I was having similar issues to a lot of people where the hand tool would not work when I use the spacebar to quickly swap from whatever tool I am currently using. The issue results in the hand appearing and not being able to "grab" onto the page and pan around the artboard.
I haven't had luck using any of the methods listed in all of the forums that I've checked, however in doing some experimenting I've found that I am able to initiate the "grabbing" of the page by using SPACE in conjunction with CTRL.
- Holding SPACE + CTRL will bring up the zoom function.
- Holding SPACE and clicking CTRL allows for the hand tool to move around only while maintaining the hold on the SPACE bar.
- Releasing the SPACE bar and clicking it again results in the hand tool being unable to function properly.