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Illustrator randomly selects unrelated objects

Forum|Forum|13 years ago
February 5, 2013
55 replies
78184 views

About once a day, when I click on an object with the direct selection tool, the bounding box will be way larger than it should, implying another object on another artboard is included in the selection.

This happens when the object I am selecting is NOT grouped with anything else. Moreover, is seems buggy because the mystery object doesnt have its "edges" visible the way it would if it were legitimately selected.

I can deselect all, but then anything I click on, the selection's bounding box is expanded to include the mystery object. The only way I have found to deal with it is to drag a corner of the bounding box, then undo, and then click off again. Then Voila! I am able to select my object (or any other) without the mystery selection happening.

I use clipping masks a lot, as well as many artboards, and have wondered if it's related to this, as the mystery objects are sometimes masked images, and often on another artboard. However, the mystery objects are not always masked.

Anyone else having this weird problem??

I had it with CS5, and hoped it would go away with CS6, but it has not.

Correct answer BigMacca

I have also just had this issue in what appears now to be an 8-year-old issue.

(I'm no Illustrator expert btw).

I solved it... through luck.

In my case, the box was linked (somehow) to a 2-letter text box which I had moved to another layer and then hidden. Somehow this 'shadow' from the text box was left behind. I didn't see a clipping mask in the layers box. When I selected it (or more normally I selected 'off' a different object) this item was left behind.

My suggestion is therefore:

Select EVERYTHING - make everything visible and unlocked.

You may, like me, see that this phantom box is linked to a 'known' object.

Which I simply deleted.

It has worked (for now!?).

Show previous replies

M

mecdos

Inspiring

i've had this issue for years.

my work around:

several people have offered a workaround so here is mine. when the bug happens. select all and deselect using the deselect command from the menu bar. menu/select/deselect/

i actually made it and action so i can do it with a single key press.

fix it adobe!

D

danmacmahon

Participant

I've also been experiencing this bizarre behaviour for years; finally getting fed up with it!

I found te_co's work around works well for me...

"select all and deselect using the deselect command from the menu bar. menu/select/deselect/"

A

Allen Cobb

Inspiring

@danmacmahon -- Are you on a mac or a pc? I'm trying to compile some details for Adobe . . .

Allen

P

Pat481

Known Participant

Getting this issue also. Is there anything we can provide to hep diagnose this?

A

Allen Cobb

Inspiring

Yes -- I'm trying to find out more specifics, such as whether it happens on both Macs and Wintel machines. If it's confined to one platform, that would be very helpful to know.

It would also be helpful to know if it happens in files which have never contained any clipping masks. Or if there is any other commonality among files or systems in which the problem occurs.

It's likely to get fixed much faster if we can provide Adobe with as much as possible of this kind of information. Since some of us have experienced the problem for years, and others have never experienced it, there should be some important clues from comparing documents, workflows, platforms, etc.

Allen

P

Pat481

Known Participant

I'm on mac. Typically multiple screens. Next time it happens ill check for clipping masks

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Maximumblast

Participating Frequently

same problems here. adobe do something!!

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mc_alpha1502

Participant

Hi there, I've been facing this kind of problem too. When I try to select one object, another object will simply included into the selection.
I tried click on the blank area to deselect everything, but that particular object is still being highlighted.

However recently, I accidentally discovered a non-conventional method.

Whenever an unwanted object being automatically included into a selection, simply hit A to activate sub select tool, then hold Shift key and select another object nearby, then hit space bar a few times. Then click on the blank area to see if that unwanted object is being deselected. Keep repeating, it usually takes me two time to deselect the unwanted object.

This might not be the correct method but it only took me a few seconds to work. It's better than restarting the whole AI all over again.

A

aworthycause

Known Participant

I often get this too. However, whatever ghost selection there is appears to be unactionable. For example, using the rotate tool only rotates the object I actually selected and not the "extra bits" Illustrator has selected off to the right or left.

Anyhow a workaround. Open the layers panel and click the little circle beside the active layer. This stops it straight away for me in CC 2015 on El Capitan.

Hope that helps!

RockyDavies

Known Participant

I've been having this glitch here and there forever, but lately it has been more and more present. Just another little annoying thing.

