Can't Deselect Mystery Object on Illustrator

[Megan Kuhn]

This happens to me every single day. Illustrator randomly adds a "mystery object" which looks like an empty bounding box to my selection. I can't deselect it. In my layers panel it shows nothing as being selected. Normally I just select all, then deselect to make it go away, but this time it's not working. This makes accurate scaling of my real objects impossible because the selection will include this mystery object. I've combed the forums and found dozens of people with this exact problem, but none of the suggestions on those threads are working. I've read things about it being related to clipping masks or artboards, but this happens to me even when I'm only using one artboard and no clipping masks. Does adobe have any sort of explanation as to why this is happening? 

{Renamed by MOD}

[Monika Gause]

Does that also happen when you boot into Safe Mode and then use Illustrator?

Booting into Safe Mode is a test. If the issue doesn't appear in Sfe Mode, it's cause by other things happening on the system.

In order for the engineers to solve this they will need to be able to reproduce it on their end. If they cannot reproduce it then they will not be able to solve it.

[Anshul_Saini]

Hi @Megan Kuhn, @wnwka @artyomb17544235,

I completely understand how frustrating this ongoing issue must be, especially since it’s been affecting so many users across different systems and versions. From what we’ve seen so far, this seems to be linked to third-party interference and occurs randomly without a clear pattern or specific workflow. Since it’s intermittent and lacks consistent, reproducible steps, identifying the root cause has been challenging for the product team.

If this is critical for you, I’d strongly recommend creating a post on UserVoice with detailed information such as:

• Clear steps to reproduce the issue (if possible)

• A screen recording demonstrating the problem

• Sample files where this occurs

This detailed data will greatly improve the chances of the product team being able to investigate and address the issue effectively. Right now, the available information is too broad for the team to act on efficiently.

I genuinely hope this helps, and I completely understand how frustrating this has been. Let me know if you have any questions — I’m here to help.

Best,

Anshul Saini

[wnwka]

I mean, is there some way to see what processes the app does in the background? Some kind of terminal or list or behind the curtain thing, where we can follow the commands the app receives? We are no devs you know, if you need detailed information (even if it's not your customers job to fix and test such issues), it's hard to do it without a insight to what happens in the background.

I'm pretty certain that this object appears in situations where I'll redo steps, I even think it happens more often with grouped objects. At some point during the redo process (command + z) a blank box appears and is linked to another shape or object in the file.

[wnwka]

+1 This.. Unacceptable that this is still a thing.. Just bonkers.