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seand6441683
Participant
Jun 15, 2018 1:23 AM UTC
Answered

Illustrator unusably slow and laggy on macOS

Some time in the last year, Illustrator (which previously worked just fine) has become unusably slow and laggy on my 2011 iMac. Anyone out there have solutions or work-arounds?

    gogfoxCorrect answer
    Inspiring
    Aug 19, 2018 9:05 AM UTC

    I had the same problem in Illustrator CC 2018 22.1 and MacOS High Sierra 10.13.6.

    I have a MacBook Pro 15 inch (2017), Intel i7 2.8 GHz, 16 GB RAM, Radeon Pro 555 2048 MB RAM.

    I tried to reinstall without retaining preferences. I tried resetting preferences. Nothing worked.

    Strangely enough, for me the solution was disabling the dictation feature of MacOS: Illustrator returned fast.

    To confirm this, I tried to re-enable the dictation feature in System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Dictation: Illustrator

    became laggy again.

    UPDATE: I also found that the bug is known and reported on UserVoice. Here's the link:

    Click and touch release problems Illustrator CC 2018 Mac High Sierra - cause dictation software – Adobe Illustrator Feed…

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    Bill Silbert
    Community Expert
    Bill SilbertCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    Jun 15, 2018 2:19 PM UTC

    What version of Illustrator and what version of the Mac OS are you using? Also what version of the Mac OS did your iMac come with?

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    seand6441683Author
    Participant
    Jun 25, 2018 8:45 PM UTC

    Bill, thanks for your questions. I've recently tried versions of Illustrator from CS6 all the way up to the most recent version, with identical results. I'm currently running MasOS10.13.6 Beta (High Sierra), but this problem has been occuring for some time, predating that Beta install. I don't recall the original version of the OS installed on the computer, but whatever was current in mid-2011. Lion, maybe?

    Qualitatively, the experience of using Illustrator, it is as though the cursor is selecting and deselecting semi-at random (I assume this results from extensive lag). The upshot is that it is essentially impossible to select or manipulate anything in my files or in the toolbars, and a maddening experience, to boot.

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    Bill Silbert
    Community Expert
    Bill SilbertCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    Jun 25, 2018 8:56 PM UTC

    It is quite possible that your 2011 Mac is just too old to be running High Sierra efficiently. I had a similar situation with an old iMac that kept getting slower and slower as I updated it to later versions of the Mac OS.

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      rcraighead
      rcraighead
      Legend
      Jun 15, 2018 3:05 AM UTC

      I'm on a 2011 iMac, 36GB RAM, OS X 10.11.6

      I have given up using CC 2018. CC2015.3 still seems to work adequately (I never downloaded 2017). I've stayed with OS X 10.11.6 so I can still use AI CS5 which is MUCH more reliable and snappy than any of the AI CC iterations and has features that were lost in subsequent versions. The only issue I have with CS5, since updating to El Capitan is that it reports a "crash" any time I close the program. It saves and works fine though.

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