158 Responses for "Photoshop Stuck on Hand Tool/icon"

1. Passerby December 17th, 2007 at 11:30 pm 1

   Strange, I’ve just experience the same exact “hand icon” problem and find it peculiar that you have also experienced this bug as well.

   After I saved everything, I closed CS2 and re-opened the program. Seeing that the hand-icon was still there, I opened a different Adobe program. Elements 2.0; Still the same. How odd, I thought, for all their programs to be temporarily suspended on the hand icon. So I thought maybe Adobe was doing an all universal update, that could only explain it.

   I doubt a memory problem was to blame, since I’ve always ran video programs with Photoshop CS2 in the background.

   I didn’t need to restart my Windows, just closing and opening after a few minutes worked. About 3-5 minutes after. Thanks for this entry!

2. David December 18th, 2007 at 12:09 am 2

   Yes, this is very odd. Almost like “just fool around and it will fix itself” problem sometimes. I only have experienced this twice in different Photoshop versions in Windows XP.

3. Dylan Bennett December 19th, 2007 at 2:11 am 3

   Oh, man. I’ve had this exact same problem and figured out how to fix it. But I can’t remember what I did! Anyway, I’ll let you know if I ever figure it out again. It is fixable. I seem to recall it was a keyboard thing.

4. anandc December 20th, 2007 at 2:49 pm 4

   Strange, I googled for the same problem and landed up here. Edit>Preferences>Reset all warning dialogs solved the problem for me. Thanks!

5. Amy Nap. December 21st, 2007 at 3:25 am 5

   Hey, thanks for posting this. I was starting to flip out for a moment. Everything seems to be working fine.
   What I find weird, is the fact we’re all a couple days from each other.

6. Craig December 21st, 2007 at 10:19 pm 6

   yeah so its saturday 22 dec 07, and i have just got this error.

   two times ive closed the program , have not yet rebooted. the machine has been running for a few days constant, win xp - other programs running fine. using cinema4d at the same time,
   the fix is as follows, goto Edit > Preferences . Reset all warning dialogs - as per anandc’s suggestion.

   worked immediately for me. thanks!

7. Will December 24th, 2007 at 4:26 pm 7

   Heh. Add me to the list of people who hit this bug recently. The warning dialog solution worked. Odd, but I’m grateful for a solution. It seems to happen to me when I’ve got CS3 open and then switch to another application for a while. Not sure which and not sure in what way, but it’s peculiar.

8. shaymein December 25th, 2007 at 6:58 pm 8

   same problem here…. i was working with photoshop cs2 this morning and now i just opened it and nothing but the hand tool… the resetting of all warning dialogs worked for me too… thanks craig!

9. TheNossinator December 28th, 2007 at 3:47 am 9

   Just hit the space bar, that worked for me!
   (This was after I closed and re-opened the program, and I use CS3)

   Good luck!

10. Mahendra December 29th, 2007 at 4:01 am 10

    hey thanks anandc and craig, u ppl saved me too. its strange i did not notice this error before in last at least 7 or 8 years and suddenly appeared today. May be its windows vista this time (upgraded to vista just 2 days before)

    To be more specific the command is

    Edit >> Preferences >> General >> Reset all warning Dialogues.

    We can quickly get the window by CTRL-K too.

    Mahendra

11. Paul December 29th, 2007 at 7:40 am 11

    Ha I just experienced the same problem, but mine fixed itself while I was on here looking for the solution.
    Oh the irony

12. Lee December 30th, 2007 at 1:41 pm 12

    I started getting this problem on my home pc a few months ago using Photoshop 7 on XP,it seemed to do it after using Dreamweaver.And I have now started getting it on my new laptop using Vista.I have been restarting my pc to reset it,but I’ll now try the above solution,thanks.

13. yook January 3rd, 2008 at 1:16 pm 13

    thanks for this post, resetting my menus fixed it for me.

14. james January 4th, 2008 at 12:58 am 14

    Hey,
    I tried clearing my pref… it worked the first time but then the problem occured again. The fix didnt work the second time.

    I tried hitting the space bar as TheNossinator said and it fixed the issue.

15. conor January 6th, 2008 at 2:40 pm 15

    yep, space bar did the trick fine for me and im using photoshop 7

    thaaanks for the help

16. Imran January 7th, 2008 at 2:56 pm 16

    Yup, go for the spacebar - works me everytime.

    Spent ages looking for Photoshop cs3 hand stuck on google, thank the goblins that u lot posted your answers in this forum

17. deimos January 8th, 2008 at 1:17 am 17

    when i opened cs2 the first time today, the updater thing came up. that may be why it happened to all of us today. did you all have the updater too? anyway, the pref thing worked for me so its all good i guess.

18. Mike January 8th, 2008 at 1:54 pm 18

    This just happened to me today in CS2 - I reloaded photoshop and had the same issue… went to read this post and by the time I was half way through the comments, it was magically working again.

