Photoshop CS3 Can't Open Files

Nikky28, on Wednesday February 20, 2008 08:27:24 AM

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Hi everyone!

I'm pretty new to this kind of site and forum and in desperate need of help…

I edit images in Photoshop CS3, until last night every function performed beautifully... Here is my problem, step by step:

I launch Photoshop CS3 successfully
I click “File”
I then click “Open”

The open windows pops up for a sec but then immediately closes! I don’t even have time to see my files in the window, and of course to select anything!)

The Photoshop CS3 title bar then "mutes" and I can’t make it active again
and just have to shut down Photoshop and restart it again.

The weird thing is that the other commands (New, Browse, etc.) work properly!

I'm a graphist designer and I'm used to work with Photoshop a lot, so this is a very serious issue for me. If there's anyone out there who can keep me from becoming really crazy with this issue, I would really appreciate.

Thanks.

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JudySis, on Wednesday February 20, 2008 05:29:06 PM

Hello,

I can think to several solutions to solve your Photoshop problem.

First, how did you set up your scratch disk? Did you put it on a separate drive than the one of the windows scratch disk? You'd need two different physical drives to do this, so if you only have one, then don't worry about it.

Also, how many fonts do you have loaded into windows? This might impacts Photshop too.

You can try trashing your preferences first (hold down ctrl, alt and shift when you start Photoshop) and see if that helps.

HERE's a link to some useful information from the Adobe website (http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.ef4a07f)

Hope one of these solutions will work for you!

Let's keep in touch.

Reply to JudySis

crazy_devil, on Saturday March 15, 2008 07:32:06 PM

I hope its not a cracked version that can retreive updates from the site.. It will get corrupted automatically...

Reply to crazy_devil

kevin, on Thursday April 17, 2008 11:26:52 PM

I'm running into this EXACT issue. I have a non-cracked version of Photoshop CS3 Extended.

I just installed it at the beginning of the week, and it was running perfectly until yesterday evening. Now it doesn't let the open file dialog box open. (Well, it pops up then disappears just as described above.)

I have it installed on the same drive as Windows, I don't have too many fonts installed, and trashing my preferences doesn't fix the problem.

Any other guesses?

Thanks for the help!

Reply to kevin

Kazeohin, on Sunday April 27, 2008 08:42:00 AM

I'm getting this issue as well, please help!

Reply to Kazeohin

Mike, on Monday May 5, 2008 06:43:26 AM

Did anyone try contacting Adobe....Or Microsoft? I know it can be painful trying to contact a large company....I just bought Photoshop cs3 last week and have no problems. I hope I dont run into this type problem.. I wish you all the best. Mike/ezdate123

Reply to Mike

Dan, on Wednesday May 7, 2008 02:01:45 AM

There is an article on Adobe about this.

My solution was to create a new user account. It has something to do with your settings going corrupt when incorrectly shutting photoshop down

Reply to Dan

Don, on Tuesday July 15, 2008 06:36:43 AM

Any other ideas?

I have tried every solution I cound find on the web and I still get the same error when trying to open a file?

I thought microsoft was bad for bugs - ADOBE is far worse!

I sure as hell hope that ADOBE doesn't try writing an operating system!

FEDUP

Reply to Don

mrslash, on Wednesday May 7, 2008 04:49:22 PM

Hi, is it a full version of cs3?

Reply to mrslash

noir, on Sunday May 11, 2008 04:49:22 AM

All you need to do is create a new account in the control panel and your photoshop will function normally

Reply to noir

larock56, on Tuesday October 7, 2008 03:42:12 PM

Just create a new account? How do you transfer all your data from one account to the new account?

