Images disappear when attempting to crop

Question

Hi Folks -
Here's the problem for today:
I've got a PC with 12 GB of memory, 9 allocated to PS CS5.
A Radeon 5970 video card with 2GB on-board memory.... although CS5 might only accept 1GB.
I open 30 files about 200K each, which would put total usage around 6 MB total... let's say 7MB to add a little buffer.
I could process the  first 10-12 files.  I was just cropping each image to what I needed to do. Nothing was standard, so an action or some other automated process was not a viable option.
After each crop, I would save the image and close it out.
About the 13-14 image, as I was starting to crop, the image would just disappear completely so I couldn't crop the image at all.
All video drivers and Adobe updates are installed.
I could close the program and restart it, and it worked fine. But I shouldn't have to do that.
Does anybody know what was happening?
Thanks,
Doug

Answer 1

It figures...  1 MINUTE after I wrote the above I've reproduced the problem.  Not by doing anything specific, just by using Photoshop as usual.
Here's a sequence showing what happens, using the Rectangular Marquee Selection Tool:
Positioning mouse, mouse button not pressed:
Press mouse button and drag:
Let up mouse button:
With this happening and us both running Catalyst 12.1, I'd have to put my money on an unexpected new resource problem in that version of the ATI drivers.
I have Photoshop in this state now and am continuing to experiment to see if I can get more info...  ALL THIS IS WITHOUT CLOSING PHOTOSHOP.  For example:
It happens with subsequently opened images.
It happens even if the current image is closed and another one is opened.
My own plug-in software that uses OpenGL comes up and runs as expected.  This tends to imply corruption inside Photoshop instead of a GPU resource shortage.
The problem persists if (without closing Photoshop) OpenGL is disabled and an image is opened (at which point it works okay), then OpenGL is re-enabled and an image is opened.
Switching an open document between windowed and tabbed view doesn't help.
Changing to an alternate workspace does not clear the problem.
The OpenGL brush resizing shortcuts (Shift - Right Click and drag) revert to non-OpenGL operation (i.e., just the outline is shown, no red overlay).
Animated zoom stops functioning; instead the marquee alone animates, reminiscent of non-OpenGL operation.
The clone tool Overlay DOES work, but it seems a bit jumpy, as though it's being rendered in GDI, not OpenGL.
At one point it seemed to start working again, but it was clear the image had dropped out of OpenGL altogether.  Closing and reopening it caused the reappearance of the problem, and animated zoom started working again after reopening the image.
The window seems to be replaced with the color from pixel(s) at the top edge.  Note this sequence, using a window that has no border showing around the image:
If it's at all helpful to you, Chris, Help - System Info reports this:
http://Noel.ProDigitalSoftware.com/ForumPosts/PSCS5SystemInfo.txt
-Noel