19. dev47 January 10th, 2008 at 9:34 pm 19

    CS3: Edit>Preferences>Reset all warning dialogs worked for me.

20. Robert January 11th, 2008 at 1:10 am 20

    HAHAHA

    It was not working with me for days. Then I decided to search on the web for the solution. I got here, read the ideas, collapsed Firefox, focused Photoshop, and guess what? the tool previously selected was active now.
    strange! Yet, I did not press the space bar.

21. indigo78 January 11th, 2008 at 11:56 am 21

    “hit the space bar” solved the problem. THX man!

22. cubed January 11th, 2008 at 5:55 pm 22

    always get this problem. so far the only way to fix it was to do the CTRL + ALT + SHIFT at startup and delete prefs. I’ll try the quicker spacebar or reset warning dialogs next time.

    Adobe need to fix this bug, its so annoying. Fireworks does it too sometimes, but instead it gets stuck on a crosshair.

23. natashaj January 12th, 2008 at 8:16 pm 23

    Same issue - thanks for the post!

    Edit>Preferences>Reset all warning dialogs

    Worked for me - cheers

24. Sorano January 12th, 2008 at 8:31 pm 24

    I’ve just installed CS3 and I’ve got the same problem quite a few times in a row! At first I also restarted, but now the hand goes away if I just press the SPACE BAR. Restarting would be a pain, since I’m experiencing this bug almost every time I switch between tools! argh.. luckily the SPACE BAR is a quick and easy fix

25. Markito January 14th, 2008 at 8:35 am 25

    Hey everyone,

    I just started adobe photoshop CS this morning and found that my cursor was stuck on the hand. By the time I got around to the middle posts that said to clear the preferences - the cursor magically fixed itself. Maybe it knew I was reading this!

    Boomshakalaka

26. Program-00X January 15th, 2008 at 2:47 pm 26

    It’s really funny, I got stuck with the hand tool, and as soon as I visit this site, it was all normal again. Magic~

    I guess it’s a minor Photoshop bug. o_O

27. Luc January 15th, 2008 at 4:08 pm 27

    Wow thanks for posting… I just had this happen for the first time in probably 10 years (on an older version of Photoshop)! Closed and restarted and it fixed it right up!

    Thanks! I’m off to look at the rest of your blog!

28. nancy January 16th, 2008 at 12:16 am 28

    i get the same problem from time to time .. the way i usually fix it is weird. i just simply google for a solution and somehow the brushes are working again. its almost like PS like to mess with me LOL!

29. carl January 17th, 2008 at 8:59 pm 29

    Thank you guys for helping! I just encountered the problem with the hand tool on psCS3, and the “reset all warnings” worked perfectly.

    So glad there is such a large base of CS3 users out there!

30. nevermind1534 January 17th, 2008 at 9:13 pm 30

    Thank you. I got this problem in CS3. I guess it just had to sit for a few minutes.

31. eC January 23rd, 2008 at 1:22 pm 31

    Same probleme here…
    On a first forum it said to go change the memory settings in EDIT -> Preferences. It worked but then did it again.

    So I restarted my computer, made sure nothing else but photoshop was opened and PAF! Same problem…

    Ahh I wish I found this post before the first one I read… cause I’m reinstalling photoshop now hehe

    If ever I have a problem again, i’ll check out the RESET ALL WARNINGS option

    Thx a lot for your help/comment guys

32. Jorge January 23rd, 2008 at 5:00 pm 32

    i got this today so i did what someone said further up edit>preferences and when i got to that i realised that the hand had already gone and changed into a magnifying galss before i resetted any thing

33. Derek January 24th, 2008 at 2:31 am 33

    Spacebar worked for me. Thanx!

34. Joe January 24th, 2008 at 10:33 am 34

    i bet you just had something leaning on your spacebar. thats the only reason photoshop would act like that.

35. Kyouryuu January 26th, 2008 at 6:57 pm 35

    Just to throw my two cents in, yeah, going Edit -> Preferences -> Reset All Warning Dialogs worked for me. I love CS3, but this is one odd quirk I’ve had twice now. The other is that if I’m loading other programs when I’m loading Photoshop, the pressure sensitivity of my tablet get hosed. >_>

    Thanks for your post!

36. Untitled January 29th, 2008 at 12:02 am 36

    I just had encountered the problem, however it seems to have fixed itself by the time I finished looking up how to solve it.

    Strange…

37. random googler February 2nd, 2008 at 3:56 pm 37

    I just came across this bug. Solved it by simply restarting PS (browse was still open) and opening up preferences before opening any documents. I don’t know, lol.

38. chris February 9th, 2008 at 8:56 am 38

    I’ve had this problem for 30 mins now, thinking about reinstalling if its not back to normal soon.

39. chris February 9th, 2008 at 8:58 am 39

    problem fixed itself while posting here also!

