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Photoshop + Wacom + Mavericks = unstable

F

Forkjulle

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 1, 2012
211
1
Ever since upgrading my rMBP to Mavericks, Photoshop CS6 has been wobbly.

Just to be clear, I've re-installed Photoshop and removed / re-installed the Wacom software.

It's hard to explain. When drawing in Photoshop, everything works fine. But, very often, when I change tools (say, from the brush to eraser), nothing happens. It's as though Photoshop loses focus. I need to touch the tablet surface again to "activate" the Photoshop window.

What makes this even more annoying is that, if you press buttons before touching the Photoshop canvas again, it remembers all the commands and suddenly "catches up" by scrolling through them all until it's "caught up" to my current command.

Do you experience this at all? If so, then how have you dealt with it?
 
As any professional would know:

- Don't update to .0 version of a new OS
- Wait until all vendors update their software for new OS
- Test using a test partition first
 
Consultant said:
As any professional would know:

- Don't update to .0 version of a new OS
- Wait until all vendors update their software for new OS
- Test using a test partition first
Click to expand...

This is a completely unhelpful comment. It doesn't deal with my issue. But, thanks.
 
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Forkjulle said:
This is a completely unhelpful comment. It doesn't deal with my issue. But, thanks.
Click to expand...

It may help for future reference. Is rolling back the OS an option? Otherwise it's likely that your only option may be to wait for further updates from Apple, Wacom, and Adobe. Typically you'll just get a bunch of meaningless responses about repairing permissions or resetting pram from people who have no idea what things are actually affected by these actions.
 
thekev said:
It may help for future reference. Is rolling back the OS an option? Otherwise it's likely that your only option may be to wait for further updates from Apple, Wacom, and Adobe. Typically you'll just get a bunch of meaningless responses about repairing permissions or resetting pram from people who have no idea what things are actually affected by these actions.
Click to expand...

Yes, I won't upgrade as quickly next time. So, I take your point.

As a matter of interest, how does one roll back to Mountain Lion? I don't have a copy of Mountain Lion.
 
Forkjulle said:
Yes, I won't upgrade as quickly next time. So, I take your point.

As a matter of interest, how does one roll back to Mountain Lion? I don't have a copy of Mountain Lion.
Click to expand...

Doh! In that case I'm not sure. I suppose it goes without saying that you've tried the latest photoshop updates and intuos drivers? I'll see if I can find any hack fixes in case it's just a silly conflict of some kind.
 
thekev said:
Doh! In that case I'm not sure. I suppose it goes without saying that you've tried the latest photoshop updates and intuos drivers? I'll see if I can find any hack fixes in case it's just a silly conflict of some kind.
Click to expand...

I'm happy with Mavericks. It's faster and smoother than Mountain Lion, in general.

I've installed the latest Intuos drivers, yes.
 
Mine was acting a little wonky as well. Not all the time, just sometimes. I checked watched my memory usage and noted that it seemed to happen right about the time I maxed out memory ( possibly a swap lag? ). So I picked up 16G of memory for my macbook pro and haven't had a problem since.

Running Mavericks->PS CS6E -> Wacom
 
Forkjulle said:
As a matter of interest, how does one roll back to Mountain Lion? I don't have a copy of Mountain Lion.
Click to expand...

This is also a thing to keep in mind for the next upgrade. Make a mirror backup of your current install before you upgrade. Check to see that everything works properly after the upgrade and if it doesn't it's easy to go back to the backed up install.

I know it doesn't help you now either. But as I said, a good thing to keep in mind.

You COULD obtain a copy of mountain lion from sources I'm not allowed to mention here. As you had it legally installed on your computer I would personally not consider that illegal.
 
Folkjulle, same problem here (Photoshop CC, Mavericks, 2012 Macbook pro, and both a Cintiq 21UX and an Intuos 3). Fortunately for me, I don't rely on Photoshop for my workflow so I can be patient while a fix is found. But, it IS a bummer!
 
Forkjulle said:
As a matter of interest, how does one roll back to Mountain Lion? I don't have a copy of Mountain Lion.
Click to expand...

I've wanted to know how to do this too, prior to upgrading to 10.9. From what I understand, you can use the Internet Recovery option as detailed here:
http://www.macworld.com/article/116...ions_os_x_recovery_and_internet_recovery.html

This assumes you had ML shipped with your machine of course.

