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May 15, 2018
Question

“Can’t open the illustration. Could not complete the requested operation”

  • May 15, 2018
  • 3 replies
  • 5814 views

Hi I need some help on this file. I’ve been working on it just fine for several weeks. Suddenly I went to open it and I got the message “Can’t open the illustration. Could not complete the requested operation” I have no idea what happened, it’s not a ridiculously large file (127mb) and I can’t really find any info online. I really need this file back, I already spent a long time working on it and would basically have to start again from scratch! Is there any way to recover it?

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    3 replies

    October 12, 2020

    Hi, I have been facing the same issue on adobe illustrator. I spent almost 3 months on a single illustrator file that had all the graphics for my company. It's almost 3 Gb in size and adobe simply shows a blank page to me and an error codes which states that they cant open the illustartion operation. I recently deleted few supporting images that were required for the graphic designs. Please let me know if this was the major reason or how can I recover the work that was spent on it.

    The whole work was for the academic writer company and now I am really frustrated over the loss of content that may affect my job anytime sooner or later !!

    Looking forward to a good response as its really annoying me.

    Jacob Bugge
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    May 15, 2018

    Alexandria,

    What Monika said, not least the final cruciality.

    If you need/wish to go further than the steps suggested (in the hope) to rescue more, you may have a look at the following:

    Here are some websites where you can see whether it can rescue the actual file, and if it can, you may pay for a subscription to have it done,

    http://www.recoverytoolbox.com/buy_illustrator.html

    http://markzware.com/adobe-software/fix-illustrator-file-unknown-error-occurred-pdf2dtp-file-recovery/

    http://www.illustrator.fixtoolbox.com/

    http://www.erepairillustrator.com/

    As far as I remember, the first one is for Win and the second one is for Mac, while the third and fourth one should be for both.

    Here are a few pages about struggling with it yourself:

    http://daxxter.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/how-to-recover-a-corrupted-illustrator-ai-file/

    http://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/kb/troubleshoot-damaged-illustrator-files.html

    http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/500/cpsid_50032.html

    http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/500/cpsid_50031.html

    http://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/kb/enable-content-recovery-mode-illustrator.html

    Monika Gause
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    May 15, 2018

    You don't have any backup?

    Previous version?

    First of all:

    - try and restart the comouter

    - move the file from network to local harddisk

    - uninstall the fonts you used

    - do you have a printer installed? If not: install one and turn it on

    If that does not work:

    - try and open the file n Acrobat

    If that does work:

    - create a new Illustrator file and place the corrupt file in it. A lot of stuff will be expanded or even missing.

    In any case: develop a backup strategy. Now.