Application Freezes - Illustrator on macOS

[barrett27720758tkht]

here are HUGE issues with adobe lately and it's crashing for a lot of people, not just the op....maybe you guys need to revisit some coding basics? i have no idea what's going on but on M2 chips, all my adobe is unstable - even creative cloud app and i've reinstalled the OS and Adobe fully... with the ridiculous price of the monthly it should absolutely be more stable than this. i have an m2 pro macbook air with 24gb of ram and illustrator freezes so i have to force quit more than three times a day. luckily for adobe astute grpahics plugins exist to make it a little more stable and offer actual auto saves - i have no idea why adobe can't figure out autosaving - have it on but it never worked until i got astute plugins for illustrator. affinity is looking real good with no subscriptions and one time purchase.

[Bruce Bullis]

What leads you to believe that these instabilities you're seeing across Adobe apps, are specific to or caused by M2 chips?

Many thousands of PPro users are on M2, with no issues.

Perhaps others in the Illustrator forums can help further with the Illustrator problems you're seeing, if you can provide actionable specifics. 

[barrett27720758tkht]

maybe it's not specific to m2 i'm just saying what i'm experiencing and what my friends are experince (two others) are instability on our computers which are m2 chips, i can't speak to m3 or m1...but i'm sure many thousans are having issues and just dealing with it too. as i am

pretty hard to provide actionable specifics when it freezes/crahes so randomly - froze during a save and corrupted the file, going back to a prior save (thus losing two hours)..freezes when changing to anther window, creative cloud app freezes if i have dimension open.  dimension freezes if i go between the render window and the design window half the time. 

meh ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ hopfeully it just works itself out soon

maybe you can answer this question though, as i think it's probably an easy one for you - how do i make it so illustrator doesnt take up 90gb of space when open and no files are open? i'll quit and it'll go back to 112gb os open space on hard drive but then 45 minutes later there's 700 mb - i assume it's a scratch disk or something? 

[Bruce Bullis]

>pretty hard to provide actionable specifics when it freezes/crahes so randomly

While behaviors can certainly seem random, actual randomness is surprisingly hard to code. Problems are rarely random, though they're often really hard to diagnose.  Even if PPro were to (for example) reliably crash on launch, solving the problem would entail understanding the unique current conditions on your system, which lead to that crash. 

PPro's auto-save prevents losing more than one save interval's worth of work; hopefully that'll help minimize any future losses.

Broadly speaking, the best way to get urgent attention from the PPro team (who are definitely present on these forums) is to provide any necessary files, and (even more important!) step-by-step instructions which reliably reproduce the problem.

Your mention of freezing when changing to another window (I presume you mean changing to another application too, right?) is interesting; when PPro goes to the background, it tells the importer instances handling each project item that it's doing so, to give them a chance to 'quiet' / release their connections to media. That makes me wonder whether you've seen that freezing only with local volumes, or while projects/media are on network shares...?

Sorry, I have no clues regarding Dimension, or Illustrator. 🙂

[Monika Gause]

Do you have a Window manager installed such as Magnet or Rectangle? Neither of them works with Illustrator.

Which system is it?

[Anubhav M]

Hello @barrett27720758tkht,

I am sorry to hear about the trouble you're having with Illustrator. Having Illustrator freeze frequently in the middle of work can be a real disruptor.

Could you try checking for any pending macOS or Illustrator updates and installing them to see if it helps?

If the problem persists, try rebooting your computer in safe mode (https://adobe.ly/4eLBFrw) and then try using Illustrator? Doing this can help identify if a third-party program is interfering with Illustrator.

Also, try creating another admin account on your computer and run Illustrator under that account. This will help identify any problems with Illustrator's preferences or file permissions.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Anubhav

[barrett27720758tkht]

i've tried all these things and even reinstalled the operating system and every adobe application (after re installing the OS) - this is where the admin account was retried. 

it ran smooth for a few days after the reinstall of the OS...

[barrett27720758tkht]

i'm on mac os x - i dont use window managers.

[Monika Gause]

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@barrett27720758tkht  schrieb:

i'm on mac os x - i dont use window managers.

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This is not about Windows. But about third party apps that do ... whatever it is they do. Are you sure you do not have a Window manager?

And which system version is it?

