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michaelp59651745
michaelp59651745
Participant
June 30, 2025
Answered

My Layers are now gone with just a <Image> - what happened and can it be saved?!

  • June 30, 2025
  • 3 replies
  • 226 views

I'm using a template file provided by my manufacturer for a card game box. To build out the artwork, I copied and pasted a large number of graphics from another Illustrator file (these were pre-designed assets from a different box that I’m repurposing).

Initially, everything worked as expected—I could open the file and see all the layers. But now, when I open the document, many of the layers just show <image> instead of the actual artwork.

When I open the file, I receive this warning:
"Illustrator now honors 9-slice scaling of symbols. Any scaling done on symbol instances with 9-slice scaling option in legacy version will look different now. Do you want to retain the 9-slice scaling option for symbols?"

And when I exit/save, I get:
"Saving to legacy format may cause some changes to your text layout and disable some editing features when the document is read back in. Do you want to continue?"

I've seen these warnings many times before (probably over 1000 times) while working with the same graphics and never had any issues—until now.

For context:

  • I'm running the latest version of Illustrator (v29.6.1) on a Mac (Sequoia 15.3).

  • I have plenty of disk space left (432GB free out of 4TB).

  • I also tried reverting to Illustrator v28.0 to see if that helped, but the problem persists.

Any ideas what might be causing the <image> placeholders to appear instead of the original artwork?

Correct answer Monika Gause

Nope. You cannot get it back.

 

When you just hit Save, then Illustrator saves into the original version the document has been saved in, essentially expanding and flattening all the objects that have been using newer functionality.

3 replies

S
susannahl23429837
Participating Frequently
June 30, 2025

Seems like it's important to save as an AI, so you can go back in to it if it comes back for post-final changes (It always comes back!). Or for using as your own template for other flavors in the package series. 

S
susannahl23429837
Participating Frequently
June 30, 2025

I had the same exact thing happen to me. Super frustrating. I havent found a fix - only what Monika (below) said. I had to rebuild the file again and save as an AI instead of a PDF

Monika Gause
Community Expert
Monika GauseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
June 30, 2025

You were always pasting into the provided document?

 

Did you ever use "Save as" to save it as an AI 2020 file?

You should have done that and thewn make sure to always only save it as AI 2020.

michaelp59651745
michaelp59651745Author
Participant
June 30, 2025

I was always copy and pasting assets as needed into the document from the old document. 

 

I don't believe I ever used "save as" to save it as an AI 2020 file. Is there any hope?

Monika Gause
Community Expert
Monika GauseCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
June 30, 2025

Nope. You cannot get it back.

 

When you just hit Save, then Illustrator saves into the original version the document has been saved in, essentially expanding and flattening all the objects that have been using newer functionality.

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