40. Mike Bishop February 11th, 2008 at 3:45 am 40

    Same here, been having this problem for a while and it always seems to fix it’s self but i’ll keep all these fixes in mind

41. Grahame February 11th, 2008 at 3:55 pm 41

    Yep, glad I found this site! I fixed it with the ‘Reset all tools’ preference option. Magic.

42. Lucas February 12th, 2008 at 3:35 pm 42

    omg, thank you soo much. I googled “photoshop cs not working hand” and this was the first link. haha. Solved problem right away!

    Edit–>Preferences–>General…—>”Reset all warning dialogs”

43. scott February 14th, 2008 at 2:04 am 43

    unfortunately this would be the fourth time i’ve had this and it’s not going anywhere.

    it started when i turned on my grid with ctrl-H, it’s the only running program, spacebar no good, reset all warnings did nothing. reset all tools did nothing. i don’t want to delete my preferences again.

44. scott February 14th, 2008 at 2:07 am 44

    alright it’s magically started working again. have i ever told you guys how much i hate software

45. Craig February 15th, 2008 at 6:39 pm 45

    yeah spacebar doesnt always work. spacebar by default changes to the hand tool when held down, and reverts to previous tool used when depressed., when the software is working correctly that is! - this happened again to me today, on a fresh reboot, and no other memory intensive programs running. - almost 2 months later,
    strange that clearing my settings as i noted above earlier did not fix it for me this time. it seems to be a slowdown of response and comes back to life on its own when giving another program focus for enough time.

    has anyone come to a closer suggestion of the actual cause?

    adobe probably dont know either.

46. AJ February 19th, 2008 at 8:54 am 46

    Yep me too all I had was the hand tool. After trying everything, even re-installing program I cleared my windows memory, and it fixed the problem right away.. Don’t mess with everything.. Just clear your cache files and stuff like that.
    Good Luck

47. shawn February 19th, 2008 at 10:36 pm 47

    I just pressed the caps lock and it went away.

48. Tom February 22nd, 2008 at 2:14 pm 48

    Teehee google landed me here too.. myn jst fixed its self randomly as i was reading these comments.. i think tht rather weird..

49. Jorge February 22nd, 2008 at 3:04 pm 49

    I don’t know if this fixed the issue for me, but it started working again after I created a new document in PS CS3.

50. Nick February 23rd, 2008 at 11:57 pm 50

    Happened to me and clearing the stuff worked. it’s so weird

51. Aaron February 25th, 2008 at 11:41 am 51

    Happened to me and restarting worked. This is definitely a pretty retarded bug that should be fixed.

52. Bruno February 25th, 2008 at 9:38 pm 52

    This site is great !! I experienced the problem last week and now again. I really wanted to fix it so I found this blog and as I’m reading all this and came back to CS3, it’s working again !!! And I didn’t do anything ! Man this is the weirdest thing ever…

    I’ll just bookmark this and come back here each time I have a problem

53. Sevn February 26th, 2008 at 10:31 am 53

    Same Problem:

    I toggled NUM LOCKS and that worked for me.

    Thanks!

54. sesisco February 29th, 2008 at 11:09 am 54

    Edit > Preferences . Reset all warning dialogs WORKED!

55. Woofie134 March 2nd, 2008 at 3:39 am 55

    i got it in all programs its just comes off and then all of a sudden back on again!

56. sachinKT March 11th, 2008 at 1:34 pm 56

    i stuck on it but Edit > Preferences >Reset all warning dialogs solved the problem for me. Thanks!

57. Softclean March 13th, 2008 at 1:54 pm 57

    The first time this error occured, i reinstalled PhotoShop and the error gone. Today, it happened again and i found this blog talking about the problem.

    After reading and without doing nothing, the cursor back to normal again. It sounds odd… Just wait some time, and PhotoShop will be normal again.

58. AnotherAnnoyed March 22nd, 2008 at 11:02 am 58

    This started happening to me only the last few days.
    Funny enough I was using Manga Studio when it first happened. Restarting the application didn’t fix it but rebooting did. Then it happened again. I switched to CS3 and the same problem was happening there. No other tool icon except hand was activatable.
    Decided to do a search and found this page.
    I think the spacebar fixed it so thanks.

59. sarah March 22nd, 2008 at 11:29 am 59

    omg thanks you so much, reset all the dialogue boxes and it worked straightway!!

    you a star!

60. soryn4u March 23rd, 2008 at 12:14 pm 60

    thanks man… usefulll post…. i have today same erorr …today i get this eroor and clear preferences… and my photoshop work fine.. now.

61. mhudsoncr March 23rd, 2008 at 6:19 pm 61

    I don’t know if it was the combination of many of the suggestions that you guys posted that worked but i tried everything and didn’t work until I tried “TheNossinator” suggestion of hitting the spacebar. Hope this helps you too.

