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Commercialvoice
Participant
May 25, 2018
Answered

Illustrator CS6 Will not drop down font menu

  • May 25, 2018
  • 7 replies
  • 27182 views

No changes made to system (Windows latest version 10).  CS6 Master installed.  All of a sudden Illustrator (64bit) will NOT drop down the fonts list.  New file or old file...I can no longer cause the drop down list of fonts to populate.  I CAN directly type a font and it will populate, but I can no longer scroll and choose a font.

I completely uninstalled Illustrator, restarted the computer and then installed again...no good.

How can I fix this?

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Bill Silbert

Windows 10 is constantly updating itself. CS6 is not supported for Windows 10. If you have been working with it up to now then you should consider that lucky. I've seen this problem presented a few times recently and it seems to coincide with the latest (automatic) updates that have been released for Windows 10. I'm betting that it is the updates to the OS which are affecting your CS6. The most probable solutions are to either roll back your operating system to pre-Windows 10 (future updates will only make things worse) or get a subscription to Creative Cloud and update to the latest version of Illustrator.

It should also be pointed out that the automatic updating for Windows 10 does not seem to have any official way of turning it off. Microsoft has also announced that from now on their OS will always be called Windows 10 but as it keeps updating itself the OS will eventually bear little resemblance to its original release.

7 replies

E
Eccentric_Glimmer15C3
Participant
February 19, 2021

Good news! I'm a Windows10 Pro user with Illustrator CS4. No fonts were showing up in the pulldown menu.

EXCEPT here's what I did and now my issue is FIXED

I opened my Windows Font folder and just started deleting like crazy. I deleted at least 300 stupid fonts (not even sure WHY I had them).

I restarted Illustrator, and on launch I noticed the program flickered a bit and spazzed out saying Not Responding. After that happened I gave it a shot and THERE THEY ALL WERE in the pulldown menu.

I believe it was just an issue of font overload. Now I can resume designing a logo without having to GUESS at fonts.

 

G
Gene28398721vmmk
Participant
February 14, 2023

Update 02/23 So I was having this isuue also for about 3yrs. Im still on cs6 and I went to the system fonts and remove abiout 300 or more files. I narrowed it down to stop working at 1104 fonts. 1098 is perfect. so there is a font Limit. if we can find that and over ride it you can add more fonts.

J
Jvvjkkghj
Participant
September 19, 2019

Njgb

 

 

C&S Networking
C&S Networking
Participant
March 29, 2019

OK folks, this has NOTHING to do with windows updates....  I've been running CS6 on Windows 10 pro 64 for 4+ years now and it's not failed me until this issue.

The problem recently started happening to me and i have been reading threads for a couple of weeks now and I am convinced that a bogus font or 'glyph within a specific font' is preventing the pulldown menu from displaying...

Armed with this information, i decided to tackle this from a "recently installed font" perspective... 

Here's what i did...

  1. Closed Illustrator
  2. Opened the Fonts explorer by typing "Win key + R" (for "RUN"), and typed FONTS and pressed enter.
  3. changed the default view from "Large" to "Details".
  4. Sorted by date installed.
  5. copied the last 90 day's worth of recently installed fonts to a backup folder on the desktop.
  6. deleted the last 90 day's worth of recently installed fonts (Shift + Delete to bypass recycle bin).
  7. open Illustrator
  8. open or start new project
  9. check your pulldown font menu....  Mine is now working.

If you feel adventurous, you can start installing your backup fonts 1 at a time, then open Illustrator to see if it broke.  Once you find the offensive font, you can delete it from your system and everything should be just fine...

I hope this helps and hope that engineers quite taking the "we don't support that because MS sucks" approach... shameful behavior to encourage you to spend $$$ you don't' have to...

Enjoy!

    Monika Gause
    Community Expert
    Monika GauseCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    March 29, 2019

    https://forums.adobe.com/people/C%26S+Networking  schrieb

    I hope this helps and hope that engineers quite taking the "we don't support that because MS sucks" approach...

    No engineer answered in this thread. Not even staff.

