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Question

Text Boxes in Illustrator Behaving Strangely

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
November 29, 2018
21 replies
14753 views

This might be difficult to explain, but at the moment, when pasting text within Illustrator (it can be from a different artboard within the doc, or from a different Illustrator doc, or Word, basically it doesn't seem to matter where the text comes from) or if just create a new text box and type within it, and try to resize the box, it seems to create more text boxes within the main box, and the text would 'snap' into the smaller box. If I stretch the box wider, the text will 'snap' back into the bigger box again, and I can then delete the randomly created text box as it is empty and not affected anymore. If I keep moving the edges of the text box around, every time the text within it is affected by moving or not having enough space it will just pop a new box. It will carry on indefinitely as long as I'm shifting the size around.

This only happens when creating text boxes that you can resize without affecting the size of the text inside it. Typing without a text box seems to be fine.

Does anyone know what on earth is going on?

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Ryon_Nishimori

Participating Frequently

Ya I'm not sure it's other apps. I haven't tried turning off sync on adobe fonts yet though... Maybe this is a simple setting we all have checked or something that is bugged. Adobe support seems clueless on this issue as well from all I've done with them.

mathewm95600631

Participating Frequently

Independent of this issue my Mac was running really slowly, so I ran a system cleaner, which cleared out all my caches, including application, unnecessary system, fonts etc and I've removed; all the startup login items, inc Dropbox and any of preference pane software items, like Hyperdock. Since then it seems to have disappeared on new documents but, it does appear in the older docs that had the initial problem, which is really weird.

In the older docs I can recreate the issue on demand. I'm going to work on a few new bits of artwork today if it doesn't appear I'll have two comparison docs to show Adobe, then I'm going to contact support and show them the bug so they can actually see it in real time.

mathewm95600631

Participating Frequently

I think it's definitely the same issue you're experiencing too. I'm running a Macbook Pro (2015) too, so not isolated to Windows. I actually switched back to 2018 because 2019 was unusable and the issue turned up there too, I'm going to try using it again later to see if it's still happening. The issue starts sporadically, but once it starts it becomes unmanageable and breaks my workflow. I've found when I've limited the number of fonts running from Fontbase/Adobe Fonts then it's less likely to happen.

The issue itself, is as though the object/text's bounding box is snapping, like smart guides would, too itself when it's scaled. When holding shift and scaling up and down through itself 'the snap' create this box, that's how I recreated the issue in the images. They show the initial scaling of the text, and where the objects appear. The red lines are the vectors that have been created. Literally no idea how to solve it. :/

Eisenheim

Known Participant

That's exactly it, yup. It doesn't happen straight away but what I did notice is, that I can force it to happen by creating a new file (blank) and opening an existing AI file with content inside it.

Creating the new file and spinning boxes around, resizing etc. doesn't bug it out (I'm sure it would after prolonged use) but opening an existing project along side it, and then moving content in there and/or moving back to the blank, it suddenly starts happening.

None of the things support have done (obvious things like turning off GPU acceleration, resetting preferences, renaming Illustrator folders etc etc. - things I've already tried more than once) have had any effect. Spent over an hour with one last night, remoting in like the others and he repeated the same things the previous agents did. I appreciate the assistance but there is a complete disconnect between support staff and they're doing the same simple things anyone who's spent an hour looking at troubleshooting guides would have already done, so it's a waste of my time to keep dealing with them.

I mentioned in my previous response that I was going to disable Fontbase completely and see if it affected it. It didn't. Had no impact at all so that rules out Fontbase. I've ruled out every app now pretty confidently.

I am hoping someone from Adobe will chime in here and help out.

thenimblestudioAuthor

Participating Frequently

Guys, what are we going to do? The Contact Centre is kinda hopeless right now, and like you said, opening existing projects is almost impossible to work with, or when it starts happening in new documents, then that document becomes impossible to work on. I'm at a loss as Illustrator is my main, most-used every day programme.

Eisenheim

Known Participant

I believe my problem is very similar to this one, posted a thread here some days ago with a video Jumping Cursor and "Invisible Outlined Boxes"

From your original post it didn't sound like it was the same but looking at your video now, and others' responses here, it appears to be an issue numerous people are experiencing.

I've been in touch with support and frustratingly they haven't yet produced a solution (though they've tried something today and I'm waiting to see if it had any impact, I highly doubt it). The problem for me is every time they remote connect, the problem fails to show up as it doesn't happen straight away for me, it takes some time to happen.

I've gone through everything I could think of, finishing up with 2 complete HDD formats and it hasn't made a difference.

After seeing your post about Google Drive - I didn't have Google Drive installed but had Onedrive so I removed that and didn't have any impact.

