Can't grab bezier control points

[spaceprobe]

I'm having increasing difficulty grabbing bezier control points - not the ends of segments, but the little round handles on the ends of the control tangents.

I used to make Illustrator fly but now I waste so much time grabbing, failing, grabbing again, accidentally deselectiing, selecting again, failing to grab yet again, grabbing again and again...

Even if i very carefully and slowly grab the point, Illustrator fails to notice and my mouse pointed slides off without moving it. I find it's particularly oe even more difficult to grab a point when its on or near a guide line.

I have looked in prefs and I think the selection anchor & display snap to and tolerance only apply to segment end points.

Am I missing something? Is it a bug? Is there a setting somewhere else I can fiddle with? Any suggestions?

Cheers,

K.

[Kris Hunt]

Do you have any third party utilities installed that affect the behavior of your mouse?

[Alesclandre]

Can I ask you what is the tolerance at which you can grab these bezier point ?

For me, if I click just one pixel aside from the blue circle, it fails. So a tolerance of 0 pixel.

[Alesclandre]

I'm sorry to see there is no answer to my last question, but this was a real question : do you have some tolerance to handle bezier points ? Just to see if it is my computer only or a general setting common to everyone ? Thanks

[John Mensinger]

Smart Guides could fix this for you, if you were open to using them.

Alesclandre  wrote

Smart guides always drive you in a place you don't want to go.

Always?

It's understandable that Smart Guides can become a nuisance in some situations, but personally, I almost never turn them off anymore. Some facts about Smart Guides that might help:

• Smart Guides are easy and quick to toggle on when you need them and off when you don't want them; Ctrl/CmD+U
• If you need the cursor-change benefits without the interruptions of external alignment references . . .

  • Disable all but the Anchor/path Labels in Preferences > Smart Guides
    

  • Smart Guides only reference other objects that are in view, so:
    
    • Zoom in far enough that only your selected object is visible
    • Turn off the visibility of nearby objects, or all other objects, using the Object > Hide menu or Layer visibility

[Alesclandre]

As a UX designer, that's really interesting to see how people get around problems by using what they have in their hands, even if it takes ages to do...

I personaly use a lot the smart guides, and do cmd+U every time, and this is not an option to always go in the preferences to change them in order to make this simple pattern work.

This tolerance+cursor-change is on anchor points without the use of smart guides. Why the hell it is not on bezier points ?

[John Mensinger]

Alesclandre  wrote

As a UX designer, that's really interesting to see how people get around problems by using what they have in their hands

I should think that would indeed interest a UX designer. Glad I could help, even in that way.

even if it takes ages to do...

Heh, as a unit of measure, I suspect "ages" is not a constant. Personally, I'd say even an extra 3 or 4 seconds isn't unreasonable to activate or deactivate a given feature to ease the task at hand (and it doesn't take that long to execute any of the compromises I listed). That, even from a UX design perspective which tends to honor a somewhat sterile sense-of-clock.

Why the hell it is not on bezier points ?

A great question, of course. I don't know. It would be welcome, obviously.

I do know that I spend up to 70% of some workdays manipulating path controls in Illustrator, and I've never experienced a level of frustration with it that prompted me to take it up with Adobe. I expect that's why I, and perhaps some other of our fellow users, are not all that quick to rush up and agree with someone making the case; "it's horribly broken," and rather, start looking for other systemic reasons for the complaint, perhaps in corrupt preferences, pointer-device niggles, etc. That stuff does happen.

[Alesclandre]

It would be welcome, obviously.

Great to read that

I'm sure this can benefit to everyone .

[Monika Gause]

Alesclandre  schrieb

Frankly.... Do you really think I'm gonna do all these things ? I'm working, man ! I'm not testing this software....

We on the forum are just users (as you).

Advice is based on our experience.

We don't write that software

And to add another one: I have never seen this behaviour.

So this has been caused by something on your computer.

Preferences files go corrupt from time to time. That just happens. Those files are read and written every time you launch and tehn when you close the application. One hiccup in your computer can ruin anything. And a hiccup can be just some misconfiguration in your power system. One bad fuse gone wonky. Lightning in your power line.

Nobody accuses you of anything (other than not trying out a few things)

You might also just contact Adobe support:

Contact Customer Care

They can login to your computer and check things out.

Will probably save you and us a few headaches.

