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9

Illustrator 2020 keeps crashing on macOS Catalina

Participant ,
Dec 22, 2019 Dec 22, 2019

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So, I just got my new 16" Macbook, i9 processor with 64gb Ram.

Only problem is that Ilustrator now keeps crashing. I don't have any issues with my old 2015 Macbook, or my iMac 5K, only with my new 16" Macbook. Only Illustrator crashes, and it happens at least 4-5 times during a day. No pattern. Latest version of Illustrator and lates version of MacOS.

 

I finally found a solution. It was another user who wrote me a message with a solution that at least worked for me.

I haven't had a crash in 2 days now.

Preference > Performance > uncheck "GPU Performance"

 

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correct answers 3 Correct answers

Adobe Employee , Mar 16, 2020 Mar 16, 2020

Hi there,

 

We are extremely sorry to hear this. Turning off GPU performance might have worked for them but not for you. Looking at the crash report you submitted on 5th March, it looks like an GPU issue but there could be other factors too. It looks like one-on-one support will be able to help you best. Please head here (https://helpx.adobe.com/support.html) and select the chat button in the lower-right corner of the page. We can help troubleshoot faster that way.

 

Thanks!

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Participant , Sep 04, 2020 Sep 04, 2020

I have updated to the Metal Beta, available if you are signed in to Adobe:

https://www.adobeprerelease.com/beta/85A6F544-2705-49BD-8314-DD549C6A1713#

 

In the release note, it says:

 

Illustrator 24.3 Metal Build 3 (Mac Only)

Stability improvements - we believe several crashes are addressed by moving to Metal. (As OpenGL was deprecated – stability issues reported around GPU Rendering should be addressed with Metal support).

 

I would consider that to be an official admission that there is a GPU renderin

...

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Adobe Employee , Sep 07, 2020 Sep 07, 2020

Hi all,

 

We understand how frustrating crashes can be. We have consolidated the most popular solutions that help in fixing these issues and also, how you can recover unsaved documents after a crash. Please check this help article for more details.

 

If you still need help, feel free to reach out, we'd be happy to help.

 

Regards,

Srishti

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Community Beginner ,
May 26, 2020 May 26, 2020

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There is only ONE HOPE and it is todays update to MacOS Catalina 10.15.5

which should resolve this issue, nothing else before didnt help for me.

God bless Adobe, its Applegate

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Explorer ,
May 27, 2020 May 27, 2020

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Not an Adobe issue? God bless Adobe. Boy, you're not biased at all...

 

I doesn't sound like you've read any of the posts on this thread because if you did, you would see that a lot of the users here are reporting issues specifically to Illustrator crashing/quiting on their MBP 16". Not the freezing/restarting issue that's being reported on the Apple thread. The only fix that's worked for me is turning off 'GPU Performance' in Illustrator preferences. So tell me again how switching off a function directly within Adobe Illustrator to resolve the issue is not an Adobe issue???

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New Here ,
Jun 15, 2020 Jun 15, 2020

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I had the same issue with a brand new Mac 16" (Illustrator crashing and computer crashing in sleep mode). The GPU fix didn't work for me. 

 

The problem was solved yesterday. It was my antivirus software. Initially, I was using Kaspersky and suspected it was causing issues so I changed to Avast. Illustrator continued to crash especially on saving. I turned Avast off now Illustrator (and the Mac) are working as they should. Adobe recommended Malwarebytes as compatible anti-virus software. 

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Explorer ,
Jun 15, 2020 Jun 15, 2020

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Happy for you, wish I had a fix. I think it may be a driver problem from Apple now. After a bunch of test, somethign is wrong between the GPU and Illustrator for sure. One of the two has to work on it.

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Community Beginner ,
Jun 23, 2020 Jun 23, 2020

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Another MBP 16 DAILY CRASH issue ... now with Illustrator. I don't want to troubleshoot the problem. Or turn this off or that off. NO. I paid a lot of money for this computer. I pay an obscene amount of extortion money to Adobe. Don't make me fix it.

 

YOU FIX IT. That's what we pay for... IT TO WORK. Honestly this is becoming the norm and it's outrageous. Open files. Illustrator crashes. Wake computer Illustrator crashes. 

