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Participating Frequently
December 12, 2011
Question

Not Enough Memory to open the Illustration- HELP!?

  • December 12, 2011
  • 16 replies
  • 112918 views

Hi I support many users here at my company on several different systems but unfortunately there is no real support for Adobe programs.. Any idea on why one of my users is getting this error message? We just upgraded all to Adobe CS5.0 and everytime she opens a sketch in CS5 this error message comes up stating "Not enough memore to open the illustration." I've already re-installed the CS5.0 suite a couple different times and IT double checked and the user has plenty of memory on her computer..She's on a PC if this helps. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Since she can't open past this error message, she has to go back to using CS4, but we're eventually removing CS4 from all the computers.. Thanks!

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16 replies

Evri
Inspiring
February 27, 2024

The fact that this issue is still unresolved after a decade is unbelievable... Good job @adobe. How's life at the office. Kinda slow huh? 

 

 

Anubhav M
Community Manager
Community Manager
February 28, 2024

Hello @Evri,

We understand that encountering technical issues can be frustrating. Would you mind trying the suggestions shared in these help articles (https://adobe.ly/3UVP21K) (https://adobe.ly/3V0aCC7) and let us know if it helps?

If the problem persists, kindly share more details, like the exact version of the OS/Illustrator, system config (CPU/GPU/Memory), link to a sample file after uploading it to Dropbox/Google Drive/etc., and a screen recording of the problem (https://adobe.ly/49LVUmm), so we can investigate this further?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

 

Thanks,

Anubhav

Known Participant
October 14, 2016

Adobe programs work best when you have a dedicated drive as the "scratch disk". Hook up an empty external hard drive. Go into the preferences and chose this drive as your "scratch" disk. Re-start Illustrator and the external drive will now be your scratch disk.

This will free up some of your computer resources and may help with your memory issues. Just a thought. Best of luck.

karih81677669
Participant
April 27, 2016

HI OP,

I had this issue, all you have to do is clear your clipboard in adobe. There is too much in your clipboard - not a huge thing!

JukkaTa
Participant
November 25, 2014

Hi, you could try also this. Copy/paste all elements from your original document to new one by one. This way you can find the particular element that probably causes the memory problem.

For me the "problem" element was a group of lines where a had used 3D filter. The problem solved by ungrouping the elemenet in new document.

February 15, 2013

I had the same issue, but i resolved it very easily.

What happened was that when i opened anything in AI CS5 the AI window was minimized, and then the error message appeared,

all i did is that i opened AI itself (Only The AI software alone, empty without a photo or other types of files new or ongoing projects ) i than maximized the Window from its minimized state and opened a file from within the AI itself  (Anything pdf, Jpeg, psd ....ect) and than i closed AI completly without making any changes to the file or saving it.

Than i re-opened the AI again just to make sure that the window opened in its Maximized state, and lucky for me it did open in its neutral/defualt maximized window state, then i closed it again.

(If it doesnt maximize when clicking on the "2 squared icon in between the " - " and the  " X " up in the right corner of the window" then you can manipulate the window it self by stretching it out with the mouse from the lower right corner by holding down the left mouse button on it and draging it down to the right)

Than after that i opened a file using right click and "Open With" and chose AI, and it opened successfully.

Hope this will work for you as well, it worked for me.

I assume this has something to do with how AI reads "Sees" the files pixels, and for some reasone when its window is minimized from the last time it was used and closed down in that state then it doesn't re-open in the maximized state and therefor it can't read or see these pixels in the correct way and thats probably why the error occur, this ain't suppose to happen but it happens as we have all seen.

Anyway, i might be wrong, just thought to share my experience with you Guys....

Participant
April 8, 2013

I am getting the same Error Message

Runtime Error!

Program:C:/Program Files (x86)/Adobe/AdobeIllus...

this Application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.

Please contact the appliction's support team for more information.

