When all Illustrator layers are turned off, is the canvas outside the art board always white?

[Colm M]

I am not sure if this was always the case but it seems new to me, when I hide all layers in an Illustrator CC 2020 document, the canvas outside the art board is white ( kind of like outline )

I have toggled GPU Preview which solves it but as soon as I turn the layer on & off again , it reverts to white.

I have tried Overprint Preview, I have tried View > Hide / Show Art boards.

There is a chance it has always been like this, but in the years hiding all layers , I have never noticed it. I feel that I may have hit a shortcut that did some obscure action which I cannot revert.

Attached is a screen shot of a new document with a single layer On & then Off

UI Interface is not the issue , nor is Outline.

Appreciate any help , thank you

Layer On

Layer Off

[Ton Frederiks · Accepted solution]

"when I hide all layers in an Illustrator CC 2020 document, the canvas outside the art board is white"

The answer is yes, in older versions as well.

But you cannot do very much in Illustrator when all the layers are turned off, except stare at a blank screen.