 

Dictation service?? The fact that you would even bring up the idea of changing the dictation service to stop Illustrator from crashing... you should be embarrassed. What a JOKE. Another nail in the coffin. 

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Community Beginner ,
Jun 23, 2020 Jun 23, 2020

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Submitted the above post, switched to Illustrator ... and what do you know ... Crashed.... again. 

 

Screen Shot 2020-06-24 at 12.12.12 AM.png

 

 

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Community Expert ,
Jun 24, 2020 Jun 24, 2020

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Please contact Customer Care. They can login to your system to check it out: https://helpx.adobe.com/contact.html

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Community Beginner ,
Aug 26, 2020 Aug 26, 2020

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Hello everybody.
After over a year of crashes, since I bought the 16'', for the first time, for now 6 days, despite leaving CPU-performance enabled (turning it off solved the problem of crashing, but made Illustrator as slow as a snail), Illustrator is stable.

What did I do: I chatted with customer care, who didn’t have a clue about the issue. During the chat he found this thread and told me to do what is described here. Which I had already done 100 times before. Then asked me wheter I wanted to install a pre-release of Illustrator (Version 24.3), which I did. Additionally I (again) switched off "Automatic Graphics Switching" in the system preferences. As I said, I had tried that several times before, but the update of Illustrator (combined with switching off AGS) makes my Illustrator run smoothly, no crashes since 6 days. Even though I nearly never turn off my computer, switch monitors constantly, use large files (up to 600 mb with embedded images, yes, I know it’s stupid, thank you, and yes, I know and use InDesign).

Here you find the pre-release for Mac:

https://download.adobeprerelease.com/85A6F544-2705-49BD-8314-DD549C6A1713/1597234649/AdobeIllustrato... 


I really can’t believe it. Keep the fingers crossed. If it starts crashing again, I will notify you.

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Participant ,
Aug 26, 2020 Aug 26, 2020

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That's awesome! Looks like in that link you need join the pre-release program for Illustrator (which I just did), so I'll try downloading 24.3. So this version allows you to use the GPU preview inside of Illustrator? I'm using version 24.2 currently (with CPU preview) which seems more stable, but much much slower.

Thanks!

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Community Beginner ,
Aug 26, 2020 Aug 26, 2020

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Yes, I can activate CPU preview (command-E), but Illustrator gets really slow then (which is alright, because I don’t need the preview constantly in my workflow). So again: GPU performance enabled, CPU preview disabled.

I will now try to turn Automatic Graphics Switching (System Preferences) back on, so the computer is not too loud and the battery life doesn’t suffer. I will keep you posted on that, too. Hope it works.


By the way, I need the GPU, because I’m working on a 27'' 5K monitor.

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Participant ,
Aug 26, 2020 Aug 26, 2020

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Sweet. Yeah, I need the GPU as well, since I'm on a 32" 4k monitor. The CPU preview was more stable but super super slow (like you also experienced). Thanks for this. :).  Hopefull this will finally fix our issues!

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Explorer ,
Aug 31, 2020 Aug 31, 2020

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This sounds promising. Based on your post, I've upgraded to the official release of Illustrator 24.3 this morning and I have also turned GPU performance back on within the Illustrator preferences and also turned automatic graphics switching back on within the OSX Energy Saver preference pane. I'll try that out for the next few days and hopefully get the same results that you've been experiencing. You haven't reported back since mid-last week so I'm really hoping that no news is good news? Anyhow, I too will report back once I've thoroughly tested this out this week...

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Community Beginner ,
Aug 31, 2020 Aug 31, 2020

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I must say, I really think this is the solution, as I wrote above, I would have notified you if Illustrator had crashed since then. But it didn’t. I really hope that this works for all of you, too. Fingers crossed! Again: Illustrator 24.3 installed, GPU performance enabled, CPU preview disabled, Automatic Graphics Switching (System Preferences) activated.

However, I seem to have gotten slight difficulties with InDesign (crashed a few times, but not as extensively as Illustrator before), which I therefore upgraded to the 2021 version. But for me personall that made things worse: InDesign 2021 got superslow, with or without CPU turned on or off. And the processor got really loud all the time, even though I wasn't working.

