keep it simple. Also how can i fix this "program not responding" problem.

[Bobf]

A few things immediately occur. This is not so much a Photoshop message as an OS one. Uninstall and reinstall Photoshop.

I'm assuming from the message that this is a Windows box. If so, and your whole machine has been slowing then check your anti-virus software is up to date and get that running properly first and do a scan (if you do not have AV, get some).

Also run defragmentation to tidy up the hard drive. De-fragging your drive should improve file access speed. Also run a disk check. Both these are available from Windows Explorer: right-click on the drive letter and select Properties and then select the Tools tab.

If none of the above work you may have any one of many possible problems but without experience you are limited in what you can do. In that case it may be simpler to save all your data, make sure it is saved, and then reinstall Windows.

Good luck.

[Marko]

Before you do any radical steps such as reinstalling Photoshop, do the simple steps first:

1. Defrag and check disk, like Bobf said.

2. Check your available disk space - both Windows and Photoshop will slow down to a crawl when there is not enough room for swapping memory to disk.

3. Reduce the percentage of memory dedicated to Photoshop. I know this sounds counterintuitive, but if Photoshop takes too much, not enough is left for system resources. If Photoshop gets too little of it, it will simply start swapping to disk earlier and start running slower but it won't crash any more.

Start by going down to 50% (default is about 70-75% if I remember correctly) and if your problem goes away, start upping it in 10% increments until it reappears and then start reducing it again in 5% steps until it goes away again. Add another 5% and you're there.

Perform steps in this order. Fiddling with memory will help only if disk is healthy with enough room on it...

Hope this helps.

[ignatiusjk]

Thanks y'all I'll let you know what happens.