How to stop Leopard corrupting CS2/CS3 Photoshop files?

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Level 1

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How to stop Leopard corrupting CS2/CS3 Photoshop files?

Ever since upgrading to Leopard 10.5.3 (including updates since then)--the DAY AFTER I installed 10.5.3--I have had intermittent corruption of Photoshop files (.psd, .tif, .jpeg). The only constant from the dozens of times this has happened is that it happens when I am saving in Photoshop; Photoshop freezes up, won't shut down; I have to manually reboot; and then the file I was saving AND files that had been saved in the last several hours (and were okay) have been corrupted into Mexican rugs. I repeat, files that were saved and opened and previously found to be okay ARE THEN RETROACTIVELY CORRUPTED along with the file I'm currently trying to save. Also, when Photoshop froze, before shutting down, I've tried opening recent files with Preview and they look okay, and I take captures of the images before I shut down, and after reboot these are corrupted as well. This has been going on for six months, unpredictably. It has happened with lots of things running (iTunes, DVD player, podcasts) and little running; with a full desktop and a clean desktop; saving to desktop, Lacie drives, and different internal drives on my G5. Apple Store says nothing wrong with my machine, I've wiped my drive and run Disk Warrior--no problems. The only constant is that I never had this problem prior to Leopard 10.5.3 and have had it ever since the day after I did that upgrade, and subsequent upgrades. It started with CS2, so I upgraded to CS3. It still happens, however unpredictably. I also noted tonight when it froze that after reboot, I couldn't use Spotlight for ten minutes because the OS was "indexing". Error messages include "Could not complete your request because an unexpected end-of-file was encountered", "Could not complete your request because the file is not a TIFF file (it is)", "Could not complete your request because of a problem parsing the TIFF file", " Cannot open file because it was created with different version of Photoshop (not true)". No other file formats or files are corrupted, only Photoshop-created files.
Please note that Apple’s release of 10.5.3 caused corruption of PS CS2 files when saved over networks, instigating upgrade 10.5.4 days later. I never had any problem like this with Panther or Tiger; indeed, I wish I’d never upgraded to Leopard due to the lost hours and income this corruption problem has created. But I did, and now I’m stuck. Any solutions out there?

Power Mac G5, Mac OS X (10.5.6), I have 2.5 GB of RAM, 96 GB of free disk space, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL, on a Dual 2.5 Ghz Pow

Posted on Mar 28, 2009 10:18 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 28, 2009 10:58 PM in response to wendellooby2

HI,

You might feel like this is adding insult to injury, but downloading and installing the 10.5.6 combo update might help. http://support.apple.com/downloads/MacOS_X_10_5_6_ComboUpdate
"It *includes general operating system fixes* that enhance the stability, compatibility and security of your Mac."

If you do this, make sure and run Disk Utility (Applications/Utilities) and repair disk permissions after the installation.

If you don't want to do that, you could try maintenance.
Mac OS X: How to force background maintenance tasks (logs and temporary items)

Carolyn 🙂

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Answer 2

Lyssa

Level 8

41,405 points

Mar 28, 2009 11:12 PM in response to wendellooby2

If you're seeing issues with files from multiple applications, I'd suspect corrupt sectors on your hard drive. Do you have an external/another drive you could install OS X and your applications on and see if the symptoms persist?

Otherwise, here's another suggestion:
If I was dealing with your issue, here's what I'd do.

1) Backup my data--not a clone of the drive, since you're having issues.
2) Erase the drive and reinstall OS X. Do not bring in any applications yet.
3) Apply all OS updates.
4) Reinstall one 3rd-party (non-Apple) software application. Test this for a few hours or a day and see if any issues pop up.
5) If things are still error-free after a day, make a clone of the drive to an external. This way, if any changes you make cause problems, you can erase the internal and then restore your copy of the clone to the internal.
6) Install another application, and repeat the steps.

Best of luck to you!

~Lyssa

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