Why are my guides disappearing when I select them?

[M_G6]

(Mac Catalina, Illus. 24.0.1)

Why are my guides disappearing when I select them?

If I click on my artboard they reappear.

What's going on?

[Kurt Gold]

Does View > Show Edges help?

[M_G6]

No, but I'm beginning to think I'm working on a corrupted file. Any new file I create does not appear to have this problem.

[jacobl54338525 · Accepted solution]

Thanks Kurt! Show/Hide Edges (ctrl+H) did the trick for me. Toggling the Real Time Drawing setting on and off did not prevent the guides from vanishing, neither did switching from Previewing on CPU or GPU. 

[Ana Ayon]

 Previewing on CPU worked for me

[danielm31348604]

This worked for me as well. My guide would disappear when I tried to align it to a path or anchor point. View>GPU Preview worked.

[Alex21805077wabi]

it worked for me too, Comand + H 
(but why Adobe create a funcion like that, so useless)

[madmaxcreative]

Thank you

[김B830]

thanks !!! this work for me !!!! 

finally !!!!

[YEmotionYusic_Pectorizer]

Thanks Kurt too! It worked for me. 😄 

[Ton Frederiks]

Are you sure you have Illustrator 24.0.1?

In the most recent update 24.1 there is a feature Real Time Drawing, which shows you the preview of objects while moving.

But the preview of a guide or other objects that have no fill or stroke or an object with a white fill and no stroke means that they disappear when moved.

Looks like a bug to me. Switch to Outline preview or CPU preview to see what you are moving seems a workaround

[thomasf1181545]

I actually only saw my guides when dragging them once Real Time Drawing was turned off.

[Photoshop49]

Thank you so much for mentioning this. I am using Adobe illustrator 2021 version 25.0.1 and I couldn't figure out why my guides kept disappearing when moving to save my life. I hardly ever chance system preferences so I'm not sure if it noticed the "Real-time Drawing and Editing" option in previous versions. However, in previous versions, I never had the disappearing guide issue while moving them. Now I'm curious as to what "Real-time Drawing and Editing is and why is it needed. As for now, I will keep it unchecked since turning it off seemed to solve the problem. Thanks for mentioning! 

[Photoshop49]

I am honestly not sure how to edit my posted reply but I meant to say I hardly ever change system settings not chance* typo. 

[default6tgu65aymo38]

Thank you! I've been trying to figure this out like a crazy person! lol Yep.. turned off "real time drawing" & it solved it. Im so happy right now, thanks!

[TehKarmah]

Yup, that did it for me, too. For reference: 

• [Windows] Choose Edit > Preferences > Performance > Real-Time Drawing and Editing.
• [macOS] Choose Illustrator > Preferences > Performance > Real-Time Drawing and Editing.

[d0nut247]

check the layer colour. maybe your layer is 'white' so when you select a guide it shows its selection colour of white / dissapears? 

[nagedesign]

I'm on version 24.2.1, Windows Pro 10 x64, and have the same problem which was occuring in the previous versions too. Whenever I select the guides, they disappear and it's pretty difficult to position them where I need them to be. The edges are showing, so this is not causing the problem. Anyone who found out how to sort this? And the layer colour and the colour of the guide are definitely not the same. I can see the guides fine as long as I'm not selecting/moving them. Which really beats the point of them if I can't easily place them where they need to be.

[Monika Gause]

See the answer by Ton.

[nagedesign]

Aha, yes. It works on a CPU preview. Pretty foolish to have to go around this...

[richardf48537383]

I just updated to the latest version of Illustrator 24.2.3 and yes, when you click to move a guide... be that a guide you created from a shape or simply one you have dragged out from the ruler ... it vanishes. 

Once again, I'm going to have to move to a legacy version of Illustrator.

I can't count the number of times I have had to do this. I keep hoping that when I update there's not going to be a bug that renders is useless... well, this is one of those bugs.

For an illustrator like me  - who needs precision - and uses guides on a daily basis ... it's now completely USELESS.

I dream of a day when the team at Adobe stop destroying their own apps.

They have all got worse in my opinion...  bar none. 

[richardf48537383]

I just updated to the latest version of Illustrator 24.2.3 and yes, when you click to move a guide... be that a guide you created from a shape or simply one you have dragged out from the ruler ... it vanishes. 

Once again, I'm going to have to move to a legacy version of Illustrator.

I can't count the number of times I have had to do this. I keep hoping that when I update there's not going to be a bug that renders is useless... well, this is one of those bugs.

For an illustrator like me  - who needs precision - and uses guides on a daily basis ... it's now completely USELESS.

I dream of a day when the team at Adobe stop destroying their own apps.

They have all got worse in my opinion...  bar none. 

[Ton Frederiks · Accepted solution]

Vote here:

https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/601447-illustrator-bugs/suggestions/39740689-realtime-previ...

And you can use these workarounds in the meantime:

Switch to Outline preview or CPU preview to see what you are moving and creating a special layer for guides and putting the layer in outline preview works too.

[richardf48537383]

Appreciate the work-around Ton thanks. 

Just noticed when you move text - the bounding box vanishes as well.

Do Adobe not understand their users?.. after all this time. We need bounding boxes/guides/edges so we can align items -- Not sure I understand the justification for all this removal of edges/boxes/etc 

Anyway... nothing will change., it never does. So we're stuck with it. 

LEGACY version here I come.. again. 

[Ton Frederiks]

Just noticed when you move text - the bounding box vanishes as well.

That has always been like that.