Illustrator is crashing on M1 Mac (macOS Big Sur)

[Julian5FC2]

Hi,

I am using Illustrator on a new Macbook Pro with M1 apple silicon. While using the software it often starts to randomly freeze and after a few minutes everything works again. Sometimes the whole mac is frozen for several minutes and Illustrator crashes completely. Not seeing anyone eelse reproting the problem und no issue desiriped my adobe on the M1 side i was wondering what could be rhe reason for this problem. Thank you!

{Renamed by MOD}

[vandenburg]

Hi,

Sound very familiar. I hope Adobe will come out with a native ILL app soon because I've had about 10 freez ups today on my MB Pro M1... Even had to restart it twice:-(.

[tashal42449462]

I am having the same issue with Illustrator and Photoshop, it is constantly crashing and freezing. Contacted Apple and Adobe a few times. 

I have basically been advised that the issue is of course due to the M1 chip and compatibilty and told Adobe are working on their software and until then nothing can be done!

[Doug A Roberts]

Have you tried the workarounds described in this thread?

[walt.matzke]

Oh yes, I FEEL YOUR PAIN!!! Illustrator and InDesign both REALLY REALLY struggle with the M1 apple cilicon. Having the same issues. you are having. 

[Lee16E5]

hi, the exact same problem,and I find that when the macbook sleep and wake up all things goes normal. at least I dont need to force-restart...

[kevpatcole]

I have the same issue.  It must be a incompatibilty issue with apple silicon.  Gues we'll have to wait for the m1 optimized version.

[Ricardo5CC9]

Turn off iCloud Drive

[Hue & Vrachy studio]

how to turn off iCloud drive? 

its really frustating! not just Illustrator and Adobe CC 2021, but the whole system on M1 crashed

[Ben5C33]

Mine is doing the same thing. Illustrator crashes frequently and makes the entire system but especially the Illustrator app run far too slowly to use for any content creation. Very annoying. 

[Neeko0D45]

This is the workaround that elimates the freezing.

Under Illustrator Preferences
Click "Performance"

Uncheck "GPU Performance"
Set "Undo Counts" to 50
Uncheck "Real-Time Drawing and Editing"

If you experience issues with InDesign, turn off GPU Performance the same way you need to in Illustrator.

[jueej7742364]

hey! I just got my m1 macbook pro &  I am facing the exact same issue. It worked fine on day one, I mean it was freezing but it was working after some time but on day two its freezing everytime I open and do something and I was not able to work on it at all. This is too annoying 

[vandenburg]

If you check the comments from earliers posters you will find a workable solution! It maybe not as snappy as native optimised app, but after adjusting the settings I havent had any freezups!

[Neeko0D45]

Under Illustrator Preferences
Click "Performance"

Uncheck "GPU Performance"
Set "Undo Counts" to 50
Uncheck "Real-Time Drawing and Editing"

If you experience issues with InDesign, turn off GPU Performance the same way you need to in Illustrator.

[Neeko0D45]

It's a GPU Performance issue. Here is the workaround.

Under Illustrator Preferences
Click "Performance"

Uncheck "GPU Performance"
Set "Undo Counts" to 50
Uncheck "Real-Time Drawing and Editing"

If you experience issues with InDesign, turn off GPU Performance the same way you need to in Illustrator.

[Neeko0D45]

Try this. This has worked for a few of us.

Under Illustrator Preferences
Click "Performance"

Uncheck "GPU Performance"
Set "Undo Counts" to 50
Uncheck "Real-Time Drawing and Editing"

If you experience issues with InDesign, turn off GPU Performance the same way you need to in Illustrator.

[netineti27]

I'm seeing this too on my M1 Macbook Pro 13 16gb. random freezes stick the whole system, then frees up again, then freezes again. Illustrator only. 

[marc beekhuis]

No more issues after upgrading to 11.1 ...

[Yehuda5E9D]

Interesting! Might give it another shot with all the features enabled again

[Neeko0D45]

I updated the OS yesterday. I'll give it a try this afternoon.

[Patrik5D12]

Is it working correctly? I'm thinking about buying an M1 mac mini. But if illustrator is not working properly, then I just buy an iMac

[anna clio]

Same Problem here on my MacBook Pro M1! Sometimes the whole Mac won't work and i have to force it to restart. Not funny!! Why is there only a Photoshop Beta Version yet? I didn't bought the newest MacBook to suffer now because of Illustrator.

[Ben5C33]

I'm having the same issue. Apple MBP. M1 chip. 16 GB RAM. Hopefully, Adobe will improve their code soon, and make an M1 optimized version. I'm looking for alternatives to illustrator now which is sad because I really like Abode products. 

[AisteDiliene]

First try to change the properties (remove the check from GPU performance),
fond the comment here where was explained how to do it. that helped for me.
Works fine for now 🙂 --

Su šypsena,
Aistė Dilienė
+370 671 59549

[Projekt5ECF]

Ok, so Adobe released an M1 beta version of illustrator. And it is slick and smooth, have never seen illustrator working better. Great job adobe!

[Yehuda5E9D]

Weird, the illustrator beta isn't showing up in my creative cloud 😞