Reply to larock56

gyruhd, on Tuesday May 20, 2008 06:40:52 PM

I had the same issue - per adobe it has to do with the dialouge opening in a place where it was previous -- this would be unavalable under certain conditions as it is restoring it to the previous - now unavailable - location. Mine was missing cause I had swapped the window to screen 2 in my setup - then returned it -- it can also happen if you change reolutins and the window is opening out of screen --- up the res and find the window and return it

Reply to gyruhd

bellie, on Wednesday May 28, 2008 04:55:58 AM

Same here, I have just installed the adobe creative suite 3 master collection, and am not able to choose photoshop Cs3 extended, as the default program, nor does it allow me to open the files from abode bridge or use photoshop to edit from dreamweaver...does anyone have any advice? and by the way I am running off of Vista Home edition...

Reply to bellie

Jinnie, on Tuesday November 4, 2008 10:31:31 PM

I had the same problem

in my case it was a microsoft security issue
i had to do the following:

1. go to your photoshop programs folder (i.e. C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS3)
2. right click on photoshop.exe and click properties
3. go to the compatibility tab and checkmark 'run this program as an administrator"
4. go to the security tab and click on the advanced button at the bottom
5. select your login name and select edit, check mark 'allow' for everything
6. i had to uncheckmark 'include inheritable permissions from this object's parent' and hit 'remove' when the dialog popped up.

after that photoshop was working properly for me.

Reply to Jinnie

oshimagun, on Friday June 6, 2008 03:03:14 PM

+15

I had a co-worker with this problem and it was solved by doing this:

-press ESC after attempting to open a file
-pressing CTRL+SHIFT+S (save-as) supposedly resizes the window to it's default size.

Let me know if that works or not. This is just what I heard.

Reply to oshimagun

Antonio, on Monday June 9, 2008 09:49:08 AM

Yes, it worked!!!!
Thank you oshimagun.
Only deleting preference file didnt work.

Reply to Antonio

Emily, on Thursday June 19, 2008 02:59:10 PM

AHH! This has worked for me!! I have been searching online for about an hour and finally found a solution to my problem! I had tried "trashing" preferences but that was not the solution. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Reply to Emily

John, on Thursday October 23, 2008 06:11:05 PM

How did you get this to work i cannot open files photoshop please help ?

Reply to John

Tany, on Thursday July 3, 2008 07:22:59 AM

Hmm, interesting.

I have a similar prob, which is very annoying, I had it in CS and now in CS3 Extended.

When I use the 'Open as' command, I get:
"Could not complete your request because it is not a valid Photoshop document" (yet it's a JPG) - works ok if I just usen File >Open.

When I try and shut/close down the file/program, I get:
"Could not complete the Close command becuase there is not enough memory (RAM)" Yet I have 1GB.

Any clues?

Reply to Tany

Maddie, on Saturday August 9, 2008 10:55:17 PM

Thank you so much, I was having this exact problem, and now it's solved!!!!!!

Reply to Maddie

eugrad06, on Saturday September 6, 2008 10:15:06 PM

WOW that worked. I was ready to kill this computer. Thanks

Reply to eugrad06

lettyk, on Thursday September 18, 2008 02:18:01 PM

Wow, that worked for me too! Thanks you just saved me hours of uninstalling and installing the suite.

Reply to lettyk

gsh, on Sunday November 9, 2008 08:35:16 PM

Thank you thank you for solving this problem for me! It's been making me crazy. I am very greatful.

Reply to gsh

Alger9, on Monday November 24, 2008 04:23:09 AM

Thank you Oshi! I've had the same problem--tried many workarounds, and yours worked!

Reply to Alger9

kemmen, on Tuesday November 25, 2008 02:39:33 PM

THANKS! this worked for me! love you, you saved me an uninstall/reinstall!

Reply to kemmen

Leslie, on Monday December 29, 2008 07:56:38 PM

Thanks so much for the advice. I was having the same problem as everyone else here, and hitting Esc, then Ctrl+Shift+S did the trick.

Leslie

Reply to Leslie

emmyfish, on Tuesday February 10, 2009 01:31:47 PM

Just wanted to chime in and thank you for posting this - this saved me potentially hours of trying to figure out what went wrong. It worked beautifully.

