Photoshop 2014.2 bug with duplicating layers in different doc

Question

Encountered an issue with Photoshop 2014.2 that occurs when I try to use some_basic_bitmap_layer.duplicate(some_layer_in_different_doc, ElementPlacement.PLACEAFTER). So this is code that has been pretty much unchanged for a year and works in CS6 and CC2012 and used to worked in CC2014.1. I use .duplicate() with docs and with layers inside same doc, but this is the one giving exception:
General Photoshop error occured. This functionality may not be available in this version of Photoshop.
- The object " <unknown> of layer 2" is not currently available
Another strange thing is is that in ESTK debugging the exception surfaced in a bit different places depending on factoring. I.e. before I added more detailed exception catching, it occured later in code. But this place is the only spot there is a layer named "layer 2". But gives me the feeling it's an internal state corruption
I'm guessing it might so specific no-one else will hit it, but I'd like to ask
- Any workarounds you can think of?
- Any ways to directly escalate it to Adobe given it's a new release. The general feedback site seems a waste of effort.
- Any way to downgrade (in a way that normal users could do it also) to 2014.1?

Answer 1

Thanks for the feedback!
The sample code is meant for the sample psd, so it's playing on assumption that there is only one layer that is not background, is visible and not locked. In the production code it's always inside a group so it's not a background and we check for locked. Visibility we don't check but it has not been the case in the PSDs we've replicated this in.
However playing with this I did manage to find a workaround: it's possible to duplicate the layer to beginning of doc and then move it like below.
try {
    var original_doc = app.activeDocument
    var  copy_doc = original_doc.duplicate("copy_doc", false) // duplicate original
    var export_doc = app.documents.add(original_doc.width, original_doc.height, original_doc.resolution, "export_doc", NewDocumentMode.RGB, DocumentFill.TRANSPARENT) // create empty export doc
    app.activeDocument = copy_doc   // select copy and first layer of it
    var layer = copy_doc.artLayers[0]
    // create dummy layer to merge to to flatten all vector & style data
    var tmp_layer =  copy_doc.artLayers.add()
    tmp_layer.move(layer, ElementPlacement.PLACEAFTER)
    layer = layer.merge()
    var duplicate = layer.duplicate (export_doc , ElementPlacement.PLACEATBEGINNING)
    app.activeDocument = export_doc
    var dummy = export_doc.artLayers.add()
    var target = export_doc.artLayers.add()
    duplicate.move(target, ElementPlacement.PLACEAFTER)
} catch (e) {
    alert(e.message)
} finally {
    copy_doc.close(SaveOptions.DONOTSAVECHANGES)
    export_doc.close(SaveOptions.DONOTSAVECHANGES)   
Also if I try to move duplicated layer without setting the active document Photoshop raises the same exception "The object " <unknown> of layer 2" is not currently available". I.e. it's hitting some internal issue instead of giving the right error of "not allowed to move layers in non-selected document". It kind of makes sense, i.e. duplicating to different doc after certain layer is a combo operation that duplicates to different doc and moves and they different requirements (what is the active doc).