Fonts changing in files when opened in Illustrator 29.5.1

[Lavish_coder1549]

I've experienced this twice now, both times in the last month. I design beer labels and I'll often open an older label and use it as the template for a new one. When I open the older file (an .AI file), it will load, and most of the live text will have switched to a different font arbitrarily. Some fonts switch to OTHER typefaces that exist in the same document, others switch to different weights of the same font, and still others switch to defaults like times and myriad.  Some of the switched fonts are stored locally, and others are served via Adobe Fonts. The file does this consistently even after I've restarted illustrator and restarted my computer. 

I've attached a screenshot of one of the files with its original fonts (from an outlined version for print), as well as a shot with the changed fonts.

Has anyone else experienced this?

System:

2022 Mac Studio M1 Max

MacOS Sonoma 14.6.1

Illustrator v 29.5.1

[Federico_Romero]

Same issue here, shocking at the beginning.

I needed to print out business cards in a rush, but this happened when I opened the file.

I was able to fix it easily in 3 minutes after I read this thread. Thank you!

I installed Illustrator 28 and everything worked fine. I lost my preferences, but oh well—frustration is the feeling Adobe has gotten us used to.

Funny to think—now you can rotate your characters! But fonts fall apart and get messed up.

[JodyRadzik]

Ever since I lost a couple of days rebuilding files that were ruined by the font substitution bug, I'm very reluctant to use any version of Illustrator past 29.4. Is anybody still seeing the issue with the latest release, 29.8.1?

Thanks in advance for letting me know.

[kirstinhepburn]

I am on 29.8 and it happened to me this morning. Sent final files to a client and had them come back to me to ask why one heading on one artboard was "not bold like the others". Illustrator had (yet again) swapped another font in the document in place of my heading font on a single word, on a single artboard, in a large project. Luckily the client caught it before it went to print but it still makes me look incompetent. And for that I am paying $100/m hmmmmm.......

[JodyRadzik]

Joining @Randy_111 in thanking you for the report. I will wait and deal with the lesser and more managable problems that arise from using an earlier version of this now cursed application.

[Randy_111]

Thats almost worse then before, at least the older versions it was really noticeable because it changed the fonts so much. So Adobe actually have made the problem worse for us, good job people.

[Randy_111]

Thanks for letting us know Kirstin, the Illustrator team strikes out yet again! This bug and the total incompetence at Adobe has made me afraid to update any Adobe products. How can this continue on and on we go.

[thebronxdaddy]

I don't know why it's so hard for Adobe to scrap all the affected versions and start over from the version that worked if they can't figure out the way to get rid of this bug. This is the worst bug I've ever seen in my 30 years of using Adobe products.

[fluke-d]

29.8.1 is still affected by the bug.

[k9tag]

Wait... did anyone else see this comment from 9/19/25?    It appears that the devastating bug that we have all been suffering from for months. at least for the one user below, has been fixed.  My response is yeah... right... sure.  If this were true, wouldn't Adobe be shouting from the rooftops that they have finally fixed the worst bug in the history of Adobe Illustrator?   I mean how much worse can a bug be  -  you do 3 days worth of work in Illustrator the same way that you have for 20 years, and you save the file, only to find that the next day your file is completely ruined due to some bug that f*cks up all f your fonts?

So, this solitary user says that this bug has been fixed by 29.9 or 30.0   It will take a hell of a lot more than that to get me to upgrade Illustrator past 29.4, a version that I know at least freaking works.

artistic_maker16E5

artistic_maker16E5

Explorer , 

Sep 19, 2025

good news

I have downloaded illustrator beta 29.9 and 30.0
The problem seems to have finally been resolved with both versions

[JodyRadzik]

I'm going to need a lot more verification than a fan's first impressions.

[M S V]

just installed version 29.8.2

opening and resaving my test file with all version between 29.5 and 29.8.1 I get shuffled fonts

doing the same with version 29.4 and 29.8.2 fonts are ok