Swatches disappear in Swatches panel when switching between documents in 29.7.1 on macOS

[Derek Holiman]

Another adventure with Illustrator this morning...

The color swatch tiles will disappear (hide, not show, go away, whatever) from the swatches panel when switching between open documents. The List and Thumbnail view buttons are grayed out.

What does show when switching documents is apparently new feature of Recent Colors.

The swatch library is loaded. Don't take me down the path of how to load a swatch library.

Accessing the panel drop down menu and selecting something like thumbnail view size will cause them to reappear. Until you switch to another document, then the swatches disappear again. We repeat the process..

Old documents. New documents. Worked fine yesterday.

MacOS Sequoia 15.6

Illustrator 29.7.1

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[Monika Gause]

So there are swatches in all those documents.

But when you hide the recent solors, then those swatches are gone?

Swatches in Illustrator are document specific. Only the recent colors are not.

[Derek Holiman]

No. Not even close to what I said.

All of the swatch tiles (default, any custom I added, any) in the Swatch panel disappear when I switch from one document to another. 

New documengs, old documents. Documents with content. Documents without any content. Any document.

Simply open and/or create new more than one document. All open at the same time. Then switch from one document to another. The swatches in the panel disappear. As soon as you make one of the other documents active you see the swatches simply disappear. It's like a damn David Copperfield show.

To get the swatches back, you can toggle between list view and thumbnail view or make a selection in the panels menu to chnage swatch thumbnail size. 

Forget about the recent colors feature. Behavior is the same with or without it active. Should have never mentioned it.

[Monika Gause]

I cannot reproduce that.

Switching from one document to the next does not hide the swatches.

MacOS

[Carla_Midford]

The only "solution" I've found for this issue is to only have one document open at a time. Given my job and the fact that I have to be accessing multiple documents at once, this is so annoying.

[Ton Frederiks]

@Derek Holiman there is a UserVoice report about this.

But it is about a beta version:

https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/939477-illustrator-desktop-beta-bugs/suggestions/50286393-s...

[Michele Weisbart]

Yes, this is so annoying!. Hopefully there will be a fix soon!

[Derek Holiman]

Yes. This. Exactly.

Although switching with CMD-TAB vs. simply selectiong the document didn't matter. Neither did RGB vs. CMYK.

So, you had this behavior prior to 29.7.1? 

On 29.6.1 I did not experience this behavior. All was good with swatches.

Also started by resetting Illustrator prefs and that did nothing.

[Carla_Midford]

I have also encountered this issue today! Funny thing is, with the last version (29.6.1) of Illustrator, I was having issues with my pattern swatches (which is still not fixed). Now I can't even access my swatches/patterns... so I guess Adobe's solution to my pattern problem is to remove my access to them altogether. I feel like I am experiencing adobe induced psychosis.

[Simon5CE7]

I'm also experiencing this issue. The only way I can get the swatches to reappear is by copying and pasting a shape (or anything) from one document into another. However, as soon as I switch between the documents the swatches then disappear again. I've attached some screenshots to demonstrate this:

1 = document A, 2 = document B, 3 = shape from document B copy and pasted into document A.

It must be a bug, as there doesn't appear to be a logical reason for this to happen.

[Ton Frederiks]

If you want to try this Beta: Build 29.9.6. The problem seems to have been solved.

The beta is available from the Creative Cloud desktop app.

[Derek Holiman]

Curious...

Are we waiting on something special to release the fix? Is there a "schedule" to follow? Staffing issues? "Just let them have to deal with it, we'll get around to it some day, they'll survive!"

If you have a fix for a problem we are all experiencing can we have it?

I'm pretty sure we're all paid up on our monthly subscription dues, I know I am, Including the price increases.

Again, just curious. What's the reasoning?

Hell meanwhile... I just ran an update for Photoshop... for bug fixes... again. It's like Photshop releases an update more than I breath.