[Anubhav M]

Hello @barrett27720758tkht,

Sorry to hear the suggestions did not help. Could you confirm if Illustrator behaves this way when working with a particular file(s), using a particular tool, saving/opening files from a specific folder?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Anubhav

[barrett27720758tkht]

i know it's not about windows and about 3rd party apps - i dont not run window managers and have no use for them. 

[barrett27720758tkht]

sorry mistype and couldn't edit - i do not use window managers and i think i'd know if i installed one haha re:"are you sure" 

also i'm on m2 macbook air running illustrator 2025

[Monika Gause]

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@barrett27720758tkht  schrieb:

sorry mistype and couldn't edit - i do not use window managers and i think i'd know if i installed one haha re:"are you sure" 

also i'm on m2 macbook air running illustrator 2025

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Does it work when you boot into Safe Mode?

[richardg26365462]

it's not only illustrator for me. it's also indesign and photoshop and bridge. i have worked on our network from file servers forever and never have i seen this many freezes and crashes. this for me started in late september. i have to reboot up to a dozen times a day now because of adobe appications freezing and crashing. i have been blaming our network and or file servers but now i am suspecting it is just adobe.

[barrett27720758tkht]

mine is now crashing when not even in the app - luckily i installed astute plugins to make illustratyor run a little better (they know how to make autosave work unlike adobe) so at least the file and work are saved - last week in the middle of a save, the file somehow corrupted and completely was deleted losing 7 hours of work (this is like 1992 type of problems not 2024) searched all over for it - does not exist anymore even though i saved it a hundred times on two diffrrerent days...i wonder if running the app with wifi turned off will help?  i'm going to try but that will suck, i use the internet to do other things for work while working in illustrator. 

it's kind of crazy how bad it's been for something we pay monthly for. 

illustrator takes 90gb of space while running - literally unacceptible, i have one file open that is 112mb...

[Monika Gause]

Working directly on a server is not recommended when using Illustrator. 

Is is more stable when you boot into Safe Mode? 

[barrett27720758tkht]

who mentioned server? i dont work on a server.  i'm saying turning the wifi off in case there are background things running in illustrator that are causing it to take up so much space and ram.  turning off wifi is a common solution for a lot of apps that talk to home a lot.   especially when you have starlink.

i'll have to try safe mode when i'm not working - it takes half hour to an hour before the app starts acting ridiculous. i have the new habit of just restarting the app every 45 minutes to keep going smooth.  

i know others have been having the same issues so i'm wondering if you know what the fix was for them or if what they're having are just not solvable solutions? 

[Monika Gause]

The fix for most people was shutting down their Rectangle or Magnet.

[barrett27720758tkht]

what are those? 

[barrett27720758tkht]

googled it - again, i don't use window managers and i have no idea why someone would waste computer space with them haha.  thank you for that information though

[Anubhav M]

Hello @barrett27720758tkht,

Thanks for confirming. Could you also try running Illustrator under Safe Mode (Windows / macOS) and sharing your observations.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Anubhav

[barrett27720758tkht]

i've switched over to affinity this past weekend.  thanks anyway - adobe must have lost all it's lead designers and coders, it fell off too far for me to play all these games with, just to have a program not crash.  adobe's strong suit used to be stable programs but now they're notorious for the opposite - not a good look going into a new era of AI.  

good luck in the future, adobe...hopefully i can come back once you've stabilized again.  

[richardg26365462]

we're still having problems just like you describe. random spinning beach ball and illustrator bridge indesign etc all not responding. our problems started on sept 24th 2024. has to be an adobe problem since we're all having issues on different networks.

[Anubhav M]

Hello @richardg26365462,

I'm sorry to learn about the issues you're having with your Adobe applications. Could you please verify the OS version and the versions of Illustrator/InDesign you have installed? Additionally, does Illustrator/InDesign exhibit this behavior when working with files from a certain location, such as an external/network drive, a cloud-synced folder, or using a specific tool/feature?

I look forward to your response.

Anubhav

[barrett27720758tkht]

i've moved on to affinity - way too many crashes with adobe.  only started happening recently as you guys left us designers that have been faithful for 20 years in the dust, just to please your stupid investors with pointless ai ridiculousness.   you're losing LIFELONG customers.

you can take my post down