Illustrator files not saving to Network Drives

[thomaspixels]

A recent update to Google Drive File Streaming on MacOS has meant that what was originally a local folder being backed up to Google Drive is now a Network Drive.

This seemingly trivial change has meant that files saved in Illustrator no longer sync correctly. The local user will see the file correctly with a created by date & a modified date. Other users that can view the folder will only see the original file saved and a flood of TMP files created by Illustrator. 

These TMP files can be converted into perfectly functional illustrator files by changing the file extension to .AI. Which begs the question, what is going wrong in the file save?

Illustrator does not support Network Drives, this is the common feedback given when these questions are asked in this forum. The advice from Adobe is to use Creative Cloud Files, this is not feasible for many users as not everyone I work with has an Adobe account. As a Web Designer in a development company most of the people I work with have no need for an Adobe account but still may need to be able to download these files to share with third parties. It is not acceptable for Adobe to force users to use their network drive because they can't be bothered to fix how it works with other network drives.

The solution is for Adobe to fix their software to work with all Network Drives.

The intermediary solution is to "Save As" and use a new file name when saving updates to a file.

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

HI @thomaspixels Sorry to say this is not a new issue nor is it just an Adobe-centric issue.

Officially Adobe has never supported working directly off a network, cloud or exteral server due to the vast issues that can arise out of their control.

Adobe is not forcing anyone to use Creative Cloud.

The basic solution has always been to save local then drag to your destination.

This isn't an Adobe issue to resolve - the same thing happens with Office documents and other file formats. I can't tell you how many Excel files I've almost lost due to locking up from syncs.

The better solution is to start looking at a DAM system to manage your assets. DAM systems allow users to download (checkout) locally, edit then upload (checkin) maintaining document integrity.

[thomaspixels]

Hi Kevin,

This is a recent issue that is only affecting Illustrator. I too work with Office products and have experienced no issues since the Google Drive change to a Network Drive. Nor have I experienced an issues in the plethora of other Adobe apps I use daily.

Saving locally and then uploading does not help as that will not save a version history or backups of the file.

Here is Adobe literally telling people to use Creative Cloud over Google Drive - https://community.adobe.com/t5/illustrator-discussions/tmp-files-growing-in-excess-with-google-drive...

And it's 2023 - remote / hybrid working is the norm. I appreciate Adobe may not be able to support a custom network server set-up. But this is Google Drive. The most common Network Drive in use commercially, everyone else can figure it out.

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

Sorry @thomaspixels that was someone asking a user to test on CC to see if they had the same issues, not "force users to use their network".

I agree 2023 remote/hybrid work is the norm - using free sync tools like Google for business is a poor choice IMO. Businesses should be using DAMs. We switched over 5 years ago and have never had issues since.

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

Furthermore - since the issue was caused by a change in Googles operations, have you reached out to them for support to see if they can fix things on their end since it worked previously?

[J36081172g6mn]

This is an old thread but rehashing due to relevence.  

We're running into the same issue with Illustrator files no cooperating with network share drives.  We keep AI files in network drives to be shared across teams and would like Design users to able to edit files directly from network drives without having to move the files locally to edit and then move back to network drive.

Are there  specific DAM(s) you'd recommended?

We've tested a couple DAMs but encountered latency which added to the degrading user experience. 

Appreciate any suggestions on specific tools to explore.

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

@J36081172g6mn specifically we use MediaBank by Wave. It's fully integrated to Creative Cloud apps via plugins and has a pretty robust Desktop Client app.

[Street222694553ji4]

I am having this issue too, and it is incredibly frustrating to work through as we have a team of designers working through files. I can't seem to find any discussion of this issue on the Google side of it. Are there any plans to solve this? If not, I'm a bit puzzled about what to do with our file management.

[thomaspixels]

There was a Mac OS update, and illustrator update and a Google Drive update. We found updating all of these fixed the problem...

I'd recommend a clean reinstall of Google Drive. 

[Grace2620948001vf]

I have been looking for a solution to this issue and have tried tirelessly to fix it. I have tried or solutions suggested in this thread and another one. : / It seems to be only happening to one user in our team. 

[Mike30777061kuxg]

While the above save issues exist when saving files to Google Shared drives, we did not have this issue saving changes to One Drive.