Photoshop CS2 and CS3 hangs when opening files

Platform: Windows XP
Versions tested: CS3, CS3

Problem:
When opening a file or creating a new document in Photoshop CS2 and Photoshop CS3, you may experience about 10 seconds of waiting time before the document actually shows up. During this time, Photoshop will appear to hang and the Photoshop window may turn blank (white) and refuse to be redrawn. After about 10 seconds, everything returns to normal and no other problems appear - until you want to open another document.

Solution:
It appears that this is due to your default printer being a network printer and the printer cannot be found. Simply setting a different default printer will make this problem go away.

It took me 2 years to figure this out, so I thought I'd post this.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 1st, 2009 at 08:33 and is filed under Photoshop. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “Photoshop CS2 and CS3 hangs when opening files”

1. David:
   January 11th, 2009
   05:57

   Your solution solved my problem, thank you so much. I never would’ve known it was my network printer that was causing the issue.

2. Westy:
   July 22nd, 2009
   10:21

   WOW!!! Thank you so much! Simple fix, but how the heck would we have known! Thanks!!!!

3. nikki:
   July 30th, 2009
   06:28

   How do i change the printer setup then? thanks

4. milly:
   September 16th, 2009
   18:12

   download this patch…this will eliminate all the hang ups w/ adobe products…once downloaded and ran then restart computer

   http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3750

5. Kristof:
   November 22nd, 2009
   10:23

   Milly,

   Please read my article again. The patch you suggest is not a solution to this problem. The patch you described addresses a different issue. Thanks for your input, though!

   Kristof

6. darrell:
   July 26th, 2010
   13:01

   It didnt work for me. I switched from my network printer to local PDF Creators and etc. Still hanged. I was on XP SP2 with CS3, upgraded to XP SP3 and other updates. Then got the hangs, even on opening new 10px x 10px blank. Uninstalled and reinstalled CS3 with updates but didn’t fix. (Creative Suite 3 Web Premium)