4

Running OS X 10.10 & Photoshop CC 2015 Legit license on official Apple Unibody MacBook hardware. Nothing is pirated or on a hackintosh.

Problem occurred after both OS X & Adobe Creative Cloud updated. My entire work area (everything between rulers & scroll bars) is black. I know it's not just the canvas bounds. As I have zoomed out to the point the image should be nearly invisible & everything is still black. The color picker tool & swatches panel also falter.

Photoshop Screenshot

Tried each Drawing Mode setting, disabling use of graphics card, multiple memory usage allowances, moving the cache/scratch to SSD, tried each image mode setting & bit depth. Also manually did a system wide driver(kext) update. No difference has been made, doesn't matter what settings are used.

After trying everything else I can think of I uninstalled all 3rd party utilities & drivers. Slowly introducing them back into the system. I believe the problem is linked with the driver for my tablet.

Uninstalling the driver resolves the graphics issue, reinstalling restores. So great right, just uninstall the driver & use Apple's stock tablet driver. Unfortunately I lose use of the shortcut keys on the tablet edge, pressure sensitivity settings & proper multi-display support. Though the stock driver for OS X may work. It's not as functional as the official Monoprice driver which used to work in Photoshop & still does in all other software.

What I would like to know is how common a problem this is. I've found some scattered information around the internet about mouse/pointer drivers causing black screen issues. Mostly for Windows/Direct X & not OS X mind you. At any rate none of the "fixes" mentioned work for my tablet & setup.

For the time being I've contacted Monoprice & gone back to stock Apple driver for Photoshop & reinstall when texturing inside of Blender. I would greatly appreciate if anyone had any insight they could share.

If there is simply nothing left to do. Are there any recommendations for a different tablet? One that is known to work still.

~ Edit ~
Summary:
The issue is not display specific.
OpenGL settings do not have any affect.
Drawing Mode settings do not have any affect.
Memory Usage settings do not have any affect.
Image Mode & Bit Depth settings do not have any affect.
There is no flickering, workspace is solid black.
All drivers are now most recent versions.
There was no issue present prior to both Adobe CC & OS X system (not OS version) update.
f.lux has also been determined not to be the cause.
Removing the secondary and/or tertiary displays does not resolve the issue.
Only known solution is uninstalling tablet driver.
A bug report has been submitted to Monoprice.

5
  • To preempt the question. Yes I have tried turning it off & on again.
    – Terus
    Aug 6, 2015 at 4:05
  • Have you tried removing Photoshop preference file from ~/Library/Preferences/ ? It did work for me once. make sure you keep a copy of them just in case it doesn't work for you
    – clhy
    Aug 6, 2015 at 4:09
  • Thanks, that actually indirectly solved a different issue I had. Though the black workspace is still present if driver is installed. This is indeed quite a perplexing problem.
    – Terus
    Aug 6, 2015 at 4:23
  • Try with & without OpenGL switched on - see if one may be better. Preferences/Performance - uncheck or check Use Graphics Processor & relaunch.
    – Tetsujin
    Aug 6, 2015 at 7:01
  • @Tetsujin Thank you for the suggestion. However that was the first thing I tried, second mentioned in OP. The only noticeable difference was sluggish mouse response.
    – Terus
    Aug 8, 2015 at 23:58

2 Answers 2

1

The issue has been resolved with the most recent update from Adobe.

0

I have the same issue with a different tablet. This may seem a little odd. But try moving the Photoshop window to a different display. The black workspace issue is present when using the built-in display and at least 1 external.

2
  • This has no effect for me. The only cause I can find is with the tablet driver. Thank you though.
    – Terus
    Aug 6, 2015 at 4:01
  • That sounds very much like an openGL issue, @Thoric - quite often graphics cards don't fully support OGL on the secondary monitor port
    – Tetsujin
    Aug 7, 2015 at 7:32

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .