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Geology_Rocks101
Participating Frequently
January 28, 2011
Answered

Generic Error in Illustrator

  • January 28, 2011
  • 11 replies
  • 24862 views

Good morning all,

I've just sat down to continue working on my geological map as part of my dissertation which I had hoped to finish today.

I tried opening my map in Illustrator but first of all it tells me it couldn't find one of the linked files, which I thought I had embedded in the Illustrator file and this hasn't happened before. After clicking "ignore" (since this particular file isn't essential anymore) it comes up with a second error message saying;

"The file could not be read due to an error".

That is it. It does actually open the file in the background and I can see all of my work and it looks exactly the same as I left it yesterday evening, but after clicking "OK" it just closes the file leaving Illustrator blank.

This has also happened to my back up version, I backed everything up onto my hard drive last night before I left. This has not happened with any other Illustrator file, I was working on four yesterday, saved them all and backed them all up in the same way. They are all working fine.

This represents 14 hours of work (it was a long day) which may as well have been lost. I can't think what I would have done differently to this file that I haven't done to the other ones.

I have the version I saved Wednesday evening...but I managed to do quite a lot in 14 hours and since the dissertation is due in Monday I don't have the time to spend re-doing everything...

Any help would be most appreciated! If anyone knows how to rectify said error and get my work back and also what I may have done to trigger this error...?

Many thanks for taking the time to read this,

Sam

      This topic has been closed for replies.
      Correct answer GraphicsDood

      Just had this issue come up in a very large, multi-page document.  Figured out it was a corrupt JPEG that was placed that was causing the issue.  Had to open all the JPEGs in Photoshop until I found the corrupt file.  Was able to go back to the PSD version and resave the JPEG version as a different name.  Then when I opened the Illustrator file and it notified me that it couldn't find the missing file I just had to relink it to the newly saved JPEG.

      Saved me hours of work.  A little late to the thread but maybe it can help someone in the future.

      11 replies

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      Jacob Bugge
      Community Expert
      Jacob BuggeCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      January 28, 2011

      Sam,

      What happens if you create a new document and place the troublesome file in it?

      Or you may be able to open the PDF part in Acrobat, resave as PDF, and open that (surely, you have made a PDF compatible file which may be what you see).

      G
      Geology_Rocks101Author
      Participating Frequently
      January 28, 2011

      Thank you for the reply.

      I created a new file and tried to place the troublesome one...it came up with a number of options headed by "Place PDF" (but they are all saved as .ai files?), I've tried all of them and the same time it just places a blank box with a bit of typing tiled in the bottom left hand corner saying;

      "This is an Adobe Illustrator file saved without PDF content. To place or open this file it should be re-saved from Adobe Illustrator with the 'Create PDF compatible file' option turned on. This option is in the Illustrator Native Formation Options dialog box, which appears when saving an Illustrator file using the save as command".

      Curiously it seems to be the case that I have saved some files with the PDF compatible option and not others but I just saved everything with whatever was default.

      When I try and open it I can see the thumbnail of the file... 

        Jacob Bugge
        Community Expert
        Jacob BuggeCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        January 28, 2011

        Sam,

        What happens if you try to open it with Acrobat or Reader (I am afraid I know the (very short) answer)?

        At least normally, when a file is corrupt you will get a more definite error message to that effect, but you may try to follow the instructions here,

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

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

        and compare a copy of the troublesome file with a sound one, especially at the beginning; if you see any differences, you may try to replace different parts with corresponding parts from the sound one. Remember to work with a copy.

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