Participant

Question

Character panel issue

Forum|Forum|2 months ago
November 18, 2025
4 replies
73 views

Is anyone else having trouble with Illustrator's Character panel? When you search for a font, it won't let you select it with the cursor, and when you click, the panel closes. Let me know if there is any way to correct this

JPAXonline

Participant

this happens to me consistently with my macbook and 30.1, but only in the character window, not the contextual task bar or the context toolbar. i can only change fonts in the character window by typing and pressing enter, or using the arrow keys. i can’t drag the scroll bar or click the settings cog in the corner of the character window.
i have reset the panel, reset my workspace, cleared my cache, and uninstalled and did a fresh install. It is still doing the same thing. Now i’m in the Mac lab and one of the students is having the exact same issue with 30.1. I have not been able to find much info on other people experiencing this issue, but it is obviously replicable across devices.

A

Anubhav M

Community Manager

Hello @JPAXonline,

That does seem troubling. Would you mind trying to run Illustrator under a different administrator account (Windows / macOS) and checking if it helps? If the problem persists, kindly confirm the exact version of macOS installed and provide a short screen recording of the issue so we can investigate further.

Looking forward to hearing from you.
Anubhav

JPAXonline

Participant

Yes. Using sudo open to start the app as admin made no change. I still cannot use the font selector in the Type>Character window by clicking with a mouse. Any mouse click at any location within the menu makes the menu close. I can select the name of the font and use the arrow keys and then enter to select a different font, or type the name an press enter.
The contextual taskbar works as normal.
I have made a screenshot where you can see the behavior.
My MacOs version is Tahoe 26.2, and my computer is a MacBook Pro 14”, with an m3 chip and 18gb memory, but the students in the Mac Lab who are using m3 24gb iMacs with Tahoe 26.2 are experiencing the same issue with Illustrator 30.1. We rolled back to 2025 for now.

Illustrator30dot1.mov

Dave Creamer of IDEAS

Community Expert

I just tested on my Mac and Windows computers and did not have any problems.

Have you reset your preferences yet?

Is it with every font or just certain ones?

Windows 11 25H2 OS: 26200.7171; Illustrator v 30

Mac Tahoe 26.1; Illustrator v 30

David Creamer: Community Expert (ACI and ACE 1995-2023)

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hello @mejiamva,

I appreciate you bringing this to my attention. Could you please verify the version of Illustrator you are using along with the specifics of your operating system? I tested this on version 30.0 on Windows and was unable to replicate the problem; the Character panel and font selection functioned correctly on my side.

When you have the opportunity, please try signing out of the Creative Cloud app and then signing back in to initiate a fresh sync, and check if the Character panel operates properly. It may also be beneficial to clear your font cache and see if that helps. You can find the steps here: https://adobe.ly/4i2zimU

If the problem persists, consider manually clearing your Illustrator preferences and testing again. You can follow the guide here: https://adobe.ly/47ML15J and this tutorial: https://adobe.ly/48hBIed

Please keep me updated on the outcome.

Abhishek

Pariah Burke

Community Expert

Happens to me, too, but not all the time. I haven't yet identified a pattern to the behavior.

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