Participant

Answered

Opening Illustrator files duplicates linked images

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
April 19, 2023
18 replies
8690 views

Hi All, when opening multiple illustrator files with large linked images, Illustrator seems to replicate and position (and scaled) images from within the file, sometimes even duplicating existing links. Each link in the file is accompanied by an extra image which Illustrator prompts to be relinked upon opening the file. This has only started occuring after updating Illustrator to 27.4.1.

Wondering if any one else has this issue and hoping this bug gets fixed.

Thanks

Bug

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer Lu2

Try changing this setting, it solved it for my colleague.

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Ajman376932208rwc

Participant

Opening Illustrator files with linked images can sometimes result in duplicate instances of those images within the document. This duplication occurs because Illustrator automatically embeds linked images into the file upon opening, rather than simply referencing the original linked files. This behavior can lead to larger file sizes and potential confusion when managing assets.

To address this issue, users can adjust their Illustrator settings to prevent automatic embedding of linked images or manually remove duplicate instances after opening the file. Additionally, practicing efficient file management techniques, such as organizing linked assets in a centralized folder and updating links as needed, can help streamline the workflow and minimize duplication.

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pdemya

Participant

Have never had an issue like this until now working with illustrator as a packaging designer in the industry for over 15 years. Feels like Adobes products are pushing looking backwards. 1 file open at a time? Locally stored images? Cmon. What are you doing Adobe? Fix it! Your products should be MORE intutive and streamlined, not archaic and cumbersome. Waiting with anticipation for a competitive software to arrive...

mattt64986283

Participant

Out of interest, have you recently installed or started using Monotype Server? Only because a few people on this thread have mentioned it.

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mikeicon

Participating Frequently

We've switched to Monotype Fonts, but I've not been able to do testing to isolate it as a variable.

K

KURT6C29

Participant

Are you running Monotype desktop font app? Someone else thought that this might be partly responsibly for the issue we are seeing.

adrian capps

Participant

I work in packaging design and therefore need to a number of .ai files open at once. I have been having the same problem mentioned here and it does not seem to make any difference where the files are located, server or desktop. However the one place this is not a problem is if your .ai are saved to your Adobe Cloud Drive, the linked files can remain on your desktop. As this is not the way most of us work this is not really a solution.

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mikeicon

Participating Frequently

If I'm following your workflow correctly, you might be using CC File Sync, which is being removed, so Cloud Drive isn't really a linking option anymore anyways.

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Angus Hume

Inspiring

I just had this happen for the first time, all files were downloaded and in a local folder. Closing other open files first solved the issue. I do have the Monotype app, but I did not look into that. Disabling file open preference did not help.

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Danny35637250g9ey

Participant

Come on, Adobe — fix this please. Still an issue. What's the solution?

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Rob30475865wopx

Participant

Hello, i'm seeing this happen with several people and to a lot of files at the moment. It seems to have got worse with the latest release of Illustrator v 28.1. This is all macOS users on any of Monterey, Ventura or Sonoma.

Question here - are any of the people being affected also on macos and using the Monotype desktop app?

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default1vj7jsou9kzj

Participant

My whole agency has been having this issue for around a year now. We switched to Monotype last summer around the same time it started happening so not sure if it was a coincidence but interesting that you raised it.

This issue alone is accountable to a lot of people's late finishes atm

slide_lewy

Participating Frequently

hmm, that's interesting, we installed the Monotype app a while ago to test using their system, I can't remember exactly if this issue on my machine cropped up then, but I've deleted Monotype a while ago, and probably since then the issue hasn't cropped again, so it could be the Monotype app somehow.

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meredithm8209998

Participant

Hi all - I just wanted to add that in January 2024, this issue still exists. The solution that has been "marked as resolved" did not work for me. The only working solution has been to use 2021 Illustrator, which I thankfully still have installed. I realize this is not a solution available to many others. Adobe really needs to sort this out, as the solution to "only have 1 file open at a time" is not a viable solution for the type of work that my company does.

adrian capps

Participant

I work in packaging design and therefore need to a number of .ai files open at once. I have been having the same problem mentioned here and it does not seem to make any difference where the files are located, server or desktop. However the one place this is not a problem is if your .ai are saved to your Adobe Cloud Drive, the linked files can remain on your desktop. As this is not the way most of us work this is not really a solution.