Reply to emmyfish

Miya, on Wednesday April 8, 2009 10:26:48 AM

Wowwww..its work..i become badmood because of that..arigatou..TQ

Reply to Miya

Steph, on Thursday April 16, 2009 08:03:05 PM

Oshimagun, on Friday June 6, 2008 03:03:14 PM wrote:

I had a co-worker with this problem and it was solved by doing this:

-press ESC after attempting to open a file
-pressing CTRL+SHIFT+S (save-as) supposedly resizes the window to it's default size.

Let me know if that works or not. This is just what I heard.

-------------
I had a similar problem oshimagun where I couldn't save as... The save as screen would quickly pop up then dissapear. Your trick did the job!

Reply to Steph

shoppingstrip, on Wednesday April 22, 2009 02:35:30 PM

Oshimagun - you are a champ....such a simple solution to such a BIG problem. You are a life saver. Thank you!

Reply to shoppingstrip

Starhelm, on Thursday April 23, 2009 04:19:45 PM

Hey it worked for me too! We had the problem in CS3 and fixed it by upgrading to CS4. But the problem returned in CS4, and this solution fixed it!

Well done!

Starhelm

Reply to Starhelm

Sue, on Friday May 1, 2009 06:27:25 PM

This worked great, thank you so much

Reply to Sue

Dale, on Sunday June 15, 2008 10:53:55 PM

Hi, Im new to this help and advise site. I bought "CS3 Creative Suite-Standard Edition". I started to get error message with CS3, For a whole week I phone Adobe technical support dept and tried to get help, but all in vein, no email address for support either. I deactivated the programs 1st and than I uninstall it from control panel. I still could not re-installed CS3. there was no setup exe file. Last way out, I format my hard drive, install XP.

This time I manage to install CS3. Only problem is I cannot open "Photoshop program". The error message is as follow:

"The specified module could not be found. C/program files/commonfiles/Adobe Version Cue CS3/Client?3.0,0/VersionCueUI.DLL" After pressing enter the followwing errror message comes up:
The instruction at "0x5ad71531" referenced memory at "0x00000014". The memory could not be "read, click on "OK" to terminate the program.

Im busy with my graphic design course and I really, really need to have my CS3 up and running.

Please, THIS is my only help.

Your help and advised will be appreciated. thank you inadvanced.

-Dale

Reply to Dale

jazz, on Monday June 16, 2008 06:45:20 PM

Hello, i am a graphic designer..and like everyone else. having problems with photoshop CS3.

It started randomly a few weeks ago or so, and i cant find out the problem, id open photoshop, go to open a new file.click on the file, and as soon as it is suppose to open a command error box comes up saying that no photoshop files can be opend because there is to many files open at once.

but theres none at all.
After this box is closed..i cannot close photoshop...x out ur even CTRL ALT DEL out..i litrally have to restart the whole pc

its becoming a very serious issue as i need it for my work and do not expect to have to sit and spend the time creating a new account or reloading the software all over again when i havent had it that long.

this is a fault that needs to be fixed from design softwares.
there valuable..and important..and luckily i have not lost work from it.

although this is affecting my buisness and am finding it difficult or impossible to work from home at all.

what is the solution? Please tell me u have one!!

Reply to jazz

spazz, on Monday September 15, 2008 07:49:48 AM

Jazz i think i am in a very similar position as you, i run a graphics forum. i am the only artist. And photoshop cs3 will allow me to open a file, but when i go to save. the screen comes up briefly than disappears. Than its locked up, but with me i can still take snag it and capture the photo...but i cant do this everytime. Did i press something wrong, did u find a solution. i've tried reinstalling, rebooting, safe mode, preference clean, i tried the control shift s thing nothing...

Reply to spazz

mikey, on Saturday July 12, 2008 06:40:24 PM

I purchased cs3 on disk, loaded it up no problem it works fine, then we realised that we needed to use cs3 extended for some of the extras for stitching large tiff files, so we purchased the upgrade from adobe, tried downloading it. All we get is cs3 downloading and not the extended version. We have deleted photoshop cs3 as advised by adobe,and then tried downloading cs3 extended from the website, no joy.

