Illustrator CS6 will not save files. Unknown Error has occured

Report · Apr 16, 2013

I am not able to save my files and illustrator gives the message 'An Unknown Error has occured'. In a previous discussion transparency is called out as the culprit however I am not using transparency in my document and have checked all the items. I have also tried copying the work into a new ai file however this also will not save. This is has happened to me about 5 times since I updated to CS6. Anyone else having this issue?

Update - I just closed Illustrator and lost all my work and then an Adobe update window showed up asking me to update Adobe Air. I recall an Adobe Update window appearing once before when I had problems solving. Could the Adobe update window interfere or prevent me from saving my documents?

Report · Apr 01, 2016

oh cool! nice trick! thanks!

Report · Sep 17, 2015

I just came across this problem when doing prep for prepress. We got an Adobe CC AI file, and I didn't have any problems initially saving to another filename for a backup. When I started correcting some of the art in the file - (aligning graphics, replacing a die-line template, etc,) and I tried saving the file - I got the "Can't Save... error".

I tried several things suggested here and nothing worked.

I looked at all the links to the AI file, and notice that there were some very weird blank "embedded" art objects in the file (not linked - but embedded) - that did not show up anywhere in preview. I went to the links palette - selected each object by using the "Go to Link" icon, and then proceeded to delete each embedded graphic. After I did that - I tried to do a "save as..." to a new AI file - and IT WORKED!

Hope that helps.

Leo

Report · Oct 12, 2015

This is exactly whats happening to me can someone help, why when I open up my work on illustrator " An unknown error has occurred" appears. Is this because I use the transparency on my images?

Report · Oct 12, 2015

hannahc24294091 schrieb:

This is exactly whats happening to me can someone help, why when I open up my work on illustrator " An unknown error has occurred" appears. Is this because I use the transparency on my images?

Posting into a 3 months old thread ...

Should we read all 42 posts to get an idea of what is your exact problem?

Please describe your problem. Please make a new thread for that.

Please add all your system info and an exact description of what's in your file.

Report · Jan 30, 2016

I found a solution if anyone still needs help with this issue. Select all your text layers, Click Type--> Create Outlines. Problem solved.

(Make sure you don't need to change any text before you do this because it makes a path out of the text layer)

Report · Feb 12, 2016

I have a solution that worked for me. Check your layers. Somehow there was a lot of image layers added (like 15 in my case) that I hadn't added my self. They where not visible either. I deleted them, problem solved in my case.

Report · Feb 16, 2016

WHY CAN'T ANYONE IN THE WHOLE. WIDE. WORLD..........FIGURE THIS STUPID THING OUT!!!

C'MON............... I. HAVE. CUSTOMERS. WAITING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DOES ANYBODY OUT THERE

GET IT????? SHEESH

Report · Feb 16, 2016

Try to check the layers view. I had a lot of layers without real content that AI obviously had added without my action. I deleted them and made sure that only layers that I created remained. That solved my issue.

Sent from my Iphone

Johan Terve

Vice President Marketing

Aptilo Networks

Phone: +46-8 5089 8902

Mobile:+46-70 202 53 00

17 feb. 2016 kl. 04:25 skrev julij46431931 <forums_noreply@adobe.com<mailto:forums_noreply@adobe.com>>:

Illustrator CS6 will not save files. Unknown Error has occured

created by julij46431931<https://forums.adobe.com/people/julij46431931> in Illustrator - View the full discussion<https://forums.adobe.com/message/8504386#8504386>

Report · Feb 17, 2016

Relax, the guy's got a point. Illustrator gets an error with some layers

and elements that are not part of your design. check your assets, make sure

that everything is in your artboard. if something is out of place, that's

what could be causing the error on you end.

Kind regards,

Dulce

Report · Feb 22, 2016

POSSIBLE SOLUTION:

This has worked for me several times, don't know if it will solve it for all of you:

1. Make sure all objects are unlocked.

2. Select all objects and Object>expand (fill and stroke)

3. Try to save again. If you are still unable to save. Create a new file and try to copy and paste all of your new expanded objects into the new file.

4. If still nothing working, try exporting the project as an editable PDF. Restart and open the PDF, then save as Illustrator.

I found that part of the reason my files weren't saving is I had a mixture of expanded and non expanded objects. When I expanded them all it allowed me to save the files.

Report · Feb 22, 2016

Thanks.... I'll give it a try

Have a nice day!

Juli Jas

Report · Mar 09, 2016

Yeah this all started for me after upgrading from Win7 to Win10. If I open Illustrator CS3 and save as the empty document it saves just fine. If I do anything at all...I mean draw one shape and then save I get this "An unknown error" has occurred. Doesn't matter what's checked or unchecked, I always get the error. This seems really odd after this program working flawlessly for so many years.