[laustrick]

the same thing is happening to me, same thing didn't happen yesterday, i've loaded and saved swatches and when i go to another document they disappear, and as of today "recent swatches" is there. i'm on a 2025 macbook air M4 running sequoia 15.6. : |

[mhd6]

Having this issue as well. I can "Add Used Colors" to the Swatches... but if I even glance at another tab in Illustrator, all the swatches will disappear!

I wish Adobe would test their generative AI crap more thoroughly before unleashing it on people who have work to get done. 😐

[dunazee]

I'm having this issue as well, but intermittently. The only way to solve it is to click on the show swatches button at the bottom of the swatch palette. It's an easy fix, just annoying. 

I have Show Recent Colors turned off.

I quit Ps, InDe, and Acrobat Pro and the Ai color palette seems normal. Fired them all back up and it's still acting as it should. Hmph. 

Ai 29.7.1, Mac OS 15.6.1. 

FWIW, I cannot use a beta version of anything on the company-owned hardware. 

[anng102106]

I'm experiencing it too with Illustrator 29.7.1. Has there been an update on this issue? Just wondering if anyone knows if this will be fixed soon...

[Ton Frederiks]

It was done in beta, it is supposed to be fixed in the 29.8.1 update.

[Simon5CE7]

It looks like that, @Ton Frederiks. I can confirm that the issue is no longer affecting me in the new Illustrator release 29.8.1.

[Ton Frederiks]

Good to hear that it works for you now.

[l_8359]

Hi, 

Just wanted to share an Illustrator issue to see if others are also experiencing the issue, and see if it can be resolved by Adobe. 

Lately I am unable to have more than one Illustrator file open at the same time if I want to retain saved colour swatches. Switching between files deletes the previous files swatches (see attached screenshots with File 1's swatches before and after opening File 2). 

When opening File 2, the saved swatches are present. However, if I go between Files 1 and 2, both files lose their saved swatch information. Meaning 2+ files can't be open at once without losing all swatch information. 

I'm running Illustrator Version 29.7.1 on a macOS Sequoia 15.4.1 operating system. 

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[creative explorer]

@l_8359 Have you tried a simple restart of the application, it often clears up temporary glitches. I am assuming this worked fine just recently. Since the problem started suddenly, it's a strong possibility that you may have corrupted preferences are a very common cause of unexpected behavior in Illustrator. You can try a quick reset by holding down Command Option Shift (Mac) as you launch Illustrator. You will be asked if you want to reset your preferences.  If the quick method doesn't work, you can manually delete the preferences file. You will need to close Illustrator first. The location of the file depends on your operating system, so you may need to search online for the specific path for your OS.

[l_8359]

@creative explorer  Thank you for your suggestions. Restarting either the computer or the software did resolve the issue, but only temporarily. The issue is recurring unfortunately. Resetting preferences also didn’t resolve the issue. I can’t confirm if deleting preference files is a solution at this stage, as I am a little less confident in discerning which files need to be deleted. Thanks again. 

[creative explorer]

@l_8359 I had some issues with my MacBook Pro, and Adobe products, and I went to the Apple store last September. They suggested to try to reset or delete the Preferences. If resetting didn't work, then deleting will. What happens when you delete your Preferences?  

A corrupted preference file can cause an app to misbehave. By deleting the file, the application will create a new, default one the next time it's launched. So, I did have my doubts. So, they said, I can drag a 'copy' of the Preferences to my MacBook Pro. Which I did on my desktop. The issue was my 'Preferences' was 17 gigs of data. 17! Once I deleted it, and restarted the MacBook, guess what, my 'Preferences' was 374kb! That's a huge jump. Today it's 380kb! — runs so smooth now! 

[Ton Frederiks]

@l_8359 there were multiple reports here about disappearing swatches. If resetting preferences helped, can you update the bug report here? https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/939477-illustrator-desktop-beta-bugs/suggestions/50286393-s...

[Lorelynn219941164iiw]

Hello,
Since the update that added the “recent colors” option, I have been experiencing a bug with my color palette where the colors are completely missing. I have to switch from “tiles” mode to ‘lists’ mode and then back to “tiles” mode to see the colors in my document again.