[miketkong]

YO! This is truth right here! We're working, we don't have time or this kinda stuff. And not only that, but like he wrote, he's running on a new system. I too am experienceing this same problem and others. I'm finding that Adobe's UIs across apps is just littered with little bugs and maddening quirks like this. They're spending all their time on new features while the UI ages very ungracefully right there infront of all of us—that thing that we use ALL the time when we're working to do the things we need to do a bazillion times like select basier points and nodes, click this menu to change values, click that one to select this tick box. Then you have to click somewhere OUT of the menu to be able to work back on the canvas. All these unecessary clicks. Get it together Adobe.

[mstokowski]

This Video is spot on. I experience this exact behavior, and it is absolutely a new problem; not due to unskilled use. Illustrator user since Illustrator 88, and this behavior appeared with recent update. I do exactly as you do, where I keep hacking at it until I can get the cursor to turn black when I click the handle. If you miss, you have to start the whole selection procedure again... click the path, or find the anchor, then try for that handle again. Production speed has dropped several orders of magnitude. Intel Mac, OS 13.4.1. Illustrator 26.3.1.

[Monika Gause]

Which video?

[Jacob Bugge]

bad (abbreviation),

I inwardly groaned when you said trash the prefs cos I hate having to get it all the way I like it again,

You may use step 4) from a long list you may have seen before, in order to save and thereby rescue your preferences so you can just fall back on them:

4) Move the folder (follow the link with that name) with Illy closed (more tedious but also more thorough and reversible), for CS3 - CC you may find the folder here:

https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/kb/preference-file-location-illustrator.html

[Brobel Design]

FWIW, was having the same problems, unable to grab anchor points. The settings above posted by badassdesigner have helped for me.

[defaultb0i85kbn1psp]

Thanks for posting this spaceprobe! Increasing the selection tolerance seemed to help fix the problem for me… (20+ year user of Illustrator, but new to CC) Also changed the anchor point display like yours to help distinguish betwen anchor point and control handle. 

[Alesclandre]

Hello again,

So I investigated a bit more in the uservoice forums, and it's clearly a REAL problem and the solution is still not there....

Here are some exemples : one, and another one, and still another one, and again another one.... Tons of people !

So I created a new thread by explaining my vision and experience.

If you are using illustrator and have problems grabbing these points, and that you agree with me that this is a HUGE problem, please vote ! Thanks

[crispe123]

I've got the same problems, though I've already posted about it in other threads I think. I have the problem on Windows 10 using both Wacom and Mouse. I don't have the same problem on Mac. The Windows 10 version is basically unuseable so I've had to resort to doing all my Illustrator work on my old Mac machine. Seems like the problem has been around for years though on this forum.

[grafx]

The problem was resolved for me after updating Illustrator. I'm now running v 24.0.1 on macOS Mojave v 10.14.6 without further issues.  

[crispe123]

Yeh its fine in Mac OS but its still broken on Windows 10.

[grafx]

aha. Have you tried contacting adobe directly for support? When I finally did, they did a remote fix via screenshare on their end. But the timing of fix was serendipideous as I had just missed this recent software update (within the past few weeks). Good luck- I hope it is resolved soon for you and the fix is coming soon for windows as well. 

[Soothing_warrior16B8]

I had this same problem and was finally able to resolve it by turning on smart guides.

[alexis-41294473]

Im not sure why this is still an isuue with illustrator since After Effects handles beziers perfectly. I try and use illustrator as a last resort as its basic functionality is extremely buggy. 

[Monika Gause]

You can make the handles and points bigger in the preferences. Does that help?

[jamesg2858629]

Just wanted to chime in here and say this is still an issue for me - I have bumped up the size of the bezier handles since, which has helped, if not making things a bit clunkier.

My new pet peeve is that now this behaviour seems to apply to selecting single strokes/paths as well, which can be absolutely infuriating (hence my post at this very moment hahaha) - moving them around without smart guides is a nightmare. Don't get me started on how much it is amplified with overlapping elements. Weird part is, I don't have this issue in other vector editing software. Mind boggling.

I really hope some day this is addressed with some sort of selection tolerance setting that has a markedly noticeable effect.

[grafx]

I have the same problem. Incredibly frustrating and time wasting!

[grafx]

The problem was resolved for me after updating Illustrator. I'm now running v 24.0.1 on macOS Mojave v 10.14.6 without further issues.