Illustrator error "An unknown error has occurred"

I was experiencing this today.... just would not allow me to save...kept getting the "Unknown Error" message.

Racked my brain and then started by process of elimination deleting layers and then trying to save, then "undo"...did that over and over until I noticed that there was a preview box in the layers window that was missing the black outline and little preview. (see image below)

So then I started testing the layers in that window and determined that there were 5 layers that we not displaying on the page so I selected and deleted those... See next pict.  (side note I thought it was weird that when I had 5 layers selected the window said 4 - Related? who knows?).

Once I deleted those 5 layers, the preview image displayed and the layer box had a black outline...
AND MOST IMPORTANTLY I COULD FINALLY SAVE MY FILE...

Hope that helps someone else through this very frustrating bug!!
...and maybe it will help Adobe FIX the darn issue!

After a couple hours trying to solve the problem, I've selected all my graphics and moved them out of the artboard and it finally allowed me to save the damn file!

I hope it can help you guys. Cheers!

So, I'm experiencing the same issue but when I'm trying to open up a file. This just started happening for a few weeks now. I'm working in CS6 and the file that I'm trying to open is a older software. Does anyone know why its being lame when you're trying to open up a file?

Thanks in advance!

I just had this INFURIATING issue myself just a half hour ago.
Use Illustrator every darn day, save all the time. Did nothing new to my Illustrator, settings, art progress.
I Searched everywhere for answers, asked my husband with a computer science degree 'what the heck'?
This thread held zero answers, not even close. So I resorted to figuring out the irritating, vague, useless, and redundant 'error message'.

After trial and error, I only had one lead...
The only thing I did, was recently change the password that unlocks/locks my laptop from no password, to passworded. I happen to be in a public place, and wanted to lock my screen when I walk off to the restroom or whatever.

That's all I did, add a dang screen pin.

And THAT, that apparently robbed my permission to save an illustrator file to my computer? That makes no darn sense! NONE!!!

Why can't I have a screen lock and still be able to save AI, PDFs, Bitmaps, whatever? If you're an artist you can't lock your PC?! What the heck...

So I had to remove the screen lock to save.

R-I-D-I-C-U-L-O-U-S 

I made an account just to rant how ludicrous that is!

I am working in Illustrator CC2017 and have received the following message: "The action failed with an unexpected error code. Error: ELIO

I cannot save or even recover the file! Unlocking or locking layers does not seem to be the answer.

I have had to reset the preferences, which is a pain in the neck and I have detailed instructions on how to do it from an adobe specialist. I don't know if that is the solution for this problem.

Sop I don't think the issue has been answered!

Hi i am Dexter N. Reyes

the reason why that error occured is your TEXT in not converted in OUTLINES "right click all text and Create outlines"

this solutions is 100%, and i dont know why AI is like this, cant save TEXT, and it sucks..

Thanks

Dexter

Hey there guys, I went through this forum and none of the fixes listed helped me. HOWEVER, I do have a fix that worked for me.

Super simple, I just selected all, copied everything and pasted them into a brand new project. BOOM. Saved perfectly and now I'm back up and running. If you're still having issues with saving your current file, just copy it over to a new file and see if it saves!

Like I said, this was a last ditch effort that worked. Seems pretty obvious now!

I noticed this happening to me (unknown error has occurred) when I tried to save, even if all of my layers are unlocked and visible. I'm working on a map and it started happening after I added a pdf document to a new layer that I was using as a source to trace. Lo and behold, when I deleted that pesky layer with the pdf document, I can now save the document again. I simply saved that pdf as a jpeg, and then dragged that into my new layer for tracing. It's working well.

I work this creative cloud.  My other packages work normally but Illustrator freezes after approximately 10 minutes and I cannot do anything.  I have to close the program continually.  I spoke to our IT manager and he said to notify Adobe but it is difficult to navigate the system to find where to notify Adobe.

[Email address removed by moderator - please don't post your personal information in a public forum]

Yes the Unlock fixes it! If you have many layers it is supoer annoying to figure out which one is causing the issue but unlocking does fix the save issue.

Weird thing is if I try to update to the newest version of illustrator CC 2017 (21.0.2) the entire program breaks (fails on load). Even if I completely uninstall and reinstall it still breaks. I think it might have to do with a corrupted cache going from one version to the next. Once I'm done my current project I'm going to try to figure out to upgrade it successfully... I am guessing I will need to back my settings/preferences up separately and try reinstalling with default preferences; then try importing mine and hoping that it doesn't glitch out... It could also be that the Astute graphics plugin I've been using (version 1) is no longer supported in 21.0.2... which would be weird considering it works fine in 21.0.0 and they are both Illustrator CC 2017.