AICC actions scripts not working properly

[lMarcrest]

Morning folks. My company recently upgraded our MAC systems to Mojave (10.14.2) and Adobe CC 2019 (23.0.1). Several users have noticed that their actions scripts in AI seem to be having difficulties saving files to the desktop. For example – one of my action scripts simply writes a PDF, with one preset, to a specific folder on my desktop, then saves another PDF, with a different preset, to a different, specific folder on my desktop. After a shut down (not a quit and restart), the second action in the script seems to have lost its way and forgets where the second specific folder is.

Has anyone been experiencing similar problems and/or does anyone have a suggestions as to how to correct the problem?

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers, Marcrest

[Doug A Roberts]

To clarify: are these Actions, or Scripts, or Scripts that run Actions, or Actions that run Scripts, or a combination of these?

[lMarcrest]

to clarify these are actions

[Doug A Roberts]

Does the correct file path still appear in the action that has lost its way?

[lMarcrest]

No, strangely, the first save as command maintains its path, but the second does not.

[Doug A Roberts]

Does this happen with actions created in previous versions?

I made a few actions as a test and see the same result, but actions that include Save As and filepaths from previous versions don't seem affected.

[Doug A Roberts]

I found another thread and a bug report here:

"Save" location from a recorded Action is not being stored following restart

Action using "save as" location not keep settings after restart of Illustrator – Adobe Illustrator F...

Looks like it might be a recently-introduced one.

[Mike Sofa]

My tests are still getting inconsistent results. Here is a screen shot from my Actions panel:

This is after a restart. Note how one action has a disclosure triangle and the other does not. The first action "lost" the destination and the second one kept it.

I'm sorry to say I cannot give a reason yet for why one worked and the other did not. Maybe someone else will be able to explain why this is happening.

[lMarcrest]

Well Mike, if nothing else, you have proved that this problem is reproducible. So we can eliminate my operating system/machine/applicable settings. Thank you for trying.

I do hope that Adobe finds a solution to this problem reasonably quickly. I'm sure there are many operators out there who count on actions to speed up their workflow.

Signed,
frustrated that Adobe moves forward without fixing outstanding issues

[Doug A Roberts]

I was using Win 10, Illustrator 23.0.1.

Please vote on the issue at the uservoice site if you haven't already. It's the only way to get traction on this.

[Mike Sofa · Accepted solution]

Okay, I think I have at least a partial solution. Of course I can’t promise that your own results won’t vary.

If you create an Action with a “Save as…” step, and specify a location for the new file, then the Action will work within the current Illustrator “session.”

1 - If you then quit and restart Illustrator, the Action will be there, but the location that was in the Action will be “forgotten.”

2 - If you first save the Action Set, then quit and restart Illustrator, the Action will be there, but again the location in the Action will be lost.

3 - BUT, if you save the Action Set, then delete the Action Set, then quit and restart Illustrator, then reload the Action Set, the Action will retain the location.

At this point, you can freely quit and restart Illustrator, without deleting or reloading the Action Set, and the Action’s location will “stick.”

I’m on a Mac Mini, MacOS Mojave, using AI 2019.

Hope this helps.

[Doug A Roberts]

Excellent deductive work, Mike.

[lMarcrest]

Thanks @Mike Sofa. I tried a bunch of things, which unbeknownst to me, were exactly what your point #3 says to do and it's been stable ever since. I'll be pushing this out to our group. Once again the Forums rock because of the people in them : )