Can't open svg files

[DigitalChickster]

Hi all! I have a 2008 iMac I've been using for a long time. I just bought a new 2013 iMac. I'm using Illustrator CS6 (via the cloud). I work for a company that has me download svg files. I normally open those using Illustrator (I am using the same version of Illustrator on both computers). When I used to open the svg files, I would get a message that says, "The document uses fonts or characters which are not available or are in a different format than originally specified." Below that it says, "Sans-serf: An unknown problem occured." But then I'd click "OK" and it would open just fine.

On my new iMac, when I double click on the same svg file, I get the message, "The operation cannot complete because of an unknown error. [CANT].

So... what can I do? It doesn't give me any options at all!

julie

[Mylenium]

Install Inkscape, fix the files there before opening in AI.

Mylenium

[mercycorrell]

I have the same situation. I recently upgraded from CS5 to CS6 CC. In CS5, I could open SVGs without any trouble, but suddently in CC, I can't (same computer). Consideringi that SVG is one of the supported file-formats for AI, I don't really see adding another piece of software as a viable solution.

Adobe, is this a known bug? Is there a fix?

Computer: 2011 MacBook Pro

OSX 10.9 Mavericks

Adobe CS CC

Illustrator 17.0.0

[DigitalChickster]

Sorry to hear you're having the same issue, David. I, too, don't want to add more steps to my daily work load. I'd like to just open and convert the svg files as I've always been able to do.

I spent an hour or so on the phone with Adobe tech support on Friday. He was not able to solve my problem, so he escalated it to senior tech support agents... and I haven't heard from them yet. If I find anything out, I'll let you know!

[mercycorrell]

Thanks for the update. It's good to know you were able to talk to someone, and that they're looking into it. Thanks again, and let us know!

[DigitalChickster]

I finally got a call back from a senior tech support guy. After much trial and error, he reported that he believes it's a bug in the new version of Illustrator and that my only solution is to keep my old computer with CS6 on it until they fix the bug. He said he'd call me if and when they found something out.

It's very frustrating, and the timing is terrible... this is on the heals of my rate increase (I had the Creative Cloud promotional discount last year that just ran out) and the  letter telling me my  credit card information had been comprisied. I'm not so happy with Adobe right now.

[mercycorrell]

Thanks for the update. More bad news from Adobe — shocker. I'd say let's hope they fix it soon, but Adobe has a terrible track record when it comes to fixing bugs. Ugh.

[karin_newport]

I just ran into the same problem too: The operation cannot complete because of an unknown error [PGFp]

Any help would be much appreciated. This is extremely annoying.

My computer:

rMBP 13" late 2013

Mavericks

Adobe CC, Illustrator 17.0.0

[aceofspades]

+1

[rama_ai · Accepted solution]

17.1 update is released today for Illustrator CC, this issue is fixed.

I validated the files provided by davidcorrelldesign and they are now opening.

Please update to 17.1 and see if this issue is reproducible.

-Rama

Illustrator Team

[aceofspades]

I own CS6. Will this issue be addressed in that version?

[DigitalChickster]

I updated it and it did work! Thank you so much!!!!!

P.S. After I updated the program, I couldn't open it. It kept crashing. I finally just uninstalled... then reinstalled Illustrator... and then it worked fine. And it opens the SVG files. Whoo hoo!

[BC Holmes]

For those of us with CS6 (16.0.4), when will the fix be distributed for that version?

[rama_ai]

BC Holmes,

Please provide more details on the exact issue that you have with CS6 to ShareWithAi@adobe.com

Please attach the svg files and other relevant information, os etc.

-Rama

Illustrator Team

[aceofspades]

This is an important bug and some of us have paid several hundred dollars, very recently for CS6. Will Adobe please acknolwedge whether or not they will fix this severe bug in CS6? Or offer a free upgrade?

[zeringus]

I'm not an Illustrator user but I develop an application that generates SVGs, and many of my users edit these SVGs in Illustrator CS4, CS5, and CS6 on Mavericks. After receiving bug reports regarding the SVGs causing a CANT error in Illustrator, I performed some testing with Illustrator CS6 for Mac to see what was the problem.

I determined that my SVGs were correct and that Illustrator 16.0.4 on Mavericks mishandles the font-family attribute. In the current version, any unrecognized fonts (either generic or uninstalled fonts) anywhere in the font-family attribute cause the SVG file to not open in Illustrator, regardless of whether or not an installed font precedes them.