Also, as I understand the procedure, you would want to wipe your disk prior to reinstalling 10.8. Be sure to backup all of your important files so that you can copy them back to your fresh install.
 
Same issue; 2011 27" iMac + Mavericks + Photoshop (and Illustrator) CC + intuos 4.

Strangely, not having any issues with my Cintiq 13HD.

My biggest problem with Photoshop (and Illustrator) is, I'll have to hit a key repeatedly for it change tools. None of my intuos' programmed shortcut keys will work.

I've also had some issues with MangaStudio, where if I had Safari or Spotify open there was a horrific lag, but then after updating MangaStudio to 5.03, that problem disappeared.
 
I'd like to upgrade to Mavericks so I could take advantage of the FCP X update. But since most of my work is in PS, and I have the last Perpetual license version (CS6), upgrading my 5,2 Pro scares the heck out of me. If I have an issue with PS, I'm screwed-- I can't get an Adobe update (in the unlikely event they even issued one) unless I bought into their CC c**p.

Not really sure where this leaves me...
 
I've started working in Sketchbook Pro, which is heavily designed around Wacom tablets, and can tell you that it's smooth and without bugs.

It's actually better to draw in than Photoshop.

That said, Photoshop still persists with its weird glitch.
 
Wacom Installing ANDROID FILE TRANSFER APP with Current Driver

Setting up 3 new 27" iMacs to be delivered tomorrow, and finding a number of threads pointing to problems with Mavericks and the current Wacom Driver MacOSX - Driver 6.3.7-3 (10.6x - 10.9x).

The lucky solution to my problems, which I have posted both at Wacom and on Adobe's forum threads, is that my client is still using all Intuos 2 tablets. Uninstalling the *current* driver in favor of the Legacy Driver 6.2.0-w4 for Mac OS X v. 10.7, 10.6 & 10.5 (Intel) has solved all of the problems, and is working smooth as butter :D

HOWEVER... when I went to uninstall the *current* driver by using the ONLY recommended method for years now, namely using the uninstall Wacom Utility... what did I find in the Applications ->Wacom folder? 3 unneeded programs, one of them being Android File Transfer app! I have no Android devices here, and just to be sure something hadn't slipped by me and been installed with Chrome or another tool, I uninstalled... and RE-INSTALLED from the official driver DMG. Sure enough, ANDROID File Transfer was back in the Wacom folder(!) WTF! :eek:

I'm calling it a scandal regardless if it's harmless and/or needed for some installations or not!!! The installer should give the user the choice and/or be intelligent enough to sniff out the connected tablet and ONLY INSTALL the driver for that device.

So what do you guys think of this?

Edited:

I found this on the Wacom Forums... I mean... really?!
We need to apologize for the inconvenience here.
It seems that the needed information has not been added to the public FAQ...

Use the Android File Transfer tool in the "Wacom Tablet" folder. It is used similar to the Finder.
By default Android devices cannot be accessed as USB drive from OS X. The manufacturer of the device needs to specifically alter Android to allow this.
Since Wacom uses a mostly unaltered standard Android, it is needed to use the free Android File Transfer software from Google (http://www.android.com/filetransfer/) to access the files on OS X
Click to expand...

My other forum posts re: this topic:
http://forum.wacom.eu/viewtopic.php?p=60897#p60897
http://forums.adobe.com/message/5982127#5982127
 
Last edited:
exact same issue for me, cs6, cc been plaguing me for years. I got rid of it for a couple of months but then it returned again and there is so many things it could be, process of elimination I just do not have the time for. I had a feeling it was an extension but quickly eliminated that from the list. I thought perhaps it was my wireless keyboard not responding well in PS because wireless. Anyway, time to check that link above and hope for the best. Thanks in advance.

edit: That white window plugin seems to have fixed it. Hours of use, no issues.
 
As the person who started this thread, I can say that this aforementioned plugin seems to be working.

I have been having, what seems to be, none of the issues mentioned in my original post.

Will report back after a few more days.
 
On an older MacBook Air, upgraded to Yosemite, everything in PS6 with a Wacom went to hell.

The white window plugin worked like a charm!

THANKS!!!
 
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