Unknown error occurs when trying to open ANY .ai file

[davidfox@charter.net]

All of a sudden this morning,I cannot open ANY .ai file - I get the message "An unknown error has occurred". I can open .eps files without problems.

I have tried  opening files on both my local hard drive and on our server - same result.

I did update Illustrator this morning after receiving notification about the update, but the problem occurred BEFORE i did the update - I decided to try updating to see if it would fix the issue, but no luck.

I have tried quitting Illustrator and restarting the computer, but no luck.

Please help - I am dead in the water if I can't open my files.

[davidfox@charter.net]

One more thing - I just tried opening some of the .ai files in Photoshop and they open without problems. Of course, this does me no good because I loose the vector graphic format if I try and save them. But it does show the issue is with Illustrator and not the files.

[Monika Gause]

Is a printer connected, set up as default printer and turned on?

Are your files on a server? If so, please move them to the harddisk before opening.

[davidfox@charter.net]

As stated originally, I have files both on my internal hard drive as well as a server I access via VPN. I have tried open files on both the hard drive and and the server and get the same error.

I do have a printer connected to my wireless network, however at this time it is not turned on.

[Monika Gause]

Then please turn it on.

Also it's necessary that it is set up as the default printer and just in case there's some printer queue software this might irritate Illustrator as well.

[davidfox@charter.net]

I turned it on but this did not solve the problem. It is my only printer so it is the default. And there is nothing in the printer queue.

Furthermore, I have been working with the same setup since the beginning of the year without any issues, so I expected before trying that it would not solve the problem.

Seems to me like a deeper issue within Illustrator - perhaps corruption in  preference files or something like that?

[Monika Gause]

Changing anything might irritate Illustrator. Can you try and set up the printer as the default? This has helped people in the past.

Illustrator needs a printer when opening and saving files.

The files have not been moved around?

Are there linked images in them? Where are the files located?

Are all fonts checked and OK?

Do you have any plugins installed?

[davidfox@charter.net]

It suddenly dawned on me that I don't actually have my printer set up on my work computer (I work at home and have two computers - a work one and personal one). I never print anything from my work computer so I had not installed the driver for the printer.I did check and see that the driver from Snagit was set as the default printer. So I changed it to to the Adobe PDF driver as the default printer, figuring that if anything should work it should be the Adobe driver. Still no luck.

No the files have not been moved around. No, there are no linked images within the files.

I am not sure how to "check" the fonts, but have no reason to think there is a problem with any of them.

No, I do not have any plugins.

[Monika Gause]

Is this the latest version? 23.0.1? If not, can you try and install it?

[davidfox@charter.net]

Yes, it is 23.0.1. As I stated in my original email, I downloaded that newest update this morning. However I encountered the error before updating and obviously, updating did not fix the problem.

[Monika Gause]

Please contact support.

Contact Customer Care

You need to be logged in and at the bottom of the page there is a chat option (unless you have a team license)

[davidfox@charter.net · Accepted solution]

Monika,

Just wanted you to know that Customer Care fixed the problem - once we trashed the Preferences folder, the problem went away. I was kind of thinking it might end up being that because in my previous experiences with InDesign when I have encountered odd problems, trashing the Prefs has fixed those problems. Luckily, my use of Illustrator is fairly basic and I don't have any elaborate settings in my preferences.

[Monika Gause]

Glad that it could be fixed and thank you for the feedback

[Printem]

how can i trash the prefernce folder - i have the same issue

[lioa83190920]

@Printem Shift + Alt + cmd (command) on Mac. Hope this helps