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Pixel Alchemyst
Participating Frequently
October 2, 2017
Answered

Shape Builder Tool Slow Down

  • October 2, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 20267 views

I am encountering a MAJOR slowdown issue when using the Shape Builder tool. I was just experimenting with a group of circles, and each time I subtracted or combined a shape, the process would progressively take more and more time. It has now reached a point where it is taking 3-4 minutes to do this, and am even experiencing major slowdown when simply attempting to change its color.

Has anyone else encountered this type of issue at all?

Thank you in advance for any help you could send my way.

iMac (27", Late 2012)

3.4 GHz Intel Core i7

32 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2048 MB

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Monika Gause

    12 paths shouldn't be a problem.

    Can you check if there are cloned paths (that is two identical paths exactly on top of each other)?

    That is something I have seen to slow down the shapebuilder dramatically.

    2 replies

    Y
    Yuzhen22642435pcx6
    Participant
    November 17, 2022

    I don't know what causes this problem, I ran into it just now and it seems to have created an exponential number of layers.

     

    I fixed it by selecting the duplicated layers and merging it down with the pathfinder rather than selecting the layers and deleting them individually. I am trying to reproduce the issue, but I can't get it to happen again. I don't think it's due to 'corruption' at all, my guess it's something to do with paths being overlapped before using the shape tool.

    Monika Gause
    Community Expert
    Monika GauseCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    November 17, 2022

    How many paths in your case? When there are too many paths, the shapebuilder tool will be slow.

    Y
    Yuzhen22642435pcx6
    Participant
    November 17, 2022

    Hi Monika, it looks like it's created a couple dozen copies of the same shape. The second image shows a glimpse of the ducplicated shapes created afterward. These were all in the same compound path before I copied and pasted them out to their own layers for demonstration purposes. 

    It got progressively slower the more I used the tool so I'm assuming it doubled up on the previous results as I was using it. The third image shows how a bunch of duplicated shapes were created, I unstacked a couple to show that they are the same.

    I'm trying to replicate it the problem again and it doesn't seem to work when I start with duplicates of the same shape.

     

     

    Monika Gause
    Community Expert
    Monika GauseCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 2, 2017

    A group of circles means how many precisely?

    P
    Pixel AlchemystAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    October 2, 2017

    Began with 12 and ended up with this:

    Monika Gause
    Community Expert
    Monika GauseCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    March 25, 2022

    @Monika Gause I know this thread is a bit old at this point, but I've noticed the exact same thing that @Pixel Alchemyst was talking about... that the Shape Builder tool creates duplicate layers ontop of the old shape, which gets SUPER messy, super quickly.

     

    I can't figure out why it's doing this either, and I don't know if it's something that can be toggled on or off. I have noticed it happening when I combine shapes as well as when I remove portions (holding Alt on my Mac).

     

    Has anyone figured out a remedy to this in the past few years since this thread was created?  I just stumbled upon this as I was looking up why this was happening / how I could fix it, but I haven't seen much. I'm not sure if it's the tool or if I'm doing something wrong. The thing is, I'm doing things exactly how they'd be taught in a tutorial, so I feel like it's the former.

     

    Anyway, it may be a long-shot, but maybe someone somewhere has figured this out in the past 5 years lol. Thanks!


    You could try and set up a new user account on your computer (needs to be an admin) and then launch Illustrator from that account.

    What you are seeing is not normal behaviour and can only be produced by either user error or some kind of corruption. And since you rule out user error, it must be corruption. Probably the preferences and they reside in the user account.

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