    I am working with CS2

62. will March 24th, 2008 at 2:21 pm 62

    fixed its self while reading this post, grrr

63. Josh March 24th, 2008 at 3:40 pm 63

    Yup. Spent 10 minutes searching and came back to it solved. weird.

64. Tom March 25th, 2008 at 8:14 pm 64

    Wow! I had the exact same problem!

    When I opened up CS3 all I saw was the hand icon, and restarting photoshop did nothing. So then I googled “photoshop stuck on hand tool” and did want you said by resetting my workspace and now everything works great.

    Before I found a solution I did open up illustrator and it worked fine, the problem was only in photoshop.

    Thanks!

65. Mark March 26th, 2008 at 8:08 am 65

    Thanks a lot for this!
    I reset my window location after a restart didn’t fix it, all better now.
    In your debt.

66. Sofia March 27th, 2008 at 12:05 pm 66

    First link on google for me too… did the preferences reset and it worked straight away. Thanks!

67. Karl uk March 28th, 2008 at 1:32 pm 67

    Googled for a answer and found this site. thx

68. bubu March 29th, 2008 at 4:19 am 68

    Thank god for this post!!!! Went nuts with this same cursor problem. Of course it has to happen when something is due and you spend half the night.

    To all that responded, thanks for the various solutions.

    Cheers!

69. Brandon April 1st, 2008 at 8:17 pm 69

    I couldn’t believe it when Photoshop was stuck on the hand tool when I opened it today. Good thing there’s Google.

    Restarting Photoshop CS3 didn’t fix the problem - switching off the “Zoom with Mouse Wheel” setting in the Preferences did the trick immediately. Turned it back on and its still all good.

    Weird!

70. Scott April 4th, 2008 at 9:37 pm 70

    I just hit this problem too. I tried closing PS and restarting it. I did this at the same time as I was opening Illustrator. When PS opened i was still the same - just a hand icon. I found this thread and then clicke on Illustrator to open the window to see if it was the same thing in that program. It was fine. Then, when I went back to PS, it was back to normal! Wierd!?

71. Ira April 8th, 2008 at 12:46 am 71

    Thanks for the tip David! Your procedure worked without a problem for Adobe PhotoShop Elements 2.0

72. Lee April 8th, 2008 at 8:52 pm 72

    Thanks!

    Regularly encounter this problem with CS2 & CS3 when running Firefox 2.0… perhaps they’re related.

73. FireTrick April 10th, 2008 at 5:47 am 73

    The problem is in the “space bar” key on the keyboard. Somehow it’s slightly pressed, maybe the keyboard is getting some dust, I don’t know. Try to click once or twice on the space bar and it will solve the problem.

74. eyatos April 13th, 2008 at 8:13 am 74

    hi ppl really thank u for the help even i didnt try it yet but it seems that it work for all :
    the edit function
    and the space barr
    thanks u really were helpful

75. james April 14th, 2008 at 3:26 pm 75

    this helped me out big time even though it did’nt! hehe i read down loads of entires, then clicked back to cs3 and it had fixed itself… yey!

76. Silva Sky April 20th, 2008 at 6:40 pm 76

    Hey thanks for help! I was starting to go a bit nuts there… lol. first time it’s ever happened to me. Pretty much the same for me as it was for James. Read the reviews and went back and it’s working…

77. PK April 22nd, 2008 at 4:01 pm 77

    Yeah.. thanks god for this forum.. or i would seriusly have thrown my computer out the window!!! LOL.. rest in preferences fixed it fine!!! THANKS!

78. RezBoyz April 25th, 2008 at 2:16 am 78

    Spooky…
    Mine fixed also after reading some of this forum, too…
    ?thanks?

79. dejavu April 25th, 2008 at 1:38 pm 79

    i had the same problem a while ago, i was watching a photoshop tutorial in youtube while it happened.

    well, i had youtube in full screen, and i usually clicked the alt+tab key to switch from browser to photoshop.

    then it happend. so i closed photoshop and it was still the same.

    the fix was, while in photoshop, just press the alt key. it should return to normal.

    cheers!

80. Vince April 28th, 2008 at 2:47 am 80

    this just happened to me and it totally freaked me out. i thought it was because the ‘cracked’ nature of my copy of CS3 finally got me. the same thing happened to me too, though.. i just read down a couple of entries and it fixed itself, heh. wheewwwww….

81. Adam April 30th, 2008 at 6:52 pm 81

    I just had this problem and I found that when I kept re-opening photoshop the hand/scroll tool was always selected and i found by changing it to another tool before opening a file fixed the problem.

82. Adam April 30th, 2008 at 7:01 pm 82

    it came back!! but i tried reseting warning dialogs and that worked nicely.

83. Joe May 1st, 2008 at 11:38 pm 83

    Thanks! Very Helpful!

84. Melanie May 2nd, 2008 at 3:08 pm 84

    Thanks for the post and thanks to the commenters! I Googled this problem and ended up here. anandc’s comment fixed it for me:

    Edit>Preferences>Reset all warning dialogs

85. Shane Smith May 5th, 2008 at 12:41 pm 85

    Thank you! This bug has been driving me crazy!