Report · Mar 09, 2016

So in Windows 10 this is what I did and it finally worked.

Start Icon > All apps > Find your Illustrator CS3 icon and right click on it > click More > click Open file location.

Then in the new windows that opens find the Illustrator icon again and right click on it.

Click Properties.

Click the Compatibility Tab.

Some people said they clicked the "Run Compatibility troubleshooter" button and then it will recommend Vista SP2 mode to run Illustrator.

I tried that originally and it did not work.

So instead of clicking the "Run Compatibility troubleshooter" button, I went to the drop down menu under Compatibility mode.

Make sure the check box that says "Run this program in compatibility mode for" is checked.

Then in the drop down menu I selected Win XP Service Pack 3.

Click Apply.

Click OK.

Reopen Illustrator and files are saving now.

Hope this helps someone!

Report · Nov 28, 2016

Found that running as administrator worked - http://www.carnfieldwebdesign.co.uk/blog/operation-cannot-complete-unknown-error-cant/#comment-6425 - not an ideal solution, but it does show it's a permissions issue (not a corrupt file or anything like that). Tried looking at compatibility mode as you suggested, but alas the (non-administrator) recommendation of running as Windows 7 failed to fix it.

The mention elsewhere of the default printer was interesting, as I had just done some printing/saving to PDF, and had to change from Adobe PDF to the Microsoft "print to PDF" one as Adobe was telling me my "trial/licence" had run out/expired - I paid for this outright several years ago (so there was no "trial" period!), so not paying any more (they've been trying to get me to use Creative Cloud, and THAT may be where the problem is - they're getting greedy like Apple). I went to change my default printer, but Windows said "this will mean Windows won't manage your default printer anymore" - not sure what the implications are of that, so didn't go any further with that at the moment (find out some more first), but I suspect this is on the right path.

Report · Nov 14, 2017

Thanks, running in compatibility mode worked for me.

On other occasions resetting preferences or just rebooting have also worked. It's why an "Unknown Error" message is so annoying. There are probably dozens of different situations that can give rise to this error, so tracking down the one that works for you is a real pain - and may not work next time. This forum thread was very useful in detailing the possible solutions to try.

Report · Mar 22, 2016

i dnt think so,cz i faced the same problem,the cs6 file will save if u have a blank document,bt when u put data and wanna save it shows error

Report · Apr 14, 2016

I had the same problem with a completely new file.
I've never seen this error before. I had pasted in several pages of a pdf of scanned sketches of characters I need to trace. I rarely place pdf's in images, so I thought that might be the cause, also because there was nothing else in the file except a couple of artboards which I renamed for when I need to export the files..
The artboards couldn't be the problem as I tried inserting the same pdfs into a new file with only one artboad

I couldn't seem to save the file no matter what version of Illustrator I save in.

When I read some of the posts in here, especially the ones about memory, I thought it might be because it links to the file externally or because the scans have some resolution problems as is sometimes the case with InDesign files with pdf or large images placed in them.

The solution I find to work was simply to embed all the pdf pages in the illustrator document, after that I had no trouble saving the document, at least not in the newest version of Illustrator (CC 2015)

Report · May 16, 2016

I'm about three years late, but I hope this helps someone else. I ran into this error message when opening a pdf made by an architect and after some digging and trial and error I found elements called 'non-native art' in the layers panel which is where the culprit was. I deleted all of them and the file save was successful.

Report · Aug 02, 2016

I've found that one issue that causes this is when the permissions for certain fonts are not allowed for the user account being used on that computer. A clue that this is the problem is that if you Create Outlines from all fonts and then the file will save. Another clue is that when saving there might be a warning sign at the bottom of the save version screen that says "only fonts with permissions will be embedded" or something similar.

Solution: I went into the fonts folder on my computer C: drive > Windows > Fonts, found the font that was being used in the project. Right click on it, select Properties from popup menu. Click on Security tab, then make sure that all user accounts have Full Control selected ( check box ), then click Apply. That took care of the problem permanently for me when we used that font. One one computer I have AI set to run as Administrator and I have all permissions for Admin set to Full Control. That computer has never had this issue. The issue has been on computers used by employees who don't have full permissions on everything. So I am looking for a way to make just the entire listing of fonts have Full Control set in the Permissions area, without giving full access as Admin to them.