    An no one said anything shameful about Windows either. The only problem is with a system that's too new for that version. It has never been tested and will never be tested (the same goes for Mac OS btw and you will read the exact same remarks about CS 6 on Mac OS Sierra and up).

    Basically what was working for you might or might not work for everyone else.

      C&S Networking
      C&S Networking
      Participant
      March 29, 2019

      So????

      Oh, you're welcome for the vetted solution....

      Glad to know that its more important to give me hell about my statement, rather than a polite Thank You for finding, testing, and publishing a solution.....

      gheez.....

        ptl4evr
        ptl4evr
        Participant
        November 28, 2018

        It may be part of WIN10 however, after days of frustration found the fix. It is some fonts that causing the issue. Either it can load two many fonts (I had about 2500) in the fonts directory or there are corrupted fonts (or Type 1 fonts PSF) in the fonts directory. I have deleted all the fonts in the Windows Fonts directory and added back only the default fonts, Illustrator CS6 font drop down start working. Then I copy back (install) all fonts I had from the backup, the font drop down stop working. Then I deleted about half of the fonts from the Windows fonts director, here you go... fonts drop down start working. I have repeatedly test to simulated issue and clearly see it's directly connected to Fonts. Finally, I have cleaned up lots of fonts that I do not needed from the Windows Fonts directory, and got the Illustrator to work like before. Try this and see yourself.

          Y
          yetilicious
          Participant
          January 25, 2019

          ptl4evr​ I have the same issue as you. How many extra fonts were you able to install before the bug kicked in? I have over 2000 fonts and will start weeding through them tonight.

          ptl4evr
          ptl4evr
          Participant
          January 26, 2019

          Right now I have about 600 fonts. May be it will take more before it crashes.

          barbarabowwow
          barbarabowwow
          Participant
          June 6, 2018

          Same issue here. Any other possible solutions?

          Monika Gause
          Community Expert
          Monika GauseCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          June 6, 2018

          Wait for the next update. Or roll back.

          phwilkinson
          phwilkinson
          Participant
          June 6, 2018

          I am discovering this same issue right now. The weird thing is that the list shows up in Photoshop CS6, but not Illustrator CS6. Other than typing in the name of the font directly, the only scroll I can do is hitting the UP-Arrow and DOWN-Arrow keys. It's better than nothing for now.

          C
          CommercialvoiceAuthor
          Participant
          June 6, 2018

          Correct, Photoshop is fine with us too.  Disappointing to say the least.  We have 34 workstations with the latest CC Master installed on those but this particular workstation has some extremely customized settings making the upgrade to what we have on the other 34 stations NOT feasible as the prevision responded suggested. We are really in search of a solution to the problem and hopefully someone will be able to offer a solution soon.

          Monika Gause
          Community Expert
          Monika GauseCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          June 6, 2018

          Illutrator CS6 is not compatible with Windows 10. Issues might come and go with each update.

          Bill Silbert
          Community Expert
          Bill SilbertCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
          Community Expert
          May 25, 2018

          Windows 10 is constantly updating itself. CS6 is not supported for Windows 10. If you have been working with it up to now then you should consider that lucky. I've seen this problem presented a few times recently and it seems to coincide with the latest (automatic) updates that have been released for Windows 10. I'm betting that it is the updates to the OS which are affecting your CS6. The most probable solutions are to either roll back your operating system to pre-Windows 10 (future updates will only make things worse) or get a subscription to Creative Cloud and update to the latest version of Illustrator.

          It should also be pointed out that the automatic updating for Windows 10 does not seem to have any official way of turning it off. Microsoft has also announced that from now on their OS will always be called Windows 10 but as it keeps updating itself the OS will eventually bear little resemblance to its original release.

            J
            JoePro2025
            Participant
            August 29, 2022

            Aug 2022  -This is ALSO occurring in the 25.6 CLOUD version I just downloaded

            thinking my 12 yr old CS6 CD install onto a WIN 10 computer was the problem.

            Tried many fixes and appears there is no resolution..

            Waitng for ADOBE agent call back in 24 hrs...

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