86. P Ware May 6th, 2008 at 7:19 am 86

    My daughter experienced this same problem whilst using You Tube to watch photoshop videos, we ended up having to re-boot the PC to clear it as I hadn’t had time to search for a solution. Will definitely try what’s been suggested here to see if it works for us. Do Adobe know what causes it? We are using WinXP and CS2 by the way.

87. Varghjärta May 9th, 2008 at 11:09 am 87

    Waah! Add me to the list of ppl getting this bug. I was flipping out here for a moment, I restarted CS3 about 5 times, did not help. I started Adobe Flash CS3 and then I read more of these comments and was about to try the spacebar-trick. But at that time I started CS3 it was back to normal again :/… lol

88. adobestaff May 17th, 2008 at 11:51 pm 88

    JUST HIT THE SPACEBAR!!!!!

89. witegots May 18th, 2008 at 1:02 pm 89

    Heh. Thank you everyone!

    As I was reading this forum, I noticed a few people mentioned that the problem fixes itself after a few minutes. By the time I returned to Photoshop to try resetting my preferences, the problem HAD indeed fixed itself!

90. Anne May 18th, 2008 at 5:56 pm 90

    Hi Yeah, this is weird: I’ve gotten it a few times using CS3 apps. The frustrating thing is that Adobe doesn’t acknowledge it’s happening, either in its own FAQ’s or help files, or in posts to its online forums. So thanks for the advice and support. I was beginning to feel I must be the only one, as if I’d stepped into a dimension not of sight or sound…but of the HAND tool!

91. a May 20th, 2008 at 5:42 pm 91

    “Heh. Thank you everyone!

    As I was reading this forum, I noticed a few people mentioned that the problem fixes itself after a few minutes. By the time I returned to Photoshop to try resetting my preferences, the problem HAD indeed fixed itself!

    the same EXACT thing just happened to me! Thats freaking hilarious!

92. skeleton stellar May 23rd, 2008 at 8:41 pm 92

    reset window workspace to default - problem solved. Using CS2

93. LadyA May 24th, 2008 at 11:51 am 93

    Great thread. I experienced this for the first time today in CS3 whilst having a video running in the background.

    Resetting the menus did absolutely nothing, but hitting space bar solved it instantly. Much easier. Thanks.

94. Pat Welborn May 26th, 2008 at 9:44 pm 94

    What Anandc said above:

    “Edit > Preferences > Reset all warning dialogs”

    Worked for me.

95. chris May 29th, 2008 at 6:16 pm 95

    today i had the same problem, and the easiest way to solve it was to press one key (the any key and the problem was solved.

96. Mary May 29th, 2008 at 8:33 pm 96

    Had the exact same issue. Googled for that “hand problem” and landed up here. By the time I finished reading the thread, the problem was solved by itself. Weird bug.

97. garrett May 30th, 2008 at 11:37 pm 97

    Yes, all you do is go to edit, preferences, general and click on “reset all warning dialogues”

    Done deal

98. Lorian June 3rd, 2008 at 9:44 am 98

    I almost got crazy too when it happened to me. A big thank you for these posts and all the comments !

    According to what i read here, this seem to happen on many adobe products (It started with Fireworks in my case). The code used by Adobe/Macromedia for the handtool, is likely to have been reused in all these diverse applications, hence the reproducing of this minor bug throughout them. In my case, i have been able to trigger this bug at will when doing the following :

    - switched to handtool in fireworks CS3 9.0.0.1188. It’s a portable custom build, but this is probably not incidental)
    - switching application to browser IE 7.0.5730.13 (in my case i had several open tabs with pages full of flash, and in particular the Adobe TV website with a video running in a flash player 9)
    - maximize running video to fullscreen viewing

    Note that switching to browser with running video does nothing special , however if i maximize the video to view it in full screen and then go back to fireworks, then the handtool is frozen, the same as you guys.

    Using the temporary handtool shortcut to pan (that is pressing the spacebar) works fine to revert back everytime for me. I did not even have to try the resetting of preferences/warnings.

    Note also that, I work on a not so recent computer under XP SP2, with only 2.6Ghz (AMD Athlon 64) and 1.75Mb of DDR2. I had Flash CS3, Photoshop CS3, Photoshop Help, Emule (downloading and uploading a lot), AVG Antivirus and quite a few other background applications and services all running at the same time. Physical memory was at most used to up to 80% and around 50% for paginated memory (wild guess). Processor was used up to about 10 to 50% at the most. I do not believe that computer resources are an issue here.

    Note also that i have been able to reproduce exactly the same bug with exactly the same process under Photoshop CS3 but I was not able to reproduce it with Flash CS3.

