I literally cannot use illustrator anymore

[Raiu VEX Alexandru]

As the title says, I literally cannot use this software anymore. I attached a video for an exact simulation of what's happening.

Out of nowhere, starting from today, I cannot save any file that has either text in it or sometimes embed images. I tested everything with the font "Myriad Pro", the default one, it doesn't matter what font it is anyway.

I have a pretty simple file that I'm working with and I can simply CTRL-S any time I want and each time I'm doing so, the file saves almost instantly. If I'm adding other shapes, like a square, for instance, I'm able to ctrl-s or hit File>Save and it saves automatically.
Then I add a font, I hit the Text icon, put the text in a random place and when I press CTRL-S or File>Save in the tab, where the file name is, it keeps saying "Saving...", but it's not doing anything, trust me, I waited for 30 minutes, until I started to get really angry for losing almost many hours searching for anything useful.
I found that if you "Save As" and untick the PDF compatibility it should work, or should work better, but that's the exact moment it crashes almost instantly.
Also, I tried that with any .AI file that I have in my folders, I tried creating new ones, I reinstalled the software, also the "AI" icon in the taskbar is just a blank file for some reason...

Anyway, can anyone help with this? Am I doing something wrong? I've been working with AI for some years now, but I feel totally powerless in face of this issue. I legit don't know what I can do and this creates huge hole in my work progress and I'm losing so much money on these issues. I saw people having these problems for 5-6 years now... how on earth is it possible to have such software issues in 2022?

My PC setup:
Windows 10 pro (updated)
CPU: I9 - 12900K

GPU: RTX 3080Ti

RAM: 64 GB

SSD m2: 2TB

[Anubhav M]

Hello Raiu VEX Alexandru,

Sorry to hear about this experience. Have you tried resetting the preferences? If not, kindly try resetting Illustrator's preferences manually and see if that helps resolve the issue:
 

- Close all Adobe applications.
- Go to Location C:\Users\%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Adobe
- Rename Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Illustrator 26 Settings folders to Adobe Illustrator.old and Adobe Illustrator - 26 Settings.old
 

Disclaimer: Please note that renaming preferences folders will remove all the custom settings, and Illustrator will launch with default settings. You can also take a backup of the folders in case you want to. The location is mentioned above.

Also, if your file is saved on an external/network drive or a cloud-synced folder, kindly move it to the desktop and check if it helps.

Looking forward to your response.

Thanks,

Anubhav

[Raiu VEX Alexandru]

I'm saving them on my pc, nothing network related.
Resetting the preferences didn't do anything...

[Monika Gause]

Where do you save your files?

Can you try and turn off "Save in background" in the preferences - does that work?

[Raiu VEX Alexandru]

I'm saving them on my pc, nothing network related.
I turned "Save in background" off and now it's freezing instantly when I hit CTRL + S.

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

How many fonts do you currently have active on your machine? What are you using for font management?

[Raiu VEX Alexandru]

I don't have anything installed for font management, only using the windows folder in Control Panel to manage them.
I have 4809 fonts installed, the defaults and the full Google Fonts Library.

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

You should definitely reduce the number of fonts.

[Kevin Stohlmeyer · Accepted solution]

That is way too many fonts for any single design application to manage. You need to purchase a font manager to reduce the number of active fonts and make the others available as needed.

[Raiu VEX Alexandru]

I deleted all my fonts and illustrator started working again. This was it apparently.
I installed Fontbase and now it's easier for me to work, even the software works better.
Never thought about using a font manager. Thank you for the help! Have a great weekend!

[Monika Gause]

Good to hear you could solve it. Thank you for the feedback!