Skip to main content
G
georiako
Participant
July 2, 2020
Answered

Illustrator crashed and recovered document is showing missing links error.

  • July 2, 2020
  • 4 replies
  • 7234 views

My illustrator crashed!!!! I went to recover my file and most of my images arent there anymore. They show up as missing links but I cant see the image and they are all individual images. There are probably 60 photos that need to be relinked but I have to do it one by one and I dont remember what image goes where!  My whole design just fell apart. Please Help!!!!! 

 

{Renamed by MOD}

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Disposition_Dev

    you don't need to know which photos went where (in the design). When you look at your links panel, you can see the file name of each link. so you click on it, then click relink and select the correct file from the dialog.

     

    If you're saying that you don't know where to find the images on your computer to relink them, then you may be out of luck. Make a habit of "packaging" (in the File menu under "Package") your files if they contain lots of linked images (and if you don't want to embed the images for any number of reasons). That way, all your images (and fonts and any other linked assets) get saved into a folder that is local to the .ai file and you never have to go tracking them down. 

    4 replies

    John_Fuller
    John_Fuller
    Participant
    October 29, 2021

    Happening to me as well - however just started today after the update to 26.0

     

    Disposition_Dev
    Disposition_Dev
    Legend
    July 3, 2020

    Oh oh oh! I just had an epiphany. I wonder if you had all the linked files in a certain directory that was relative to the .ai file.. Then when illustrator crashed, you opened the recovered version, which may be saved in a different location (I've personally never had to recover a file in this way because I'm obsessive about saving while I work.. So I don't know where recovery files are saved..)

     

    Try opening the recovered document, then doing a "save as" and save it back to the location where you were originally working. That may restore all the links without any more work on your part. 

      FlyMachine Dazza
      FlyMachine Dazza
      Participant
      September 16, 2021

      I have been dealing with this exact issue but it only started happening (not the crashing, been dealing with crashes since the Macromedia days) after I moved much of my active work to a drive and working with iCloud. Ai would crash my system and cause a reboot and when the restored artwork opened every link would be missing, I long thought it had something to do with the remote location of the files but couldn't quite focus long enough to get my head around it and apply a solution - Dilliam just hit the nail right on the head! That is exactly the issue at least in my case, the solution however isn't working, what's more Ai now is only partially opening the artwork and it's not especially massive 😞 Trying to make aliving here

      FlyMachine Dazza
      FlyMachine Dazza
      Participant
      September 16, 2021

      ...just to add to my comment above in trying to find a solution, in my case the missing links are not even named, when I 'go to link' it shows where the missing image should be but shows no name or detail, the only way to recover this now seems to be to try and remember what image was used and manually finding it on my drive and then relinking for a ton of images, some I wont remember and I'm on deadline and to redo this would take weeks. I am actually furious. 

      Srishti Bali
      Srishti Bali
      Legend
      July 3, 2020

      Hi there,

       

      So sorry to hear about this trouble. I agree with the suggestions shared by William. For more details, you may also check out these tutorials:

       

      For crashing, apologies once again. If this is happening frequently, please share the following details:

       

      We're here to help, just need more info.

       

      Regards,

      Srishti

       

        audriek52708293
        audriek52708293
        Participant
        March 30, 2021

        This is happening to me very often recently - at least 2x per week. My Illustrator will freeze, my iMac crashes, then restarts, and when I open Illustrator, the recovered files' imagery is totally absent, and the app asks me to replace the "" link (it completely loses the link name and just shows up with nothing in between the quotation marks), so I ignore all and get left with a mess like this to relink manually:

          Monika Gause
          Community Expert
          Monika GauseCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          March 31, 2021

          Please tell us your computer specifications and your version.

          Where do you store files?

          Do you keep backup copies of your files and do you save often?

          Any third party plugins?

          Is there any regularity in the crashes? When saving? when printing? when applying some effect?

           

          Do you have any other applications open at the same time? e.g. Chrome? It has memory issues.

            Disposition_Dev
            Disposition_DevCorrect answer
            Legend
            July 2, 2020

            you don't need to know which photos went where (in the design). When you look at your links panel, you can see the file name of each link. so you click on it, then click relink and select the correct file from the dialog.

             

            If you're saying that you don't know where to find the images on your computer to relink them, then you may be out of luck. Make a habit of "packaging" (in the File menu under "Package") your files if they contain lots of linked images (and if you don't want to embed the images for any number of reasons). That way, all your images (and fonts and any other linked assets) get saved into a folder that is local to the .ai file and you never have to go tracking them down. 

              G
              georiakoAuthor
              Participant
              July 4, 2020

              In my links panel, all of my files are named the same ("Links").  They arent missing but it says that the links are damaged. I will definitely create a new work flow after this but I just really needed to get these images restored:(

                Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
                Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices