Text Boxes in Illustrator Behaving Strangely

[thenimblestudio]

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?

[mathewm95600631]

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.

[thenimblestudio]

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]

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.

[mathewm95600631]

It's not something that always happens either. I'm certain it's something to do with font integration somehow too. Will try killing Dropbox for now and feedback.

[Eisenheim]

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.

[thenimblestudio]

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

[mathewm95600631]

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]

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.

[thenimblestudio]

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.

[mathewm95600631]

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.

[Ryon_Nishimori]

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.

[Ryon_Nishimori]

Doesn't seem like not using fontbase or adobe font syncing did anything. Only thing I've been able to pinpoint down is opening an older document or maybe it's just having 2 open at the same time seems to effect it. Not sure I've turned off all snapping & it still happens. I can open one document and it doesn't seem to happen. Just when two or more are open at the same time possibly?

[thenimblestudio]

I just tried this too (only having one document open) and yep, it stops acting up. So you are on to something there at least.

Older documents, brand spanking new blank documents, recently worked on documents, ie ANY document no matter the complexity or age, has this issue. So that route is a dead-end in terms of a potential cause.

[thenimblestudio]

Hi again, turns out it's still happening if only one document is open. So nevermind!

[Ryon_Nishimori]

Yup really hard to pinpoint a situation. Pretty infuriating. This really destroys workflow.

[mathewm95600631]

Hey Guys, So on Friday I spent over an hour with Adobe Support, and I recreated the issues for them, both with type boxes and vector shapes. We ran through loads of the standard stuff, preferences etc to fix it. Nothing worked, and the tech support said that this issue should have been cleared up with the last update and apologised (Not sure how true that is though as I've never seen anyone really complain about it).

In the end, we changed tack and we created the Root User account (on mac) and copied over the files (used earlier to demonstrate the problem) and they worked fine, I couldn't reproduce the issue. Since then I've used ai from that account and it's not returned, however, if I switch back to my standard user account the issue returns.

There were no other programs running in the root and I'm not sure if the conflict will return eventually, but as a short-term fix, It looks like a fresh user account is needed. Not perfect but it might help in the short term to get some order to your workflows again.

[Eisenheim]

Also had one of the senior quality testers remote into my machine.

I was given no such direction (although I am on a Windows machine) and they said they'll be investigating.  Still waiting on an update from them.

What do you mean by fresh account?  A fresh user account in Mac?  I did the equivalent with Windows with a complete format (twice) and also use an Administrator account as standard - so i guess that's the same thing in essence?

[mathewm95600631]

Basically, the root user is the overlord account, probably because it's fresh and hasn't got any apps/preferences etc on it, the tech thought it would be a good place to check if it recreated the issue. Yeah so more or less a clean install.

[Ryon_Nishimori]

Ya, unfortunately, I'm not sure I can do this since it's my work computer. I'm not into having to restore my apps, preferences, fonts, and whatever else that will probably just cause it to have the issue again. 

[thenimblestudio]

Thank you for the update. Has it worked so far still?

I really need them to fix it

[Eisenheim]

There isn't a fix that we can do, that I can see.  It's a problem with Illustrator itself so would need to be addressed with a patch.  I saw several updates in Cloud being downloaded today, I had hoped one was for Illustrator but nothing was pushed for Illustrator.

[Ryon_Nishimori]

Just going to post this again I haven't run into this issue yet when I have ONLY ONE document open so if you're working on a project maybe try shutting Ai down and opening it back up and only running it with one document open at a time. Really wish they'd fix this as obviously, it's not ideal

[mathewm95600631]

I made a fresh admin account (not root user), I didn't change any of the preferences or have any other apps installed and it was working fine. Once I added Dropbox and Fontbase, then the problem resumed - if I had more than one document open. I turned both off and the problem disappeared. Then I changed over to Rightfont5 as an alternative font manager and loaded in a single font family and the problem appeared again. I removed it along with Dropbox etc and I can run more than one document in Illustrator. It's a nightmare.

Here's a post I made on illustrator voice ages ago before this one appeared and his colleagues have started experiencing the same issues in their office. He also mentions some other related bugs that also replicate the issue when using preview in dialogue boxes for scaling etc. I also get this and I hadn't thought to mention it. Do you guys get the same issues?

I'm going to write CRASH in my heading on the illustrator.uservoice  because it seems the only way they acknowledge those posts.

Scaling object(s) is causing the associated bounding box to become a shape ('expanded object' appear...

[lancep97956778]

We've now been seeing that a different user logged in with a 'fresh' account and preferences *on another user's workstation* does not experience the issue, whereas they do on their own workstations (Windows 10 enterprise, no dropbox, but Fontbase * Hotdoor CAD tools are installed and have been determined not to be source of the issue on our end):

User A has this issue.

User B has this issue.

User C apparently does not, or has not reported experiencing the problem to this point.

User A logs in to User B's machine (windows 10 sets up new account, fresh illustrator prefs, etc..) Issue does not manifest.

User B logs in to User C's machine (same as above), issue does not manifest.

Both User A and B continue to see the issue on their own workstations.

[jane-e]

lancep97956778  wrote

We've now been seeing that a different user logged in with a 'fresh' account and preferences *on another user's workstation* does not experience the issue,

A reminder to all that this is a user-to-user forum and there is a second forum for reporting bugs that the engineers and product managers will see. I just looked there, and maybe I missed it, but I do not see that it was reported.

If the link gets posted back here, we can all vote on it and add additional comments about this bug, which some of us (not me) are experiencing.

Here is the link: Adobe Illustrator Feedback