Adobe Bridge Keeps Running Out of Memory.

[John 2]

I built a new computer earlier this year primarily because I needed more RAM. The problem was that as I began to use layers in Photoshop, some of my images were becoming very large and my old machine (quad core 3.0GHZ and 8GB of RAM) began to struggle. Having doubled the memory to 16GBs and gone to a 3.5GHZ i7 quad core that problem has gone away however, I now get regular warnings that Bridge is running short of memory even when all I am doing is browsing thumbnails. The only other change has been an upgrade to CS6 in the face of the new CC marketing policy. It may just be my Photoshop set up this time around. Anyone any ideas. 16 GB of memory should be enough.

[Geoff F]

Just a thought, but what do you have in the way of available memory to use settings under the Adobe Preferences option.

If this is set too low, for use on an average computer, you may not be able to access your full potential memory.

[Shadowman]

If you are running multiple programs try shutting them down or even restarting the computer prior to using the application. Also, check to see what background programs are running after the restart. 16 GBs should be more than enough.

[Colin Southern]

Are you running 64 bit versions of both Windows and Photoshop?

If you go ctrl+shift+esc, what is the resources tab telling you?

I'm only running 8GB RAM on my home machine and never have these alerts.

[Davey]

I use it extensively on 12Gb win7 64 (home prem) and never had the error. Checking under task manager like Colin says should show how much it actually uses. If it keeps doing it try resetting bridge by holding Ctrl at startup and resetting pref, then workspaces. Make sure you put all your options back as they were obviously.

[John 2]

Thanks for all of your replies. Colin/Davey that was a good thought. If I'm to believe the resources monitor, physical memory use never gets beyond 17% (14% for the baseline system) and so something seems amiss. I will try resetting Bridge. If that doesn't work I might reload CS6 as a whole although that will be a pain because it means setting up all of my plugins. Thanks again.

[RustBeltRaw]

I struggled with this issue as well. In my case, it was because I'm on a 120GB SSD that was nearly full, and Bridge was running out of space for full-size previews.

Bridge has limits for memory (RAM) usage and allotted hard drive space. In my case, and probably yours, the hard drive space limit was the issue. From the factory, Bridge is set to only use about 1GB (IIRC) of hard drive space for the cache, where it stores full-size previews and other data. If that's full (relative to the factory limit setting), you would get this error. Try clearing the cache or increasing the allotted size (which I maxed out, but still clear regularly). You can access cache settings through (on Windows) Edit > Preferences > Cache, or (on Mac) Bridge > Preferences > Cache.

[John 2]

Thanks Lex. You may be right. I implemented Colin's and Davey's suggestions above and in the process cleared the cache. I t seems to be better but I haven't had a long session since to confirm the any improvement. Just in case, as you suggest I have also maxed out on the cache size because I have plenty of RAM and none of my disks are more than 25% full. Fingers crossed.

[RustBeltRaw]

That should take care of it. I try to keep about 30GB free with the cache maxed out, and I haven't had much trouble since. Other than a dying laptop taking forever to generate previews, but that's another issue (whose solution should arrive Thursday ). I regularly cull and edit 40GB batches of photos, so I'm pushing the program pretty hard. Looking forward to switching to Lightroom when I upgrade to Photoshop CC.