Illustrator Crashes at Startup and Only Opens After Multiple Restarts

Hi everyone, this problem continues, are there any other ideas?

Just to rule out program-wide corruption try resetting your Illustrator preferences. This will restore the program to its defaults. Hopefully, it will fix the crashing issues.

To reset Illustrator preferences:

For Macintosh Users: The User Library folder in which Illustrator’s preferences are stored is hidden by default on most Macintoshes. To access it make sure that Illustrator is closed and click on the desktop to launch a Finder Window (Command-N).With this window in column view follow the path User>Home folder (it’s the folder with an icon that looks like a house—it may have the user’s name rather than “Home”) and click on the Home folder. With the Option Key pressed choose Library from the Finder Go Menu. “Library” will now appear within the Home folder. Within the Library folder find the folder called Preferences and within it find the folder called “Adobe Illustrator <Version #> Settings” (earlier versions of Illustrator might just say “Adobe Illustrator”) and the file called “com.adobe.Illustrator.plist” and delete both that folder and that file. When Illustrator is next launched it will create new preference files and the program will be restored to its defaults.

For Windows Users: You can try the quick way of resetting on a PC which is to hold down Ctrl + Alt + Shift when launching Illustrator and respond affirmatively when asked if you want to reset. There have been some recent reports that the window asking if you want to reset is not popping up but that the prefs are being reset anyway. If this works great but if it doesn’t you may have to manually delete them.

To do so:

On Windows 7 and above the preference files are hidden. To find them go to the Control Panel and open Folder Options and then click the View tab. Then select “Show hidden files and folders” or “Show hidden files, folders or drive options” in Advanced Settings. Then delete (or rename) the folder at the end of this path: C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator [version number]\ Settings\<Language>. Make sure that Illustrator is closed when you do this. When you relaunch the program it will create  new preference files and the program will be at its default settings.

The advantage of manually deleting preference files is that after you’ve reset up the program (make sure that no document window is open) to your liking, you can create copies of your personalized “mint” preference files (make sure that you quit the program before copying them—that finalizes your customization) and use them in the future to replace any corrupt versions you may need to delete.

Hi ​@Andrew Beltran,

Sorry to hear you’re running into this issue. Could you please confirm the exact version of Illustrator you’re using along with the macOS version on your system? 

In the meantime, please try the suggestions mentioned in this guide and see if they help resolve the crash on launch issue:
https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/kb/fix-crash-on-launch-issues.html

If the problem continues after trying those steps, please also follow the troubleshooting steps in this article related to Safe Mode diagnostics, which can help identify fonts, plugins, or other components that may be causing the crash:
https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/safe-mode-illustrator-diagnostic-startup-tests.html

Please give these a try and let us know how it goes so we can assist you further if needed.

Looking forward to your update.

Abhishek

How much memory do you have in your system? Are there any utilities running that could cause problems? Does it also happen if you only run Illustrator?