Known Participant

Question

[Bug Report] GPU Preview glitch with clipping masks and transparency (since Illustrator 29.6.0)

Forum|Forum|7 months ago
June 29, 2025
5 replies
5778 views

I've encountered a rendering issue starting in Illustrator 29.6.0, and it's still present in 29.6.1. Here's how to reproduce it:

Create a simple circle.
Create a simple rectangle.
Place the circle inside the rectangle using a clipping mask.
Apply any transparency to the circle (e.g., set opacity < 100%, or add a drop shadow).

Result:
The rendering becomes corrupted for any object positioned beneath the clipping mask (try placing a filled shape underneath to see the issue clearly).

Additional Notes:

The issue only appears in GPU Preview.
Switching to CPU Preview restores correct rendering.
Changing the color profile or color model did not resolve the issue.
Deleting Illustrator's preferences folder also had no effect.
Rolling back to Illustrator 29.5 resolves the issue.
Screenshot attached.

System:
iMac Retina 5K (27", 2017)
macOS Ventura 13.7.6

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Bug

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your patience and for all the detailed feedback shared throughout this thread. The product team has worked on this issue, and I'm happy to share that the fix is now available in the latest Illustrator Beta app, version 30.0.0.114.

Please try it and let us know if the GPU preview with clipping masks and transparency now works as expected.

Looking forward to hearing your observations.

Abhishek

A

AjlounyAuthor

Known Participant

Great news! It looks like the issue has been resolved in Illustrator Beta 30.

Thank you, Anubhav, and thanks to your team for the follow-up and fix!

S

smart_migrane9833

Participating Frequently

Hello!

I updated yesterday to 29.6.1. Illustrator, and previously created files' clipping masks stopped working properly.

Please see the attached screenshots:

The texture has a same shaped clipping mask as the yellow vector element.

The bounding box seems to knock out items behind it, creating a white area where there shouldn't be. The white area mimics the background, for example, the white artboard or the dark grey workspace.

I first thought this was a performance issue, but after having trouble posting this bug, I took another look, and this seems to happen if the clipped image/drawing has less than 100% opacity. Having lower opacity is crucial when I make patterns, such as the worn-out look in the attached screenshots.

I would attach the ai file itself, but for some reason, this website claims it as an error: "The attachment's (file name.ai) content type (application/postscript) does not match its file extension and has been removed."

OS specs:

iMac Ventura 13.7.6

3,4 GHz Quad-core Intel i5

Radeon Pro 570 4Gb

16Gb RAM

Thank you for your time,

Best,

Annukka (she/her)

Monika Gause

Community Expert

Does it get better when you go to View > Preview on CPU?

You can attach AI files here if you first change the file extension to .PDF

S

susannahl23429837

Participating Frequently

Hi all - I make clipping masks all the time, but today I had a wierd thing happen. When I clip a vector into a mask, I get a phantom white box. The box does not appear in the command Y preview and so far, it doesnt appear in my exported PDFs or PNGs. But it does make it hard to work because the image doesn't look right and blocks out the background. And ofc I'm concerned that the final print will have this issue. See the screenshots that I'm posting and let me know if any of you have seen this too.

Anubhav M

Community Manager

Hello @susannahl23429837,

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. Could you share more details, like the version of the OS/Illustrator installed, system info (CPU/GPU/Memory) and if Illustrator behaves this way with all files, so I can better assist you?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Anubhav

S

susannahl23429837

Participating Frequently

Thank you Ajlouny. I have an iMac, Retina 5k, 27 in 2017 (getting a new Mac Studio soon!). 4.2 Ghz Quad, Radeon Pro 575 4GB graphics card.

I've never seen this issue prior to today -- and I make clipping paths all the time. It does sound like that other person's issue is similar. Also, in the CPU view it is fine (I never knew about CPU view). The problem is in GPU view. And in Outline view the shape is not present.