Report · Nov 03, 2016

After spending hours with Adobe support remotely trying to fix this issue, they tried to tell me that my file was just corrupted and that I would have to start my project all over again. I later found out that the error was being caused by a pattern in my document that was scaled down to -1%. Once I adjusted the scale, my document saved as normal. Hope this helps!

Report · Nov 16, 2016

Solution: Toggle Visibility ON for all Layers AND Toggle Lock OFF for all Layers

"Error Unknown". Same problem on my HP Envy PC Windows 10. 2017 Adobe Cloud. This worked for me.

(Thank goodness LoL)

Best of Luck ~Pete

Report · Nov 19, 2016

For me it works when saving as an Illustrator CS6 file - saving as CC does not work.

Report · Nov 30, 2016

Found the following in my event log (whilst looking for something else), and the time corresponds to when I discovered this problem with Illustrator, so I believe they are relevant to the issue (if anyone knows what they are saying and how to fix it)...

Log Name: Application

Source: Microsoft-Windows-RestartManager

Date: 28/11/2016 12:56:17 PM

Event ID: 10010

Task Category: None

Level: Warning

Keywords:

User: DESKTOP-DONALD\Donald

Computer: DESKTOP-DONALD

Description:

Application 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Creative Cloud\CoreSync\CoreSync.exe' (pid 10580) cannot be restarted - Application SID does not match Conductor SID..

Event Xml:

<Channel>Application</Channel>

<Computer>DESKTOP-DONALD</Computer>

</System>

<FullPath>C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Creative Cloud\CoreSync\CoreSync.exe</FullPath>

</RmUnsupportedRestartEvent>

</UserData>

</Event>

Log Name: Application

Source: Microsoft-Windows-RestartManager

Date: 28/11/2016 12:51:24 PM

Event ID: 10010

Task Category: None

Level: Warning

Keywords:

User: DESKTOP-DONALD\Donald

Computer: DESKTOP-DONALD

Description:

Application 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat DC\Acrobat\acrodist.exe' (pid 3076) cannot be restarted - Application SID does not match Conductor SID..

Event Xml:

<Channel>Application</Channel>

<Computer>DESKTOP-DONALD</Computer>

</System>

<FullPath>C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat DC\Acrobat\acrodist.exe</FullPath>

<DisplayName>Acrobat Distiller</DisplayName>

</RmUnsupportedRestartEvent>

</UserData>

</Event>

Log Name: Application

Source: Microsoft-Windows-RestartManager

Date: 28/11/2016 12:51:24 PM

Event ID: 10010

Task Category: None

Level: Warning

Keywords:

User: DESKTOP-DONALD\Donald

Computer: DESKTOP-DONALD

Description:

Application 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Creative Cloud\CCLibrary\libs\node.exe' (pid 10288) cannot be restarted - Application SID does not match Conductor SID..

Event Xml:

<Channel>Application</Channel>

<Computer>DESKTOP-DONALD</Computer>

</System>

<FullPath>C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Creative Cloud\CCLibrary\libs\node.exe</FullPath>

<DisplayName>Node.js: Server-side JavaScript</DisplayName>

</RmUnsupportedRestartEvent>

</UserData>

</Event>

Log Name: Application

Source: Microsoft-Windows-RestartManager

Date: 28/11/2016 12:51:24 PM

Event ID: 10010

Task Category: None

Level: Warning

Keywords:

User: DESKTOP-DONALD\Donald

Computer: DESKTOP-DONALD

Description:

Application 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Creative Cloud\CCXProcess\libs\node.exe' (pid 10668) cannot be restarted - Application SID does not match Conductor SID..

Event Xml:

<Channel>Application</Channel>

<Computer>DESKTOP-DONALD</Computer>

</System>

<FullPath>C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Creative Cloud\CCXProcess\libs\node.exe</FullPath>

<DisplayName>Node.js: Server-side JavaScript</DisplayName>

</RmUnsupportedRestartEvent>

</UserData>

</Event>

Report · Dec 19, 2016

I had to re-install Windows last week for a different problem, but it ended up fixing the issue with Illustrator as well. The suspected cause of my problems (based on what I've read online) is a corrupted user, which would then explain why running Illustrator as admin worked (since admin user not corrupted). Still don't know what caused the initial problem, but definitely nothing to do with the files themselves (since I am using the same files as before without problem now).

Report · Dec 07, 2016

Running Illustrator 2017

Found that the new Asset Export feature was the culprit. When I tried to “Export Selection” it automatically launched the new Asset Export panel for two items. AI ran fine until I wanted to save where I got the troublesome “An unknown error occured.”

Simply deleted the 2 assets from the Asset Export panel and it saved fine.

Illustrator CS6 will not save files. Unknown Error has occured

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