-------

I called Adobe and the support team does not offer assistance for free on 5.5 Creative suite since 6. 0 is the newest but my office is running Creative Suite 5.5 Standard..

I rebuilt the settings folder Grant had suggested in a earlier post in the thread , but had this message come up as well as a message stating

Can't Finish Previewing: There isn;t enough memory ID = -108

I looked at the scratch disk and it is assigned to the C Drive

If I buy an additional HD and install it and point Illustrator and Photoshop to use the second HD as the scratch disk will this fix the problem of not enough memory? The scratch disk currently points to the C drive.

Currently the system specs are :

Windows 7

Intel Core i7 - 3770

CPU @ 3.40Ghz

12.0 GB Memory

system type 64 bit OS

Participant
January 1, 2013

The same problem happened with me too while starting to use illustrator but i found that the same file can be open by opening it from the file menu or placing it ....................the problem in mine only appears while i try to  open it Directly (from the file itself or drag to adove illustrator)

Participant
December 22, 2012

I fixed this issue using the preferences. I had a similar issue with PS CS3.

I went to Preferences > Plug-ins & Scratch Disks and set a "Primary Scratch Disk" to an E:\ drive as there wasn't one set. You can also just set this to your C:\ drive if you don't mind the temporary files slowing down your OS.

I'm pretty sure you get this issue because Illustrator can not find enough space on your hard drive to store Scratch Files (Temporary Files) so just throws you an error. I'm unsure however why vertain installations do this, it does seems to be a random occurance on random machines.

Participating Frequently
September 27, 2012

Is anyone else running a font management program? I'm kinda thinking my issues started when Suitcase Fusion 4 updated. I'm on a PC, but I read another forum where Mac users might be having issues with FontExplorer. (http://forums.adobe.com/message/4582586)

I'm not happy about having to go back to manually enabling fonts, but it'll save a lot of time over intermittantly having to reboot my computer throughout the day (which doesn't always resolve the problem, but it helps). I wish Adobe would pipe in because I'm beginning to develop a conspiracy theory that Adobe just wants us to "go to the cloud". Ugh.

Known Participant
September 26, 2012

Just read through this thread and am astounded that Adobe arent:

a) Contributing to the discussion with some clear and specific instructions to resolve this and

b) Providing access to some form of technical support (paid for) where a technician will access your PC and fix this.

I'm not confident to try some of the fixes proposed. I now have an expensive piece of business software that cannot be used.

Step up Adobe - I feel a Twitter campaign coming on.....

Scott Worthington
Adobe Employee
Adobe Employee
October 1, 2012

The error can take place for a variety of reasons.

Some are simply related to how memory is managed, many of which we attempted to resolve in CS6.

Others are related to things like damaged preferences, which was mentioned earlier. This is when steps contained in http://help.adobe.com/en_US/illustrator/cs/using/WS714a382cdf7d304e7e07d0100196cbc5f-630ca.html might be useful to help reset them.

Some versions of this error message are actually do to how the application window isn't large enough and it would be a good idea to make sure that when you open the application without the file, that it is in a reasonable dimension instead of say, a 1x1 pixel square.

We would really recommend trying your preferences first. With a bit more information relating to your system then other recommendations can be made by myself or others.

If on a Mac OS system, one of the easiest, safest things to try is to restart into Safe Boot if preferences don't help the behavior. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1455

This can help narrow down if there is any outside interference potentially adding to the issue. Similar steps can be made on Windows systems but that is just an example.

Known Participant
October 1, 2012

Scott, thanks for the feedback. To set my problem in context, when I (try to) open AI, I get the following screen (see image). The top menu bar and three dialogue boxes which I think are part of the control panel. Therefore, following the instructions in the link you provided are difficult.

I am running AI (from CS5) on Windows 7. I can open the preferences section but thereafter, not sure what to do.

The instructions refer to removing or renaming the AIPrefs file. How do you do that.

Thanks, but further guidance needed.