For a time I was convinced it was related to the new RTX 2080 cards and the support for them in Adobe apps but I'm told by Adobe support it's supported. As you're on Mac, that throws that theory out the window. I am also on Windows 10.

The only other thing which I thought of today was perhaps it's the only program I have integrated with Illustrator - That being Fontbase. Someone here mentioned they disabled that and it didn't have any impact but I've just done that now and will see how that goes.

Extremely frustrating for me as it's really preventing me from using Illustrator.

thenimblestudioAuthor

Participating Frequently

Yep, it does exactly the same thing when I am scaling and resizing objects Eisenheim

mathewm95600631

Participating Frequently

I have the same issue, but I don't use Google Drive File Stream app. I've reinstalled Ai, turned all other programs off, turned off Fontbase, removed all my font caches/ adobe fonts etc and I'm still getting the same recurring issue.

thenimblestudioAuthor

Participating Frequently

Yeah, I just responded to your other comment. Turns out it isn't Drive File Stream as the issue returned pretty quickly. I hate this!

Ryon_Nishimori

Participating Frequently

Ya All I have is dropbox and CC file sync. Doesn't seem to be the issue. Also just to clarify this seems to have only happened after the latest update to Illustrator so definitely seems like something they need to fix. What's annoying is it only seems to happen on my work computer which has the least amount of extra apps to screw with something. The following are the specs of the machine it's happening to at work...

I have a MacBook Pro 13" non-touch bar and don't have this issue. Also, I have a Windows machine at home that isn't affected.

thenimblestudioAuthor

Participating Frequently

Hello Ryon.Nishimori, I contacted Adobe, do you have Google Drive File Stream? Or something similar?

jane-e

Community Expert

Bluejayboy wrote
... do you have Google Drive File Stream?

Is that what is causing this issue?

thenimblestudioAuthor

Participating Frequently

Apparently it might be the cause yes, so they suggested I disconnect it. So I did. I quite the Google Drive File Stream app, and reopened it (which I haven’t done before, it’s always just run in the background). Then reopened an Illustrator file that was giving me this irritating issue (I made sure it was still glitchy before quitting GDFS) and it seemed to have stopped! So it has worked. Now I just have to see if the bug is fixed and doesn’t come back.

So in a nutshell, restarting Google Drive File Stream has solved this issue for now.

L

Lucas Lago

Inspiring

A sorry, you already told that! Try open with another Keyboard and Mouse if you have, maybe it's a malfunction, or stuck key...

Ryon_Nishimori

Participating Frequently

I am having this exact same issue and it is one of the most annoying and hampering issues I've ever had in illustrator (there's been a lot). I've tried all the same steps as you Bluejayboy

Also, I've tried alternate keyboards and mice as well and it still happens. This is a bug and it happens on what appears to be any sort of resizing involving holding the shift key to constrain proportions. Absolutely nothing seems to work from restarts to clean installs.

Has this been addressed by Adobe? Can't seem to find anything and this is such a strange bug to deal with it's really obstructing my ability to be any sort of efficient and creating quite a mess.

Trying to be nice here but inside I'm really trying to work. Please help! Any info or links at all anyone might stumble upon please post. Thanks so much.

Monika Gause

Community Expert

Please contact support

Contact Customer Care

L

Lucas Lago

Inspiring

I note when the bug occurs the black color pallet change to (?), very weird, like a new object was created. After that, if you press Cmd+A to select all, they select just one box or another boxes? Also, in the layers panel, it's new objects?

thenimblestudioAuthor

Participating Frequently

Isn't it the strangest thing? I have no idea what to do to fix it. Even a clean install doesn't help.

Yeah, they all appear in the layers panel as <paths>.

Anna Lander

Inspiring

show please an example. Do I understand well that creates automatically new linked text frame every time when you have any overset, even during the transforming, before its finishing?

jane-e

Community Expert

Do these new frames show up in the layers panel? If so, what is Illustrator calling them?

thenimblestudioAuthor

Participating Frequently

Also, if the bounding boxes are empty or blank, then they are listed as <path>

thenimblestudioAuthor

Participating Frequently

Any chance it looks like this? I held the tilde key, and wonder if yours might be stuck?

A screen shot of what you actually have would be really helpful!

Firstly, thank you for taking time to try and help! I really appreciate it.

It isn't that I am aware of the tilde key thing, but it doesn't create as many repetitions, it's almost completely random and it is definitely some sort of bug or glitch. That's why I can't screengrab it because if I do, all you would see are two squares, or a textbox with another text box inside of it. I would have to record my screen or something. It has now stopped doing it for the past 10 min, but it tends to come back.

I have reinstalled, restarted, etc, nothing changed. Completely stuck!

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