Images replaced with ugly black boxes in Illustrator

[Grzegorz28211131gfpi]

Hi

I wanted to edit my artwork in Illustrator that I created some time ago. When I opened the file, there, instead of embedded images I found 3 black rectangles and I have no idea how to get my images back - I tried to export it as jpeg hoping that it only looks this ugly in Illustrator, but the jpeg also has these 3 awful boxes instead of my lovely images.

[John T Smith]

You need to ask program questions in the forum for the program you are using
To ask in the forum for your program please start at https://community.adobe.com/
Moving from Using the Community (which is about the forums) to the correct forum

[Kurt Gold]

Are you talking about an Illustrator file (.ai) with embedded images?

If so, can you share this file?

[Grzegorz28211131gfpi]

Sorry for the late reply, I had lots to do.

File attached. However, I couldn't attach .ai file because I got the error "The attachment's filename.ai content type (application/postscript) does not match its file extension and has been removed."  - no idea why.

So, I have made a PDF file with 'Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities', I hope that's ok.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Yah, your embedded images are now just "black". Why this happened, I do not know. You will need to relink the files from their original source files.

btw. your file is in RGB; Is that the mode it wa sin originally?

If you are missing the original link files, but you have a high-res print PDF from that previous time, you should be able to extract them from that in a pinch. (If you do you have a sample legacy PDF from the previous time can you upload that here?)

[Grzegorz28211131gfpi]

So, this remains a mistery 🙂

I do not have PDF, I only exported it as jpeg. It is in RGB as it is for screens.

So, the only way is to find these images (they're form freepik) and embed them again - I have one good jpeg though when I created the artwork, the black boxes appeared later, when I opened it the next time.

[Ton Frederiks]

Can you relink the images?

[Grzegorz28211131gfpi]

I could if I could find them. But, first of all I want to understand why such thing has happened, whether it's Illustrator or maybe my computer?

[Ton Frederiks]

According to the file info they were in your downloads folder:

<stRef:filePath>C:\Users\Grzegorz\Downloads\bunch-fresh-mint-female-hands.jpg</stRef:filePath>

[Grzegorz28211131gfpi]

Yes, exactly, they were there.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Not sure. This is a new one to me. Although I searched and found prior reports about embedded images turning black, they were quite a few years ago, and there was no answer at the end of it. What version was your original file? and I'm assuming you are converting to current (CC2024?)

In the meantime, to nail down WHEN the problem is occuring, try this: take a copy of your original old .ai file and test-open it in Photoshop. If the images show there, there is something definitely happening when you convert to a newer Illustrator. If not, the old file is corrupted in some way.