    My guess, with my very limited knowledge is that there might be a bug in the handtool code functions (could flash use a different code for the handtool ? i would assume so) that does not take back the focus properly after fullscreen viewing or something of the like…

    Anyway, it does not matter, you all have a simple work around now (pressing the spacebar works perfectly)
    I just wonder if Adobe is aware of this (i would tend to suppose so).

    Anybody filed a bug report ?
    Can you guys reproduce the same thing doing what i did ?
    There are indeed a lot of other things to test and counter-test, but i just couldn’t bother (have some work to do, and as someone said above, this always happens when work is due )

    Cheers everybody.

99. Lorian June 3rd, 2008 at 9:51 am 99

    As a side note , i arrived here after googling the keywords “bug handtool fireworks”.

    I did not know this blog but it seems quite interesting. I bookmarked it. Proof that bugs can also be useful

100. Thoehn June 3rd, 2008 at 9:51 am 100

     Seems funny to me, but I had this problem this morning, so I googled ‘photoshop stuck on hand tool’ and ended up here within seconds. But by the time I’d returned to my minimized CS3, it was back to normal on its own. Strange.

101. grean June 4th, 2008 at 9:42 am 101

     CS3: Edit>Preferences>Reset all warning dialogs worked for me too! thank you for posting this, I was flipping out thinking I had done something wrong to my precious self portrait…

     thanks again!

102. John Bomb June 7th, 2008 at 3:23 pm 102

     Reset all warning dialogues. worked only once for me. weird?…

103. Alex June 8th, 2008 at 4:51 am 103

     It works great! (Ctrl+G - Reset all…)

104. frederik June 8th, 2008 at 5:41 am 104

     thanks for this thread! just experienced the same problem and already started paicking untill I found the solution here.

105. pancake house June 9th, 2008 at 6:58 pm 105

     Damn, a lot of people have had this problem, apparently. Add me to the list. It fixed itself while I was reading this post, actually. Interesting…

106. Mr. Sain June 17th, 2008 at 12:36 am 106

     Had this happen today (and one other time in the past year).

     Started thinking about it. Is this a PC only thing, or are some of you Mac users? In Win pressing the space bar is like pressing the default button in a dialog box.

     Perhaps there is a bug in Photoshop (CS3 & CS2) where a dialog box is not displayed but needs to be acknowledged? Like pressing an OK button for some bizarre reason??? It’s been around for a couple generations now. Perhaps it’s a feature now. That’s how Bill does it in Win.

107. kj June 17th, 2008 at 5:25 am 107

     Bizarre. Today I had this problem in both Photoshop CS2 and Illustrator CS3 simultaneously, and restarting both programs multiple times did not fix it. Finally, after having tried multiple solutions, I tried increasing the amount of ram available to PS, and after one final restart it was okay.

     I’m guessing that still nobody knows why this happens though, huh?

108. stevanny June 17th, 2008 at 9:34 am 108

     oh my goodness, thank god for the internet!! i was freaking about it when it happened to me but the spacebar trick really did work. thank you soooooooooooo much =)

109. THANK YOU June 18th, 2008 at 4:38 pm 109

     thanks dude. i am new and was trying to learn how to do stuff. i was folowwing a tutorial on u tube and i was like “damn it. what did i do” but thes is the first result when i tryped photoshop cs2 hand tool so i got it working again. thats guys. ill come back here for anything else:] very helpful

110. I think Photoshop is phukced! Help! June 20th, 2008 at 9:37 am 110

     [...] a read of this and the comments after. Try pressing the spacebar and see if that helps. __________________ Do [...]

111. Mike June 21st, 2008 at 12:11 am 111

     Space Bar fixed it for me!

112. Tony R June 22nd, 2008 at 7:58 am 112

     v. strange, my CS3 also fixed itself while reading these messages!

     but in the meantime I had also typed a short email to someone, and had subsequently pressed the space bar during writing, so that probably fixed it.

113. vlb June 23rd, 2008 at 7:13 pm 113

     In my case photoshop cs3 freeses when I open http://www.surfthechannel.com

     to saw a movie!

114. alexander June 24th, 2008 at 12:39 pm 114

     I restarted photoshop cs3, still nothing. I left photoshop open the second time and a few minutes of reading this sites comments seemed to solve everything.

     apparently the solution is to wait it out?

115. cypherpunk June 25th, 2008 at 3:06 pm 115

     Had this problem off and on since a few months back. Every time I come to this forum and then switch back to photoshop and the problem goes away ha ha.

116. mark July 1st, 2008 at 2:28 pm 116

     Just thought I’d add myself to the list of users who have expirenced this problem.
     I’ve had this multiple times, and it’s so frustrating, luckily the edit, preferences, reset all warning dialogs appears to work for me, so thanks very much!

117. Krechevskoy July 2nd, 2008 at 3:47 am 117

     Ok, here is the quickest fix I’ve found.
     Simply turn “Edit in Quick Mode(Q)” On, then off again.

     idk why, but this has worked flawlessly every time.