@dgotschall1 and @Juicetinking, I would be grateful if you could tell me if this worked for you, too. Or if I’m just lucky.

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Participant ,
Aug 31, 2020 Aug 31, 2020

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Thanks for following up. Honestly I'm a little gun shy to change how I have it set up right now. I turned off the GPU preview and allowed for full disk access with 24.2.3 which has remained stable (tho a bit slower with the GPU preview turned off).  I imagine the next time I'm working in a large file with placed images (which seems to be more when it crashes) and crashes and I lose my work is when I'll finally pull the trigger and update to 24.3. ...hmm....too many gun metaphors in this post....haha...

I imagine tho that 24.3 should be rolling out as the "approved and current" release shortly? @Juicetinking let me know how it's working for you please. 🙂

Thanks!

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Explorer ,
Sep 01, 2020 Sep 01, 2020

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@dgotschall1 - Version 24.3 was already released. It showed up in my CC app updates yesterday and I went ahead and applied it. Still too early to 100% confirm but so far, I have not had any crashes. I've been able to leave Illustrator open on my 16 in. MBP and wake up from sleep without Illustrator unexpectadely quitting. This is with GPU performance back on. This would literally crash every single time prior. So far so good!

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 01, 2020 Sep 01, 2020

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This just keeps getting more and more unbelievable everytime I read one of these posts.

 

Does it not bother you that you are paying to be Adobe's unpaid beta tester? I'd rather be using the software I paid for and not fixing it. I'd prefer to spend my time making money, not fixing Adobe's broken software.

 

And I'm tired of this decades old story of ... "don't update right away, wait for the bugs to get worked out." No. Not acceptable. Imagine if my $1,200 iPhone wouldn't make calls when I left the store with it and I walked back in, they said ... "ohh, just turn off the cellular. it's a new phone we haven't worked out all the bugs yet." This whole idea of not updating is just a tired old story that software companies push because they write crappy software and they're too greedy to pay to have it properly tested so they test it on their customers. Guess how that story ends Adobe? Have you met my friend Mr Quark?

 

Seriously, this is ridiculous. Turn the GPU off? That's the answer? I physically cannot type another sentence after I wrote that. So rather than write code that runs on the GPU, they tell you to turn off your GPU. 

 

Not to mention, on the first day of SEPTEMBER, the fact that this thread was started in DECEMBER.

 

Today's total... Illustrator 5 crashes, Indesign 1 crash

August total... Illustrator 178 crashes, Indesign 42 crashes, Photoshop 1 crash, Bridge 2 crashes

YTD total... Illustrator 1,276 crashes, Indesign 339 crashes, Photoshop 6 crashes, Bridge 3 crashes

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Explorer ,
Sep 01, 2020 Sep 01, 2020

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Hi All,

Update:

• Turning GPU Off: FAIL.

• Turning off "Graphics Switching" system preference; FAIL.

• Update to latest Illustrator yesterday (24.3); FAIL.

• Clean out preferences; FAIL.

I started a magazine project yesterday, and InDesign crashes the same way.

I don't appreciate being an unpaid tester of expensive equipment.

The "unexpectedly crashed" warning is burned into my mind.

 

I'm not looking forward to the phone call. Who has that time?

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Explorer ,
Sep 01, 2020 Sep 01, 2020

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@Billy by the Sea - Have you allowed full disk access to both AI and ID via the Security & Privacy preference pane in OS X?

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Explorer ,
Sep 02, 2020 Sep 02, 2020

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I have not allowed "full disk access". Let me investigate that. Thank you for the rec.

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Participant ,
Sep 02, 2020 Sep 02, 2020

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Allowing full disk access did solve a lot of my issues...for a while anyway. Then Illustrator started crashing again. Mostly when I would be working with placed images or pasted in images. I turned off the GPU preview, which again bought me a few weeks of solid (albeit slower) performance. Then again just today, it's crashed on me several times (once when quitting out of it anyway, which is kinda funny....and another time I lost about 20 minutes of work). SO, I just updated to 24.3 and have GPU performance turned back on. Let's hope this does the trick...maybe?