This is really unacceptable in the long-term, and I've filed a bug report with you guys, but I was hoping to get confirmation that the problem was being addressed and even an estimate of when a fix would be ready. Dealing with this bug is unnecessarily putting me and my users in a difficult position. If a modern web browser handled W3C's font specs this poorly, it would be completely unusable. I shouldn't be getting requests to add an "Illustrator compatibility mode" to accommodate a basic part of the SVG spec.

So is there a fix coming soon? I understand that older versions of Illustrator are unsupported, but this is a major bug for the still supported CS6 version.

[rhandom]

Is there any news on this? A fix or workaround available now that it is 2015..?

[rzk688]

I have Adobe Illustrator CS6 and recently encountered this issue. It says it cannot open the svg file for "unknown reasons", and gives you nowhere to go from there. There is workaround - although it is so silly that it's hard to believe Adobe hasn't addressed this issue. In my case, the problem was an unrecognized font. On a mac, you can open your svg file in textedit, then do a search for "font". When you find the name of the offending font - it was "sans-serif" in my case - do another search and replace using "arial", or any other font you like that is available within Illustrator. Choose replace all, then save the svg file. If the font was your only issue, it should now open in Illustrator with no problem, and you will find that all the text is now Arial, or whatever font you replaced with.

[AaronPDX]

Thanks for the tip, rzk688! In my case I opened the SVG in TextWrangler, found the name of the missing font, searched it out on the web, found out it's free, downloaded it and stuck it into my main Adobe apps fonts folder. Now the SVG opens!

[Flamboyant_ninja15D5]

Thank you very much!!

I'm working with an app with multiple svg images...

I uninstall some fonts after my work was done. 

As soon as i reinstall the fonts,  illustrator open the svg again!

(sorry for my english)

[thomasataxial]

am running adobe illustrator 17.1.

can create an svg by saving from illustrator as svg 1.1. specifically unselecting "preserve illustrator editing capabilities"  and saving the svg. cannot reopen the svg from illustrator. illustrator just crashes.

Process:         Adobe Illustrator [2478]

Path:            /Applications/Adobe Illustrator CC/Adobe Illustrator.app/Contents/MacOS/Adobe Illustrator

Identifier:      com.adobe.illustrator

Version:         17.1.0 (17.0.0)

Code Type:       X86-64 (Native)

Parent Process:  launchd [252]

Responsible:     Adobe Illustrator [2478]

User ID:         502

Date/Time:       2014-04-14 13:32:12.994 -0400

OS Version:      Mac OS X 10.9.2 (13C64)

Report Version:  11

Anonymous UUID:  1CF12335-9992-8525-CEF9-BEB54797DCA9

Crashed Thread:  0  Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

Exception Type:  EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)

Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000000000000

VM Regions Near 0:

-->

    __TEXT                 0000000100000000-00000001014a9000 [ 20.7M] r-x/rwx SM=COW  /Applications/Adobe Illustrator CC/Adobe Illustrator.app/Contents/MacOS/Adobe Illustrator

Thread 0 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

[silversken]

Hi

I have Illustrator CC 18.1.1.

It can't open SVG files that it generated self. Message: "This SVG is invalid. Validate it before opening."

It can open SVG:s generated in CS5, but it destroys them too.

What should I do? It is the latest version.

Cheers:

Maria

[jocelyng87284714]

I can't import an .svg file that's been exported from Sketch to Illustrator CC 2017. I can import other kinds of .svg files, downloaded from open source sites for example, but not from Sketch. When I import an .svg item exported from Sketch, Illustrator 2017 freezes and crashes every time. Every single time. This is a crazy insane bug: I need a solid Sketch to Illustrator to After Effects workflow, and .EPS and .PDF files break when imported to Illustrator from Sketch. When Illustrator supported .svg imports from Sketch that used to be the best workflow, so I don't know what happened there. Please update this bug with a fix.

[Monika Gause]

jocelyng87284714 schrieb:

I can't import an .svg file that's been exported from Sketch to Illustrator CC 2017. I can import other kinds of .svg files, downloaded from open source sites for example, but not from Sketch. When I import an .svg item exported from Sketch, Illustrator 2017 freezes and crashes every time. Every single time. This is a crazy insane bug: I need a solid Sketch to Illustrator to After Effects workflow, and .EPS and .PDF files break when imported to Illustrator from Sketch. When Illustrator supported .svg imports from Sketch that used to be the best workflow, so I don't know what happened there. Please update this bug with a fix.

Posting to an ages old thread that is marked solved and contains posts about a couple of different errors ...

Please create your own thread in order to not mess up everything. Thank you.

[mercycorrell]

I updated and tried again, and the opened with no trouble. Thanks for the fix!