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1

Direct selection tool appears to move whole object until mouse release

Community Beginner ,
Apr 25, 2022 Apr 25, 2022

I've been struggling with an issue regarding the direct selection tool. In much earlier versiions of Illustrator, when points of an object were selected using the direct selection tool, only those points would move if moved to a new position. Now though I'm forever getting the whole object moving, and the unselected points will then snap back to their original position when the mouse is released. It does this in CC2020 and 2022. The attached screen recording shows what I mean (for clarification, I only want the top points in the selection to move). Is this how the direct selection tool is now supposed to work? If not, what am I missing? Any help appreciated.

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Draw and design , Tools
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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Community Beginner , Jun 19, 2023 Jun 19, 2023

Thank you! This was driving me nuts. Disabling real time editing fixed the problem.

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Community Expert ,
Apr 25, 2022 Apr 25, 2022

Is it part of a group you are trying to move? I still see the Selection tool selected in the Toolbox.

Does it do the same thing when you select the Direct Selection tool in the Toolbox?

And restarting machines, resetting preferences may help.

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Community Beginner ,
Apr 25, 2022 Apr 25, 2022

Hi Ton

Thanks for your reply. It's not part of a group. You are correct, I have the selection tool selected but I'm using the quick key (v) to select the direct selection tool while dragging over the points I want to select. I've had this issue for many months (if not years) and have tried to workaround it, so have restarted numerous times. 

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Community Expert ,
Apr 25, 2022 Apr 25, 2022

OK, so these are arrowheads. I cannot reproduce the problem, my MacOS is Catalina.

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Community Expert ,
Apr 25, 2022 Apr 25, 2022

Ton, the video shows four anchor points on the circle selected, and the circle when moved ends up out of alignment with the line segment, which is not consistent with arrowhead behavior.

 

Russ, I can confirm the behavior that you describe when I have the Selection Tool active and I press (in my setup) the command key to activate the Direct Selection pointer. When I select the Direct Selection Tool from the Toolbar or by pressing the A key only the selected points move with the cursor. I would suggest that you go to https://illustrator.uservoice.com/ to report this as a bug, and include your video.

 

Peter

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Community Beginner ,
Apr 25, 2022 Apr 25, 2022

Thanks Peter

Great, will do. And many thanks for the link. 

Regards

Russell

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Community Expert ,
Apr 25, 2022 Apr 25, 2022

Yes, I can replicate it too. 

It does work as expected when GPU Preview (real time editing) is disabled.

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Community Beginner ,
Jun 19, 2023 Jun 19, 2023

Thank you! This was driving me nuts. Disabling real time editing fixed the problem.

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New Here ,
May 05, 2025 May 05, 2025
LATEST

For what it's worth, this solution helped me.

I'm experiencing the same problem, where the direct selection tool (white arrow) moves an entire object when you do NOT have all points selected.

With Illustrator Beta 29.6 , selecting View>View using CPU (CTRL+E) made the tool work like normal. Thanks!

 

Seems like maybe GPU drivers and various Illustrator updates aren't playing nice? Maybe I'll try rolling back the AI version and/or my GPU drivers (Nvidia Studio Driver 576.02 currently, for reference), and see if I can get it working like normal.

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