I tried messing around with several of the suggested fixes here. The only thing that seemed to have an effect was aworthycause's comment. I could have all layers locked except one, say a "green" layer. When I selected something on the green layer, it would also include a ghost selection on a locked "red" layer. No anchor points or lines or clipping masks, nothing. It makes no sense. I found the red layer, unlocked it, and messed around with the layer select toggle circle. It finally lost the ghost selection. Hopefully, there is a better solution.

J

Johnny too fast

Participating Frequently

I've had this same problem since CS2. And every version since, up to CC.. It just happened to me in CC, which led me to this forum where nothing has been solved....

Still no solution/bug fix Adobe?

T

thirdworldgraphics

Participant

Same problem. Really really REALLY annoying. Randomly selects non-existing objects. Happens on CS6 at work and CC at home.

seriously adobe...wtf is wrong with your quality check now before you release new programs. You guys have really lost your shit and its getting more and more obvious with every "release" if that's what you wanna call it.

Shit quality programming.

M

mamarasco11

Participant

Having the same problem on CC.

I found a way around the problem.

Save the file you are working on, quit illustrator, and reopen your ai file.

Things seem to go back to normal after this.

Hope that helps you all.

J

JesseWest

Participant

Unfortunately this happens to me repeatedly. Saving, closing, and restarting illustrator every 10 minutes isn't exactly a workaround when you're in illustrator 8+ hours a day.

Sent from my iPad

F

fcl08

Participant

Another case of the same here. Came looking to see if there's a fix as I'm on deadline and it's wasting valuable time that I don't have. So pleased adobe chimed into this discussion to help their customers.....

smashmiek

Participant

I'm having this problem too. Adobe, please fix this. It's happened across Illustrator versions for years now. It's incredibly irritating, as almost every one of my web projects involves a clipping mask at some stage.

S

Steven Lee

Participant

Having the same problem. It appears in Text. It only appears when the text tool or the solid selection arrow tool is activated. They LOOK like bounding boxes but they are always grossly over-sized. I can use the arrow to select and it will resize whatever text it is anchored around. Oddly in a copy and shift move, "flips" the bounding box flush right to flush left. Or the other way around. This is definitely a bug.

One of the responders suggested looking in the layers panel. I DID see some discrepancies there. Odd containers and items that were no longer in the document were still there but disappeared when clicked.

It feels like some barrier between program stuff and GUI has be broached. Or perhaps memory cache problem?

I'm really unhappy with CC2015. It has a significant - work-flow affecting - problems: bounding boxes (perhaps "containers"?) seem to multiply and appear out of no where, slow saving, crashing, production-slowing changes in tool short-cuts. In fact, since similar problems are appearing in InDesign and Photoshop, I intended to cancel my CC and use CS6 but found that anything I had worked with in CC - and since I'm in heavy production mode now that means A LOT of files - display all kinds of strange behaviors in CS6. Yesterday I tried to open a PSCC2015 file with CS6 and it wouldn't do it. So add backward compatibility to the list.

Adobe, what are you DOING to us?

C

cedricdufour

Participant

Same issue here. Happens to me all the time. I've just been restarting illustrator. But that's pretty annoying.

Steven Lee wrote:
Having the same problem. It appears in Text. It only appears when the text tool or the solid selection arrow tool is activated. They LOOK like bounding boxes but they are always grossly over-sized. I can use the arrow to select and it will resize whatever text it is anchored around. Oddly in a copy and shift move, "flips" the bounding box flush right to flush left. Or the other way around. This is definitely a bug.
One of the responders suggested looking in the layers panel. I DID see some discrepancies there. Odd containers and items that were no longer in the document were still there but disappeared when clicked.
It feels like some barrier between program stuff and GUI has be broached. Or perhaps memory cache problem?
I'm really unhappy with CC2015. It has a significant - work-flow affecting - problems: bounding boxes (perhaps "containers"?) seem to multiply and appear out of no where, slow saving, crashing, production-slowing changes in tool short-cuts. In fact, since similar problems are appearing in InDesign and Photoshop, I intended to cancel my CC and use CS6 but found that anything I had worked with in CC - and since I'm in heavy production mode now that means A LOT of files - display all kinds of strange behaviors in CS6. Yesterday I tried to open a PSCC2015 file with CS6 and it wouldn't do it. So add backward compatibility to the list.
Adobe, what are you DOING to us?

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