Layer palette not loading in PSP X9

[joshmeister]

Haven't used PSP X9 in a few days and when I loaded the program up today to work on some reskins for Train Sim, I noticed that my layer palette would not show up. I went into the palettes tab and made she that the "Layers" tab was selected (which it is.) but the actual palette will not load, but every other palette I use does. I can still use the layers tab at the top of the screen, but its very annoying and time consuming to have to go to the top of the screen instead of being able to use my Layers Palette. I'm using PSP X9 64 bit on windows 10 64 bit. This has never happened before and I'm not sure what to do other than just reinstall the program?

[Ken Berry]

Before reinstalling, you could try resetting it to default settings. Hold down the shift key when you click the desktop PSP icon. You will get a msg asking if you want to reset.

Make sure, though, that before doing this you save any Customized workspace you may have set up.

[joshmeister]

Hi there Ken, After trying your suggestion, that got everything to load the way it should. So I can learn a little more about this, how did resetting everything fix this issue?
I do hope that isn't a silly question.

-Josh

[Kathy_9]

Not a silly question; however, I can't give you a good explanation why. It just does and it seems to fix a multitude of issues so it's always good to try that first before uninstalling and reinstalling as Ken suggested. Think of it as a chiropractor for PSP as it puts things back where they belong.

[Forriner]

Among other things, PSP uses cache files and the Windows registry for a lot of things. Like the position and state (visible/hidden/docked etc) of palettes, for example. These things can get corrupted, for whatever reason. Restoring PSP to default state rewrites the registry and caches.

As for your first question, maybe menu File/Preferences/Reset preferences... would have helped. Among others there is an option "Make all toolbars/palettes visible and on screen".
All the options together look a bit like resetting the application to defaults, but you have to be able to start the program, while shift-start can be tried any time the program isn't running / doesn't run..