Does anyone have any suggestions? We know it is fairly easy to download cs3 extended from other sources but that really would cause major problems for us if we had illegal copies on our computer etc, does anyone have an answer please.

Either way many thanks.

Reply to mikey

Don, on Tuesday July 15, 2008 04:55:11 AM

I have the EXACT same problem on my laptop. I have CS3 installed on my desktop (that was a pain - took a lot of screwing around to get it to work) - I then installed it on my laptop and still can't get it to work. The first error was something about licensing - I found a solution - now I can't open files - I am getting the same error as you. I will be calling ADOBE tomorrow. If anyone has a solution, please post

Don

Reply to Don

Tany, on Tuesday July 15, 2008 07:23:48 AM

Hi,
Well after all the pain in the neck...I decided to format my hard drive and did a re-install. So far adobe CS3 is not giving me any trouble...and does works wonders!

There isn't enough info out there yet, so if you have the time and knowledge I would re-install it on a fresh hard drive.

That's what worked for me.

Reply to Tany

LyndieLou, on Saturday August 2, 2008 11:19:39 PM

Thank you to everyone for your posts. Adobe should be paying you for performing the technical support that they can't seem to offer.

In any case, I just started having this problem about three hours ago. I was happily editing some photos today and PhotoShop CS3 just froze. From that point forward File > Open caused quick screen flash and then basically PS crashed (except that it stayed open and I had to force close). I have been looking for any and all information I can find and have tried everything short of re-formatting. Nothing worked until I saw the post about creating a new user account and that resolved the problem. It's a bit of a pain having to set certain things up again, but look at the bright side, if your desktop is really cluttered, you can start fresh under your new user account! I hope this works for others.

I also saw this tip on another site: Try this-open up windows explorer (short cut is the windows key and "E"). Minimize it. Now, open up PS and maximize it (so it takes up your entire screen). Go back to windows explorer, and make it so that it takes up maybe a quarter of your screen. Find a photo in windows explorer and with your left mouse button, click and hold, then drag it over the background of photoshop and release the left mouse button. This is another shortcut for opening in PS. So if you don't mind drag and drop, this might be a decent workaround.

Good luck and thanks again for your helpful advice.

Reply to LyndieLou

kunwar, on Saturday October 18, 2008 10:28:28 PM

Hi guys apparently the issue is very simple to solve. it is happening because the saving dialog box is not in the same screen. to fix this issue what you need to do is. open photoshop. press CTRL + O. move the open dialog box to the side which is comfortable for you then open a file . peess CTRL + SHIFT +S . the dialog box will open in a flash and disspear. and photoshop will hang.it is actually not hung but you cant do anything with the file because the save as dialog box is still open. but you cant see it because it is not in the screen but outside .just press enter at this point of time to save your file. try opening and saving another file and your save as dialog box returns to its normal position

Reply to kunwar

Guru2us, on Sunday November 2, 2008 11:15:06 AM

It worked Kunwar

Thanks

Reply to Guru2us

Blaze, on Tuesday February 3, 2009 11:01:16 AM

Thank you so much! This worked like a treat.

I read somewhere else to just turn off Version Cue, which worked too but not as good as the advice you suggested.

Thanks again :)

Reply to Blaze

Amar, on Sunday February 8, 2009 09:47:31 AM

This means, the problem is the Photoshop CS3 setup shares the files in two folders. one is the root folder, with name Adobe, and some number of files in the folder by name "Common files". May be, the folder which are inside the Common Files folder might be unfortunately deleted or moved, this causes the particular error saying that some DLL files are missing when the photoshop is tried to being used. If the Setup is available try reinstalling photoshop again. Be sur that there rare no files left after uninstalling the older one(including registry).

Reply to Amar

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