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naiara-d
naiara-d
Participant
Mar 18, 2021 6:47 PM UTC
Question

Can't paste from Illustrator to Phototoshop

Suddenly when I try to copy anything from Illustrator to Photoshop (doesn't matter if I choose smart object, pixel or whatever) I get 3 minutes of spinning beach ball and a crash saying something like "can't complete paste command because the transfered area is empty or contains invalid data". 

I tried restarting my computer, it worked for a couple of times and then again, spinning beach ball. Very very annoying. 

I'm on a Mac OS Big Sur running on a Macbook Pro M1 chip. Don't know if it has anything to with that. 

Help! 

 

 

    15 replies

    Billie298606717djl
    Participating Frequently
    Feb 7, 2025 5:33 PM UTC

    My coworker found that unembedding the illustrator file in the links palette before copying will solve this glitch!!!

    Please let me know if this works for you.

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    Community Expert
    DaveJCummingsCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    Apr 27, 2021 1:00 PM UTC

    Its quite possible Illustrator hasn't been fully optimized yet for the M1 and Photoshop for the M1, though it has been optimized, there are some minor features that are missing.  I'm not entirely sure if that is one of them,  but its possible

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    noco
    Participant
    Apr 27, 2021 11:45 AM UTC

    Hi,

    Same problem here, but on Windows 10. 

    EPS file doesn't work, even changing preferences (vector, pixel, ...). 

     

    Thanks in advance !

    Thomas.

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    Monika Gause
    Community Expert
    Monika GauseCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    Apr 27, 2021 12:36 PM UTC

    Just this file or everything?

    If you create a new file and then a simple object in it - does that work?

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    noco
    Participant
    Apr 28, 2021 7:47 AM UTC

    Everything I paste doesn't work. In this file or one other. 

    I reset all preferences in photoshop, restart it and it works now. Don't know why...

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    bhop73
    Participating Frequently
    Apr 22, 2021 6:42 PM UTC

    I don't get any message. My photoshop just freezes and I have to restart my entire computer in order to open it again without it freezing. This isn't an issue with the computer i'm using either. I had an 8gb Mini M1 and had the problem on that computer. Then upgraded to an 16gb mini M1 and the exact same issue happens.

    The workaround I found is opening Photoshop with Rosetta, which makes me think it's just a compatability issue between the non-m1 native Illustrator and the m1 native Photoshop.

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      artistJB
      Participating Frequently
      Apr 22, 2021 9:11 PM UTC

      I agree that it seems like something to do with Pshop being native and Illustrator having to use Rosetta. Today, after Photoshop locked up, ohhhh, about 10 times as I tried various ways to bring in an Illustrator image (my old method did NOT work this time), it started locking up just opening the Pshop app (not trying to paste from Illustrator). I found a thread somewhere "out there" where people said to uninstall and reinstall photoshop. THAT seems to have worked...for now...

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        artistJB
        Participating Frequently
        Apr 13, 2021 4:24 PM UTC

        I had the same problem yesterday with a brand new Mac Mini M1 chip. I was trying to drag/drop an .ai file into Photoshop—which made it hang up (spinning beach ball). I got the error message: "Could not complete th Paste command because the clipboard data is empty or invalid." I tried the same file in an .eps format and it worked fine.

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          defaultgkv4cx5jjqrc
          Participant
          Apr 13, 2021 8:45 PM UTC

          Thanks artistJB. Copying content from the .ai file to a new one saved as .eps did let me copy the object from illustrator to photoshop with no errors.

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            defaultgkv4cx5jjqrc
            Participant
            Apr 13, 2021 4:17 PM UTC

            Having the same problem here (Mac Mini M1) execpt from the fact that I don't receive any error message, it just hangs up until I forcely quit it.

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            naiara-d
            naiara-dAuthor
            Participant
            Apr 13, 2021 4:33 PM UTC
            Yep, that happens sometimes too.
            They came up with a new version compatible with M1 but before I had to go
            back to an old photoshop version so I could get work done 😐
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            Community Expert
            DaveJCummingsCommunity Expert
            Community Expert
            Apr 27, 2021 12:58 PM UTC

            I know there's certain features not available yet.  That may be it

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