New Macbook M4 48GB showing "not enough RAM error"

Forum|Forum|10 months ago
April 4, 2025
3 replies
621 views

I just got a new M4 Macbook with 48gb RAM and Illustrator shows not enough RAM error. Everything is up-to-date. Any suggestions?

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Bobby Henderson

Community Expert

What kind of CAD artwork are you opening in Illustrator? Is it a DXF/DWG file or a PDF exported from the CAD application? Are you opening one page/sheet at a time or multiple pages?

CAD-generated drawings can be a real pain to work with. The CAD artwork I often use is building elevation drawings provided by customers. Usually I have to incorporate lighted signs onto them. I don't like how the CAD objects tend to be made of open line paths. An object like a brick wall will have thousands of open line segments defining the pattern rather than a group of closed rectangles. An EIFS or concrete wall texture may consist of tens of thousands of little dots. Certain roof shingle patterns can have a ridiculous amount of paths. That can add up to a serious burden for even a well equipped, fairly new computer system. In order to create a more manageable layout I'll delete all the texture trash. Then if I want basic shapes of the building elevation in color I can draw new, closed shapes on another layer.

danielleb54578693Author

Participating Frequently

Hear, hear! I've been working with these types of files since Illustrator 7, and every once in a while this error will come up - so I'm not sure if it's when I get a new computer and a certain setting doesn't migrate over. I feel like this happened when I switched machines last time. There's just so much time in between that I can't remember how this issue is solved. I ended up just taking the long way around, but would love to avoid this problem in the future.

I'm doing one page at a time in from model space. It's only happening when I grab "select same fill color".

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Bobby Henderson

Community Expert

A command like "select same fill color" has to analyze every object in the document to generate the selection. If there are tens of thousands of objects present the command poses an obvious computational burden. The various quirks that exist in CAD-generated art complicate the situation.

Monika Gause

Community Expert

THe artwork looks kind of complex. A CAD drawing?

Do you have any other apps open?

How many paths are in the drawing?

What are you trying to do in it?

danielleb54578693Author

Participating Frequently

CAD drawing, worked just fine on yesterday on my old MacBook. I'm just trying to change the stroke color & weight of a bunch of lines. As far as complexity of the CAD drawing - it's not even close to some I work on.

Monika Gause

Community Expert

You could reboot the computer, which will free up RAM. And then don't launch any other apps.

kglad

Community Expert

in the future, to find the best place to post your message, use the list here, https://community.adobe.com/

p.s. i don't think the adobe website, and forums in particular, are easy to navigate, so don't spend a lot of time searching that forum list. do your best and we'll move the post (like this one has already been moved) if it helps you get responses.

<"moved from using the community bugs">

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