Why does Photoshop crash when downsampling large images?

Question

My Mac:
  Model Name: Mac Pro
  Model Identifier: MacPro3,1
  Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Xeon
  Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz
  Number of Processors: 2
  Total Number of Cores: 8
  L2 Cache (per Processor): 12 MB
  Memory: 14 GB
  OSX 10.9.5
Photoshop 2014.2.1
138 GB of dedicated swap space on a WD Velociraptor hard drive
3.21 GB PSB at 64800 x 8025 pixels.
Any effort to change the image size with resample enabled results in a crash.
I have tried:
- changing to a different scratch disk
- resampling a different file roughly the same size
- using my other computer running Windows 7
Has anyone else had this type of issue?
Thanks!
Matt

Answer 1

I created a test file with the exact dimensions of the file that has crashed Photoshop while downsampling. That test file can be downsampled with no problems, leading me to believe that their is something wrong with my files. After a lot of experimentation, I managed to fix the files by doing the following:
1. Duplicate all adjustment layers to a new file
2. In the original file, turn off the adjustment layers and then flatten the file (this is the critical step to avoiding a crash)
3 In the new file, duplicate the adjustment layers back to the original file.
The only difference in the end is that the image (layer 0) is now a background layer.
All the affected files can be downsampled in a single step after this is done.
Strange.