Help! Illustrator Error Message: "The file is not readable."

Question

I have a file I've been working in for a few weeks now, and out of the blue when I tried to open it, I got the following message: "The file is not readble." I tried restarting, opening on another computer, duplicating the file and moving from the server to my desktop, updating Illustrator and then restarting, and renaming as an .eps. The file is almost all linked .tiffs, and is not particularly large. I did have the Illustrator file open while making changes to some of the files in Photoshop, but I've never had an issue with that. The last time I saved it, it took a little while to save, but saved successfully, and I restarted my computer.

I'm not sure what to do from here. I've worked on this file for quite a few weeks, so it would be such a bummer to have to redo it. Any thoughts?

tromboniator · Accepted Answer

Did you save it as a PDF-compatible file? Try placing it in an Illustrator document rather than trying to open it. Then embed it, and see what it looks like in the Layers panel. If all is well so far, you will probably need to ungroup and remove clipping masks at several levels. That might get you close enough to save a ton of work, though some things may not be the same constructions you built.

Peter

Monika Gause · Answer

You saved it directly to the server? Most likely that's why it got corrupt in the first place.

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