Can't save (to external drive)

[_bernard_]

You'd think that after a decade of using Illustrator you have more or less seen it all. Apparently not.

Created a new AI document and tried to save the file where everything else goes: a work-dedicated external drive. Nope. Cannot be done. Fromt what I have gathered 'Adobe only supports local hard drives'.

This comes as something of a surprise to me because:

• I've been saving Adobe files to external drives for decades
• We live in an age of collaborative computing which is, incidently, encouraged to Adobe, yet I cannot save one puny AI file to a USB-connected external hard drive (yes, I do have Read and Write authority for said drive)

It cannot possibly be that stupid, I must be doing something wrong, right?

[Monika Gause]

The document you are referring to is a recommendation. It doesn't mean that Illustrator cannot save to external drives AT ALL.

https://helpx.adobe.com/in/illustrator/kb/illustrator-support-networks-removable-media.html

For many people saving to their external drives just works day in day out. Having said that: are you by any chance working on Mac OS? In some recent versions under certain conditions Mac OS has issues with USB connected peripherals.

https://www.techradar.com/how-to/macos-11-big-sur-problems-how-to-fix-the-most-common-issues

[_bernard_]

Hi Monika,

Quite right: that is indeed the Adobe article I was referring to. And yes, I am running Monterey: removable drives were a massive problem for several Big Sur and first-release-Monterey users (me included), but the current Monterey patch (12.1) has addressed this.

None of the other Adobe apps has given be the same cannot-save problem, and I have never encountered it with Illustrator before today (granted ... haven't used Illustrator much of late). 

It is a highly disruptive issue to (all of a sudden) plague an otherwise stable app. 

[Met1]

What error are you getting?

I assume you can save to your puter then copy to HD, yes? (This is checking the HD isn't corrupted)

[_bernard_]

'Can't save the Illustration. .278'

You have a point though: just tried to copy another file over and got an error. The problem might well lie with the external drive. Will explore and report back, thanks for pointing that out.