Gradient Fills converting to individual lines of colour

[frankimartelly]

Hi. So I've seen this problem multiple times over the years and have always assumed it to be a version control issue however I wondered if anyone can shed any light on this - why do some files with gradient fills (which were created in illustrator originally) when reopened convert the gradient fill into a series of multiple lines of colour (no fill just stroke colour) within a clipping box? So you can no longer control the gradient as a fill and you end up potentially with a lot of lines which don't graduate as seamlessly as a fill... Anyone had this issue and/or know why it occurs? Anyone know if it's possible to reverse it once it's happend? Thanks in hopeful anticipation!

[SJRiegel]

When I have seen this, it has been the result of either

opening in an older version of Illustrator,

opening a PDF that was saved without the Illustrator Editing enabled,

or a corrupted Illustrator file in which only the PDF component is accessible.

In the case of the first reason, you can try opening it in the version it was created with, provided it has not yet been saved in the other version.

[frankimartelly]

Thank you so much for replying - glad it's not my imagination that this is a "thing". I think you're right and the only real way back is to look for original source files and hope they are still in tact... not easy when it's not your artwork!