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Participant ,
Sep 09, 2020 Sep 09, 2020

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Welp...upgraded to 24.3 and turned GPU preview back on and it's crash city again. This sucks. Back to CPU preview and super slow responsivness looks like. OH, and another killer feature now seems to be that that Illustrator files are either NOT SAVING or if the program crashes, the recovered file I was working in is NOT the latest file that I saved - it's somehow reverting to a PREVIOUS save file. This happened twice today. I thought I was going crazy. I was like "I'm sure I saved this file with the new edits..."

 

Anywhoooooo, good times. Another release and still no fix. Fun. How is this still a thing? I mean, I GOTTA IMAGINE that a good chunk of people using Illustrator are running it on a new 16" MBP.

Juicetinking

kilianp29643731

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 01, 2020 Sep 01, 2020

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HOLY CRAP 1200+ CRASHES IN ILLUSTRATOR ALONE. How have you not thrown your computer across the room yet??

So I actually have been crash free for a 1.5 weeks (I feel like a recovering addict). I did the stupid task of disabling my GPU, but I also enabled disk access to Adobe Illustrator in my system settings > security & privacy. I was crash free for a couple days, but it was running way too slow so I renabled GPU and haven’t had a crash yet, baby.

It’s worth nothing that, prior to this little dance, my sh*t would crash like 4-5X per day.

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Participant ,
Sep 02, 2020 Sep 02, 2020

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I am so pissed at Adobe, you have no idea. I had this issue since December 2019 when I got my new MacBook. What I thought was going to help speed up my workflow has done the exact opposite. Crashes after crashes has made my workday a nightmare. I tried to shut off the GPU performance, but man, is that making everything slower and really annoying to work with. I just downloaded 24.3 and was hoping they finally fixed it, but noooooo, still crashes all the time. THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!

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Explorer ,
Sep 02, 2020 Sep 02, 2020

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@Grupet_69 - I totally hear you. A lot of us have been dealing with this nonsense since upgrading to the 16 in. MBP - myself since they were first released in November 2019. It's only been a few days but I am definitely experiencing improvements with the latest release 24.3. GPU is back on (as is Automatic Graphics switching) and I have yet to experience a crash. Particularly, the one that would cause AI to crash unexpectedly while it's in the background or when my computer awakes from sleep. I'll be honest, I have yet to work on a big project so I can't say for sure that it has totally eliminated the crashing problem but so far, I am without a doubt seeing an improvement. As I mentioned above, I'm wondering if you have also allowed Illustrator full disk access within the Security & Privacy Preference Pane (as per screenshot below). It would be interesting to know if you're experiencing the crashes with this enabled so that we can rule it out. I would say that this is more of an issue with changes made in OS X Catalina but that's not to say Adobe shouldn't also be addressing their horrible quality control and beta testing which is definitely getting worse through time. Anyhow, please do let us know if you have Full Disk Access enabled.

Screen Shot 2020-09-02 at 12.11.58 PM.png

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Explorer ,
Sep 02, 2020 Sep 02, 2020

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@Grupet_69 - I totally hear you. A lot of us have been dealing with this nonsense since upgrading to the 16 in. MBP - myself since they were first released in November 2019. It's only been a few days but I am definitely experiencing improvements with the latest release 24.3. GPU is back on (as is Automatic Graphics switching) and I have yet to experience a crash. Particularly, the one that would cause AI to crash unexpectedly while it's in the background or when my computer awakes from sleep. I'll be honest, I have yet to work on a big project so I can't say for sure that it has totally eliminated the crashing problem but so far, I am without a doubt seeing an improvement. As I mentioned above, I'm wondering if you have also allowed Illustrator full disk access within the Security & Privacy Preference Pane (as per screenshot below). It would be interesting to know if you're experiencing the crashes with this enabled so that we can rule it out. I would say that this is more of an issue with changes made in OS X Catalina but that's not to say Adobe shouldn't also be addressing their horrible quality control and beta testing which is definitely getting worse through time. Anyhow, please do let us know if you have Full Disk Access enabled.

Screen Shot 2020-09-02 at 12.11.58 PM.png

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