CS3 shapes & brushes disappeared

I'm using PS CS3 on a Mac with plenty of RAM. After a crash, I can no
longer access brush libraries and custom style libraries from the
Options Bar.

With the Brush tool selected, the down-arrow next to the brush size
picker still allows me to select brushes from the current library. But
the additional flyout menu is completely grayed-out. It's the one to
set viewing options, load libraries, reset brushes, etc.

With the Custom Shape tool selected, only the default shapes are
visible. The menu to load other shape libaries is grayed-out.

My brush and custom shape libraries are intact. I just can't access
them from Photoshop.

I've reset my preferences by starting up with cmd-opt-shift and that
hasn't solved the problem. Does anyone have a solution short of
re-installing Photoshop?

Tom Nelson

Tom Nelson wrote:
> I'm using PS CS3 on a Mac with plenty of RAM. After a crash, I can no
> longer access brush libraries and custom style libraries from the
> Options Bar.
>
> With the Brush tool selected, the down-arrow next to the brush size
> picker still allows me to select brushes from the current library. But
> the additional flyout menu is completely grayed-out. It's the one to
> set viewing options, load libraries, reset brushes, etc.
>
> With the Custom Shape tool selected, only the default shapes are
> visible. The menu to load other shape libaries is grayed-out.
>
> My brush and custom shape libraries are intact. I just can't access
> them from Photoshop.
>
> I've reset my preferences by starting up with cmd-opt-shift and that
> hasn't solved the problem. Does anyone have a solution short of
> re-installing Photoshop?
>
> Tom Nelson

From your description it seems like PS knows where to find the files
but the OS is not providing access. Is there a Mac utility that will
allow you for force a directory rebuild?