Mike_Gondek10189183

Community Expert

I see this is happening to a few people in this thread. Questions I have:

Are you linking to images locally on your hard drive, or on a network drive that is different and what OS that network drive is formatted with, or Adobe Cloud images
What OS version & AI version are you all using? Make sure your application and OS are compatible with each other.
Illustrator system requirements | earlier releases

ba.bro.2.psd

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KURT6C29

Participant

We are having the same issue on both Illustrator 2023 and illustrator 2022.

We experience it working both from a cloud server - Egnyte and working locally with all files saved and relinked to desktop.

Its really infuriating and has been going on for a year or so now.

All our Macs are up to date and the Illustrator versions (both 2022 and 2023) have the latest updates.

We work on a packaging artworks and this is causing us lots of problems. in files where there should only be 4 linked images we currently have 6copies of each linked image - sometimes they dont duplicate in the same layer but randomly appear in other layers.

Even when we remove the extra lined images some of them appear as low res or pixallated images so we even have to go into the links window and relink every link...

We tried the solution above abut it did not work.

Adobe needs to sort this out soon!

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Matt.T.

Participant

After many discussions with Adobe support there only solution is to work from your local computer.

Apparently Illustrator CAN NOT work with files and links stored on

- Cloud server

- Local network server

- NAS drive

Their only solution was to package the job from the server onto the local computer (desktop) and ensure all the links are reading from the local links folder. THen when you have finished working on the file - reupload it to back to the server. Everytime you want to make a change you have to repeat the above steps.

This is a rediculous situation.

The solution of copy all the files off the server, relink locally and then resave back onto the server causes too many problems in the modern ways of working.

We use Egnyte cloud server which retains previous versions of a file when saved. however file when copied back onto the server from the desktop undermines the historic version control system on our server meaning we lose all previous version of the file . Now If we need to go back to an earlier version – the only way around is to manually keep multiple copies of the file for every time someone makes amends – this takes up far more space on a server - and is subject to human error and more processes.
It creates an issue if someone fails to reupload the files at the end of the day and the latest version is now on remote desktop.
It creates issues if a file is corrupted, and additional back ups now need to be set up for the desktop computer so - additional local computer backups.
Downloading entire jobs locally and reuploading takes additional bandwidth - remote working staff will wait longer and waste time waiting for all files including links to download and then upload back to the server – very unproductive.
Productivity of remote staff has halved due to this new process and staff without access to a superfast broadband are struggling.
We use Esko products which require the files to be stored on a main server and all our automation is based on a central serve – so this is now additional work and cost to the business to find a work around.

It is madness that when more businesses are working hybrid and have changed their systems to cloud based, Adobe decided, a year ago, to do the opposite and make life even harder and more challenging by changing how Illustrator worked.

Illustrator worked fine before and was able to work with files on a server with no issues.

We have now reverted to Illustrator 2021 (V25) as this is the only version where we do not have the links issue, but this version is not supported with updates from Adobe and probably will start having issues as the MAC OS updates...

Just to add: this problem even occurs when working with files which are wholly local (eg. file bundles Packaged and supplied by client which are on my Desktop), in fact even when the links are in the same folder as the Illustrator file. Once those files are re-saved locally they become fine, and there's no limit to how many I can have open at once... though obviously this is just a (mostly impractical) temporary workaround rather than an actual fix.

Still waiting for Adobe to address this glaring issue...

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Lu2Correct answer

Participant

Try changing this setting, it solved it for my colleague.

Gabrielle23045253fafu

Participant

Yes this works! So far so good... will report back.

THANK YOU!

Gabrielle23045253fafu

Participant

This happens to me EVERYTIME I open an illustrator file. It happens even when I have no other files open (as some people have stated might be a workaround). It's so frustrating hving to spend 10+ mintues cleaning up the file and relinking before I can even do any work on it.

It seems that all the links get placed multiple times and enlarged over my artboards. I always get the same error message. And then my accurately placed links become pixelated and have several duplicates sitting on top of each of them. See attached screengrabs.

Thank you for posting this– it's the first time I'm seeing someone with the same issue on here and I've been dealing with this for about a year now. Multiple people in my company are also having the same issue, with no resolution. In the past, uninstalling and reinstalling Illustator used to work for a bit but it's recently gotten so much worse. Hoping someone can finally find a fix!!

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jenjentothejen

Participant

The exact same thing is happening to me! Unchecking the "Optimize File Open and Save..." mentioned above unfortunately doesn't work for me either. Please Adobe, help us! 🙂