118. Andy Jones July 6th, 2008 at 12:32 pm 118

     Well, I tried unchecking the various options in the Windows menu, as per the original post, and that solved it. Thanks!! I had a few VERY perplexed minutes there, until I found your thread!

119. randomman July 8th, 2008 at 12:23 am 119

     I just experienced the same problem.
     Cs2 = File>revert.
     fixed it for me.

120. Jim July 9th, 2008 at 7:00 pm 120

     Had this problem for a couple of day’s, Tried some of the sugestions here it seems to have help.
     Best Regards,
     Jim

121. Josh July 9th, 2008 at 10:28 pm 121

     So, I’m joining this 2 months too late, but I’m having almost the opposite problem. The “hand tool” space bar toggle isn’t working at all for me across all of cs2, and neither is holding down shift to rotate things at 45 degree angles.

     I’ve tried resetting warning dialogues, mucking around in keyboard shortcuts, etc. But I can’t find where adobe assigns the “toggle” shortcuts. Has anyone seen this before, or know of a solution?

122. mittparadox July 11th, 2008 at 7:46 am 122

     thanks a million. the resetting worked lika a charm.

123. losermind July 11th, 2008 at 8:26 pm 123

     thanx for the solution, it was driving me insane!!…

124. tor July 12th, 2008 at 2:03 pm 124

     Reading through this I see most of you are on windows.. Having the same problem on my Mac / Tiger / PS CS2. This is not the first time for me either.
     Rebooting twice didn’t do anything. But turning off all programs that autostart at login and rebooting, then opening up PS by itself first and it’s working again. Who knows.
     When this problem acts up I’m seeing it in Flash too! Must be an OS or Memory related error?

125. matt July 13th, 2008 at 1:33 am 125

     Thanks for this post…i thought i was imagining things

126. thoven July 14th, 2008 at 1:32 am 126

     Strange, I googled for the same problem and landed up here. Edit>Preferences>Reset all warning dialogs solved the problem for me. Thanks!

127. Sean July 14th, 2008 at 10:26 am 127

     Tapping the space bar fixed it.

128. Nick July 16th, 2008 at 4:05 pm 128

     I started having this problem and fixed it after I remembered that I had changed my UI Font Size to “Medium” under Preferences…I switched back to “Small” and my tool icons immediately started working…without restarting Photoshop.

129. Edward July 17th, 2008 at 6:15 pm 129

     I’ve experienced this problem as well. PS CS3 seems to get stuck in the hands icon mode when I work on this current project of mine consisting of a custom flash movie player I built, going into full screen mode.

     To fix it, I got to the Window menu in PS, and then load back my workspace (reloads all my settings of where my palettes are and menu settings). I believe this sort of like what other people have suggested above.

130. klrkill July 22nd, 2008 at 2:29 am 130

     thanx Anandc direct hit. you guys rock!

131. Lorian July 30th, 2008 at 10:40 am 131

     As i read your comments, and go back on that issue, i notice that many of you seem to trigger while working on a CS3/CS2 application (photoshop, fireworks, flash, etc) while you are playing videos at the same time, and for a part of you in full screen (i assume it is the case for people who also did not mention it ?) : some of you are watching video tutorials on Youtube, i was watching Adobe TV, another was watching a movie, etc… These movie players are often flash player-based.

     As i said, i suspect that the bug is related to focus being not properly given back to the CS application after being on the video full screen mode.

     I assume the common denominator is there. Can anyone coming here with this problem, try and do this, and see if they can reproduce the bug at will ? (run a video full screen in youtube or any other flash-based media player, and work on the CS application at the same).

     If this is the case, once we manage to see the exact bugpath, we could think of submitting it to adobe for correction in next versions.

     Thanks

132. Lorian July 30th, 2008 at 10:42 am 132

     (It would certainly be more useful than just “i reset the preferences and it worked fine for me” )

133. Mr Strogonof August 2nd, 2008 at 6:23 pm 133

     I tried resetting the preferences but no luck.

     The space bar solution worked perfectly! (thanks TheNossinator)

     I think Lorian above hit the nail on the head, I was watching bbc iplayer in the background when it first occured, but space works like a charm anyway.

134. bshkv August 3rd, 2008 at 5:08 am 134

     Thanks man, I have this problem with Photoshop CS sometimes and I forget how I do this but it continue work finely. Now I will remember this. Bye!

135. Fakir November 13th, 2008 at 10:46 am 135

     yup, bug still there in CS4
     damn!

136. Mike December 2nd, 2008 at 12:28 pm 136

     Just experienced this for the first time in cs2 - reset the warning dialogs in the preferences - everything is fine.

137. DJ December 5th, 2008 at 2:30 am 137

     Dude, that shit just happened to me and you pretty much just saved my life. Congratulations

138. zerboo December 5th, 2008 at 6:18 am 138

     Same issue - thanks for the post!

