Previous Guides Not Visible in Recovered File

[BaileyTaraBori]

I had to resave a recovered file after a crash, but the recovered file won't display any of the guides. Guides are not hidden and I am not in Trim View. I've tried both GPU and CPU Preview, and still nothing. The guides are on their own layer, which is not hidden. The individual guide objects are also not hidden. I can see them in the layers panel, and they will highlight once I select them. I use guides to mark off margins, so I need to be able to see them without having them selected.

I can create new guides and see them with no issue, it's only the pre-existing guides at the time Illustrator crashed that I cannot see. It's not a huge deal to delete and add new guides, but if there's a way to fix this, I'd like to know in case it happens again in the future.

I'm using Illustrator 28.1 on Mac OS Sonoma 14.0

[Anshul_Saini]

Hi @BaileyTaraBori,

I'm sorry to hear that you're facing issues with recovered files and the visibility of guides. Unfortunately, the recovery process in Illustrator may not always restore every aspect of a document, and the visibility of guides can be one of those aspects that might not be retained.

As you've mentioned, creating new guides is a viable workaround, but I understand that it may not be ideal. To minimize the risk of potential issues during crashes, it's a good practice to save your work frequently and consider creating backup copies at key stages of your project.

I appreciate your understanding, and if you have any further questions or if there's anything else I can assist you with, feel free to let me know.

Best,

Anshul Saini

[BaileyTaraBori · Accepted solution]

Thank you. I was able to see my guides again by closing and reopening the file.

I've had to recover files before, but I've never had this particular issue and couldn't find anyone else who had. Now I know!

[Kathryn James]

Thanks for posting what you did to recover the guides! This has happened to me multiple times today and now I know what to do 🙂

[ChrisDWells]

Just in case you aren't able to close and reopen the file to recover the guides, I just tried an alternative solution which was:

1. Click View > Guides > Unlock guides
2. Select all the guides you want to recover (if they're all in one specific Guides layer, select the entire layet)
3. Click View > Guides > Release guides - the broken guides will be converted to normal vector objects
4. Do not deselect any of these and then click View > Guides > Make guides

This just worked for me.

[Raia Giannoutsou]

I have been facing this issue the last 2-3 days. I have many files open which is why it crashes, but I cannot find my guides after recovery either. They're also not hidden but won't display. It's exhausting, I have to clear my guides and set them again all over again... for the upteenth time! 
Also, why is it Illustrator keeps crashing on a new computer! It is very annoying. 

[Monika Gause]

Best investment of your time would be to solve the crashing issue. Please create a new thread for that and describe your setup.

Second best investment of your time is to come up with a backup strategy. Do not rely on file recovery.