File Names are greyed out in Illustrator 2021

[Frank69]

Using a 2019 iMac 3.7GHz6-Core Intel Core i5, Mac os 11.6. My file names are grayed out and have been for some time. Using Macs since mid 90's and I'm ususally pretty good at figuring things out but I'm stumped. Any ideas or help out there would be much appreciated!

[lambiloon]

Hi try to reset your preferences of illustrator is that working on 2020 ?

[sideliner]

Same. 'Open' brings up files all greyed out - they'll open fine, but there's obviously some bug that's been around for a long time now through a few updates.

[Anubhav Majumder]

Hello @sideliner, @Frank69,

We understand how frustrating it can be to encounter technical issues while working in Illustrator. Would you mind checking if Illustrator has Full Disk Access by following the steps shared in this third-party help article (https://kb.synology.com/en-us/C2/tutorial/How_to_enable_Full_Disk_Access_on_a_Mac) and also checking for pending Illustrator/macOS updates and installing them to let us know if it helps?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Thanks,

Anubhav

[sideliner]

Hi Anubhav, thanks for responding.

Turns out Full Disk Access was already turned on for Ai. Same for Photoshop and Lightroom, my other most used apps apart from Indesign. Indesign was turned off, so I turned that on while there.

Now Ai shows files in the normal way too. Why/how would the setting for Id affect Ai behavior? Who knows 🙂

[Anubhav Majumder]

Hello @sideliner,

Thank you for letting us know that the solution provided worked for you. We're glad to hear that your issue has been resolved. To help other users with similar problems, would you mind marking the answer as correct? We appreciate your contribution to the community. Let us know if you have any more questions or concerns. We're always here to help.

Thanks,

Anubhav

[sideliner]

For what it's worth, an update - the behavior is back to its old ways, so turning on the Indesign disk access may or may not have had anything to do with the greyed out file issue. The change didn't stick for long.

I do notice that sometimes when in the open dialog box for a few moments while scrolling to find a file, all the greyed out file names suddenly turn black/'normal'. 

I have no idea of what's going on but as long as the files remain openable despite being greyed out, I'll keep trucking with my work and hope that one day a random Ai/MacOS/hardware update fixes it.