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Illustrator is crashing on M1 Mac (macOS Big Sur)

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
November 22, 2020
58 replies
76791 views

Hi,

I am using Illustrator on a new Macbook Pro with M1 apple silicon. While using the software it often starts to randomly freeze and after a few minutes everything works again. Sometimes the whole mac is frozen for several minutes and Illustrator crashes completely. Not seeing anyone eelse reproting the problem und no issue desiriped my adobe on the M1 side i was wondering what could be rhe reason for this problem. Thank you!

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Correct answer Ashutosh_Mishra

Hi all,

We have recently released an update for Illustrator 2021 (v 25.3.1) which is compatible with Apple Silicon & contains multiple bug fixes. Please follow the steps shared here to update your app.

For more information about this release, please check out this help article.

Regards,

Ashutosh

Show previous replies

F

Federicosgo

Participant

I have the same issue,

A

abstraxx

Participant

Having the same issue - I reached out to Apple and they had me restart in Safe Mode. Everything worked smooth and fast in Safe Mode. Once I restarted my comp and went back into regular mode. My comp was moving super fast, even using Photoshop and InDesign. Once I opened Ilustrator, used the program for basic design, import/export files, use Adobe library and my comp froze up again. I force quit Illustrator and now everything (Photoshop, Safari, InDesign) else keeps freezing. I'm working in PS, finish designing evertyhign, go to export, and it freezes. So annoying - I'm not sure if I completetly lost everything or pray that my file saved as a recovered file.

N

Neeko0D45

Participating Frequently

Thank you for that tip. I'm reading about Safe Mode. It doesn't really sound like Safe Mode is a feature that is meant to be worked in. It looks like there are restrictions to things that you can do, like access user installed fonts and save files. It looks like it is meant to diagnose program issues.

Doug A Roberts

Community Expert

Correct, but if something works in safe mode, it does imply there is a software problem that could be solved rather than an intractable hardware issue.

R

rache1234

Participant

Please make Illustrator and Photoshop native to Apple M1 chip!!! Cannot get any work done for uni or recreational purposes. So many complaints. Needs to be sorted

michelew83603738

Community Expert

We aren't Adobe employees here, but I am sure they are working on it.

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Neeko0D45

Participating Frequently

I can confirm. Illustrator consistently crashes my Macbook with m1 chip. It crashes the entire computer system causing it to freeze up. It's frustrating.

J

Jonathan5CAB

Participant

I know it has to use rosetta but this is ridiculous. I get the spinning whell every few clicks or taps of my mouse. The simpliest think will have the whole computer stall. Please help if there is anything that can actually help.

Monika Gause

Community Expert

Is iCloud turned on? And can you try and turn it off?

J

Jonathan5CAB

Participant

Icloud is not on. The app has not been connected to icloud.

G

gabisoriz

Participant

Hello!
I recently got a new laptop which is the new Macbook Pro 2020 with the M1 chip therefore the laptop is supposed to work perfectly. Unfortunately while using Illustrator or Photoshop I've been experiencing a lot of crashes in short periods which would continue for 5-10 minutes and a lot of the times I had to force quit or restart the computer (keep in mind that I'm doing nothing out of the ordinary but creating basic shapes)
I read that this may be happening because Big Sur is relatively new but if you have any advices I would be much glad to hear them.

Doug A Roberts

Community Expert

"I recently got a new laptop which is the new Macbook Pro 2020 with the M1 chip therefore the laptop is supposed to work perfectly."

Unfortunately with new hardware, the opposite is often true. Adobe software currently works under emulation on the new M1 Macs, because it needs to be updated to support the new processors. This seems be causing significant problems for a number of users, based on topics I've seen here.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/illustrator/will-adobe-illustrator-work-on-the-new-macbook-pro-with-the-apple-m1-chip/td-p/11607287?page=1

https://community.adobe.com/t5/illustrator/illustrator-is-crashing-whole-system-on-m1-mac/td-p/11616986?page=1

Adobe updates are due early next year which will supposedly provide native compatibility. I would wait until those at least before relying on an M1 Mac for work -- and even then, test your systems extensively before giving up your older Macs.

PrepressPro1

Legend

If you look at the system requirements for Illustrator it does not yet list the M1 processor for use with Illustrator. I'm not recommending this platform for my production team until it has been on the market a little longer and I see Adobe supports it. It is also limited to in its "Unified RAM" to 16GB for Mac Mini and 32GB for the MacBook.

S

sbetts@optimumts.com

Participant

If I could wait I would but my son needs a computer for school and the old one just died. I could return the new computer and get an older model with an Intel processor - and I'm sure there would be no software issues if I did. I don't want to do that because it will almost certainly limit the lifespan of the computer. We used the 2011 macbook air this M1 mac replaced for 9 years before it died. I would like get 9 years out of the new one but I can't imagine support for machines with Intel processors being supported that far into the future. I will likely exchange the computer for a new one and avoid CreativeCloud apps for a while.

I posted on this thread as a warning to others since installing Illustrator seems to wreak havoc on the entire system regardless of whether or not Illustrator is running. Hopefully this saves someone the hastles we have endured.

S

Sandra5EAF

Participant

I had issues last Wednesday and actually haven't had any issues since then. I've kept other programs like excel, zoom, safari, outlook and Vectornator open too to check if it was a ram issue. It's back to running smoothly even with all those programs running at same time. I think my issue may have been related to working off of iCloud or something with the Amazon web outage. I called Adobe and they told me that freezing sometimes happens if you save to iCloud instead of desktop or creative cloud. I did disable gpu so I don't know if that helped as well.

IanDeming

Participant

YES! I'm having this exact issue. I'm getting beachballs probably 5x an hour, often forced to force quit apps. It's not just adobe (in fact, it's often NOT adobe): it's Safari, Keynote, Finder, even System Preferences and my dock have been freezing on me. I also followed all the support recommendations all the way from resetting SMC to reinstalling the OS to running diagnostics, etc. I was going to exchange it for a new machine tomorrow, but if this isn't a hardware issue unique to my machine, I'm not sure what gives.

S

sbetts@optimumts.com

Participant

The same issues are happening to our new M1 macbook pro as well. Is anyone also experiencing issues with finder, safari, and other native apps freezing at various times? If not, I guess I'll be making the three hour trip back to the Apple store. I have already talked to Apple support and followed all of their recommendations including reinstalling the OS.

IanDeming

Participant

I'm having this exact issue. I'm getting crazy beachballs everywhere and having to force quit everyrthing from Safari to Keynote to Finder (not just and Adobe issue). I also followed all the support recommendations all the way from resetting SMC to reinstalling the OS to running diagnostics, etc. It's terrible and I don't know what to do.

B

Barneyup

Participant

Same, and affecting other programs as well, had to push the power button