Reproducible Long Standing Glitch (Actions or Color Engine?)

Question

I have a way to reproduce a serious Photoshop problem:
Quite a long time ago I created a simple little action that allows me to create a new document and paste in the contents of the clipboard in one easy motion.  I assigned a function key to it so it makes it very easy for me to start a Photoshop editing session on an image in my clipboard.
This always works fine with RGB images, which comprise the lion's share of what I work with.  However, occasionally I'll have a grayscale image in my clipboard and I'll try to use this action, and this causes Photoshop to fail in various ways, sometimes with error messages implying Adobe Color Engine problems, and sometimes locking it up entirely.
Chris Cox:  Perhaps your being able to reproduce this problem as listed below can help you find and fix a difficult bug.
The following is the source for the action.  You can download it from here.
Action: New Image from Clipboard
  Make
   New: document
   Preset:  “Clipboard”
  Paste
   Anti-alias: none
  Merge Layers
  Select Current History State
  Make snapshot
   From: Current History State
   Name:  “New”
   Using: full document
   With replace existing
  Select snapshot “New”
  Set History Brush Source
   To: Current History State
  Clear History States of current document
Here's how to reproduce the problem:
1.  Load the above "New Image from Clipboard" action into your Actions palette.
2.  Create a simple Grayscale image via File - New:
3.  Using the gradient tool, render a gradient across the image (I'm not sure this is necessary for the bug, but it helps you to see if the image is handled correctly in a later step).
4.  Select - All, then Edit - Copy.
5.  Now do File - New and create an RGB color image:
6.  Run my "New Image from Clipboard" action.
7.  If the step above completes, Try to paint something on the grayscale image if possible with the paintbrush.
After step 6 sometimes I'll see no image or a transparent background (as though the screen didn't update fully), sometimes a message will be emitted implying the grayscale image is being pasted into a color image.  Photoshop may lock up.  Sometimes it will actually appear to work, then step 7 will fail with an error message implying there's a problem with the Adobe Color Engine.
I can reproduce this problem at will with recent versions of Photoshop, though sometimes (rarely) it takes a few tries.
The weird part is that it will work fine if I go through the steps interactively.  Only when being run as an action on a grayscale image does it fail, and not always in the same way.
Just a wild guess, but since it seems to have to do with working with a color image in the interim, I'm thinking the actions engine in the File - New step is referencing uninitialized storage somewhere.
-Noel

Answer 1

Thanks, guys!  Good luck with the fix.  Even one less time accidentally having Photoshop go south when I'm creating a new image will be a blessing!
-Noel