Illustrator 2020 keeps crashing on macOS Catalina

[Grupet_69]

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"

[Bev A.]

Just turned off the actual creative cloud app and was able to open Illustrator 2021 on my iMac Catalina. So far this is only answer that has worked for me since the upgrade. What a pain.

[merkinno1234]

Is this fix still working for you?

[Indyboosler]

"

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"

Turning off a feature that I paid to be able to use is NOT a solution.  The fact is Adobe has known about this issue for over a year now pertaining to the 16" MacBook pro, and instead of fixing it they exported the bug so it does it on all Macs - ie they made it WORSE!

[Indyboosler]

And literally 5 minutes after that post anohter crash.  This app is causing more work than I'm getting done. 

[dgotschall1]

Thanks Indybooster. Yeah, many of us have tried that "turn off GPU" suggestion, but sadly didn't work for us either (and made the program unusably slow). The thing that worked for me for...a few weeks actually...was to trash my Illustrator preferences and then rebuild my work space from scratch. The instructions for how to do that on the Adobe Support site aren't correct (surprise) so I had to Google search how to do it. BUT it's recently started crashing on me again. I'm using version 24.3. I tried many of the Beta versions but when they would crash it would totally reset my program so I had to rebuild my workspace/palletes every time, which suuuuuucked. So I'm back on the regular non-beta version. I read that version 25 was suppose to fix this, but in my experinece it crashed more. I'm not certain there is a fix at this point, and honestly would be willing to punt my MacBook Pro 16 if it fixed the issue (even tho this is Adobe's issue). Anyone know if this run more stabel on the new M1 chips? Or if PC's have this issue??

[Indyboosler]

It's not limited to the 16" MBP anymore. Version 25 has spread the crashing to my iMac pro as well (and to Photoshop and Dreamweaver). 

[HosoTran]

I don't think they will fix anything until a larger news outlet expose it.

[merkinno1234]

Ugh, so we had been nearly 2 weeks without any crashes until they started up again. Designer had noticed that the shortcuts preference file was getting reset whenever AI crashed, and mentioned she had imported those preferences after the last clean install. So we tried removing the preferences and having her work without them starting 12/8... and we were crash free until last Friday when the program crashed 3 times in a single work day. 

She is the only one out of the 15 licenses who is having issues, and her computer is not even the newest, nor is it the only one we ordered at the time from Apple, so I cannot fathom what is going on.

The only clue I have was that I looked up the error code she got in the crash report ("EXC_BAD_ACCESS"), and it seems to come up as a memory access issue. But AI has full disk access and I cannot locate any other details without access to developer software/knowledge, so posting that here in case there are some developers following along.

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS

Exception Codes: EXC_I836_GPFLT

Exception Note: EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

Termination Signal: Segmentation fault: 11

Termination Reason: Namespace SIGNAL, Code 0xb

Terminating Process: exc handler [74058]

Going to try making a new user account and starting from scatch there, see if that makes a difference.

[dgotschall1]

So since installing the latest full version (not beta) of AI 25.2.1 it's been gloriosly crash free for weeks now! 🙂

I know I've jinxed myself just by posting that, but hopefully it stays working (and with GPU performance turned on!).

Good luck to all!

[Gerrys]

Seems I am not alone been pulling my hair out over multiple crashes and weird error messages: like "not enough memory to complete that task". Granted this current work involves plenty of gradients and if I could use it brushed strokes but never had a such a continual number of crusades ever since first using AI back 5 years ago.

My machine isn't as powerful as many (and yes Monika I am not a professional but I use this software everyday) and no it's not my livelihood but yes it has become far worse four crashes in just over two days lost everything. Now just can't use brushes on strokes without the spinning beach ball for every click of the mouse. Shut down every other peripheral software to no avail. Seems Monika even the professionals are getting fed up. Nice to know I am not alone. I am using 25.3 version!