     Edit>Preferences>Reset all warning dialogs

     Worked for me - Thanks

139. Alex December 6th, 2008 at 8:53 pm 139

     Thank you so much! Resetting the warnings worked great in CS4. How random. I’ve been using photoshop since 1996 and this is the first time I’ve ever had this happen.

140. jill December 8th, 2008 at 7:45 am 140

     thanks Mike for having this page ~ i was having trouble with the hand tool. AND thank you EVERYONE for showing me how to fix it!!! =)

141. Patrik December 9th, 2008 at 11:26 pm 141

     yep still happening in CS4 master suite. extremely annoying when you’ve got a deadline coming up in less than an hour. reboot ultimately solved it for me. how perfect that it happens across multiple adobe apps!

142. omar December 11th, 2008 at 2:32 am 142

     wow, resetting warning dialogs worked for me too. must be it.

143. shiz0 December 11th, 2008 at 9:03 am 143

     Hey all…
     I just encountered that Bug and found this Page via google.
     For me it worked again just after restarting PS twice.
     Quite a strange Bug…

144. iGaG December 21st, 2008 at 6:03 pm 144

     guys, im at CS4 how to fix it?

145. Anders December 21st, 2008 at 8:37 pm 145

     LOL - I’ve just experienced the same problem myself, couple of minutes ago… I googled “stuck handtool cs4″ and got this page. I was reading some of the comments, and decided to try to reset the warning dialogs. But before I even tries it, guess what. When I minimized firefox and opened PS one more time, it decided to work! It kind of fixed itself
     Merry Xmas

146. Anders December 21st, 2008 at 9:01 pm 146

     I’ve just read Lorian’s comment, and yes I was viewing YouTube when I started PS. I closed youtube while I googled for an answer to my problem. And when I tried one more time (this time without youtube) it worked.

     Then I tried opening youtube again, resulting that my problem reappeared. I tried hitting space, and it worked.

     So if you got this problem, try hitting space bar. Or close youtube (or whatever you are watching) and open PS one more time. But space bar is an easier solution.

     Me happy, no more problemos (for so long)

147. Mr Old Skool December 23rd, 2008 at 3:59 pm 147

     I was having the same problem, googled it and ended up here, by the time I had read this and went back to try some of the solutions it was away!!

     Strange!!

148. Spike January 6th, 2009 at 11:20 pm 148

     Spacebar worked for me but why?

     And is it a toggle or a bug? Wonky stuff.

149. Rich January 7th, 2009 at 3:38 pm 149

     In my case it was simply toggling the f-lock on my keyboard. It affected every component of creative suite 3 on windows.

150. Adam January 7th, 2009 at 8:10 pm 150

     well i just got this problem now, i read this post and as soon as i went back into the window to try some solutions it fixed itself o.O

151. jimmy January 9th, 2009 at 10:01 am 151

     od, jsut experience it , 9th jan 09. solved itself nvm

152. A January 13th, 2009 at 1:13 am 152

     Just happened to me in CS v8 on Windows XP, opened up task manager as found something like “Adobelmp.exe” open, can’t remember exact spelling because I swatted it and, ta-da, no more stuck hand.

     Probably an Adobe update dialog box that was ghosting the program window, possibly related to opening a PDF file directly into Photoshop.

153. xamd404 January 14th, 2009 at 3:31 pm 153

     theres an option on the top left of photoshop, just under “file”, that indicated the hand tool, click it and change it to anything else. It just gets bugged on it thats all.

154. dc January 17th, 2009 at 11:43 pm 154

     thanks for the article. but like mr old skool and others above, when i went back to try the recommended fixes, it had resolved itself. maybe 3 minutes had passed?

     my situation was i’ve used photoshop since v5 release and never saw this problem until cs3 (which i’ve been using for something over a year) today.

     i had just captured a screenshot of a website to the Windows clipboard and pasted it in a new, transparent ps3 workspace.

     who knows? but thanks for the page.

155. Photoshop Helper January 25th, 2009 at 11:41 pm 155

     I might be able to help, If you keep getting the “Hand Tool” On Photoshop CS4, All you really have to do is, Go to the top of the Program, Click “Edit” go down to “Preferences”, Then go to “General”. After you do that, Exit “General” and go back to your project, and the “Hand Tool” will be gone.

     This is what I did to make it go away, and hey, It worked, Try it out.

156. Prita March 3rd, 2009 at 8:07 pm 156

     Thanks for the help.

157. CC March 5th, 2009 at 12:57 am 157

     I have had the same problem as well, at least 2 times.
     Both times I was searching “hand tool photoshop” (thus finding this page), but after I clicked on to this page I checked back into Photoshop and it was fixed.

     Must be one of those “do stuff and it will fix itself” things.

158. Asuka March 13th, 2009 at 11:54 am 158

     Great tips. I never had that problem until today. I tried retarting but that didn’t help….It was the menus…Cheers!