Workspace/interface turned white, it will not change back to grey in preferences interface panel.

[wroblinski]

In Illustrator (most recent up to date version), I did a shortcut and accidentally turned my workspace to white.  I went to preferences ->user interface ->brightness and changed the color.  It changes the interface except for the workspace color, it remains white. However; if I open a new document it does change to the appropriate color.  I just don't want to copy and paste all my work to a new document.  This happened at work on a PC. When I brought the file home I opened it on a IMAC with the same issue. 

[Alaina5C08]

Please help! I tried ctrl+shift +H and I tried clicking pixel preview, and overprint preview.  Is there any other reason it could be locked in this mode?  I can't see half of my artwork now.

[Ton Frederiks]

View > Show Artboards?

[Phase9]

Control click (Mac) and choose dark grey or whatever color you prefer

[Brenden24013943z1a7]

Go into User interface in preferences, then go to change canvas color.  Sometimes when toggling overprint the canvas color defaults to white.  Please note this is not the same as user interface color.

[Random_Artist]

The shortcut did not work for me too, instead I tried manually clicking it by going View > Hide Artboards (Ctrl + Shift + H). This worked for me.

[Levi5E8C]

CMD + Shift + H or View > Hide Artboards

All that this feature does is hide all the artboards and makes the background white. It's a useless feature for 99% of people. Go to Edit > Keyboard shortcuts to disable this. 

[Legend5CB3]

A solution if none of those options work is tho check the resolution of your project if its has been changed to a larger width/height zoom out of your project to see the edges and see if that's the problem. If that's the issue you then go to file new find the resolution of the current project ur working on open new project then close and reopen ur previous file it will go back to normal

[Phase9]

I found that control clicking and choosing the usual color solved the issue.

[Rosie2253803496kx]

thank you so much! 

[rafanabdullah]

ctrl+shift+h = hide/unhide artboards

it works!! Thanks Guys!

[Tori22593176vgso]

I had the same issue and I found it!!

Go to View > Trim View and it should go back to normal

[Maggie22679280ihgh]

FIXED!

Pressing preview with *whatever* did not end up working for me, so what I ended up doing was exporting as an ai file and opening it again! Worked for me I hope this helps!

[julij46431931]

Hallelujah!!!! I finally got it to work!!!

Solution:  Ctrl + Shift + H................. boom!!! I mean it took forever.. but thank you who ever said that

[Ankia30901482u7zd]

None of these worked for me! I have the same problem. Please help

[inzari masudi · Accepted solution]

Worked=Ctrl+Y

[imcocaloca]

It's 2024 and this still works on the latest Adobe Illustrator. Thank you! ❤️

[kazotaja]

You are a lifesaver!

[Reuben NV]

You must have clicked Shift+Ctrl+H. It hides the Artboard. You can either click Shift+Ctrl+H.

Or go to  View > Show Artboards

[JJBLACK]

Thank you! 🙂

[lostonthedge]

None of the shortcuts are working, I have tried switching on and off the Overprint View, Hiding the artboards, Pixel view everything. I also have tried to go into preferences and fix the canvas colour but still its not working.

[Anubhav M]

Hello @lostonthedge,

We understand that encountering technical issues can be frustrating. Would you mind trying to manually reset Illustrator's preferences and checking if it helps:

For macOS

• Close all Adobe applications.

• Go to the following locations

• ~/Library/Caches

• ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe

• ~/Library/Preferences

• Rename Adobe Illustrator, com.adobe.illustrator and Adobe Illustrator 28 Settings folders to Adobe Illustrator.old, com.adobe.illustrator.old and Adobe Illustrator 28 Settings.old

• Launch Illustrator from the Creative Cloud.

Note: Location starting with this "~" sign indicates the User Library, which is hidden. So, you need to copy & paste the exact path in spotlight search or from Finder Menu > Go > Go to Folder > Paste the location in the dialog box like this:

For Windows

- Close all Adobe applications.

- Go to Location C:\Users\%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Adobe

- Rename Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Illustrator 28 Settings folders to Adobe Illustrator.old and Adobe Illustrator - 28 Settings.old

- Relaunch Illustrator from Creative Cloud

Disclaimer: Please note that renaming preferences folders will remove all the custom settings, and Illustrator will launch with default settings. You can also save a backup of the folders in case you want to. The location is mentioned above.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Thanks,

Anubhav

[lostonthedge]

A big applause to Anubhav for guiding me the right way. This fixed everything plus I updated Illustrator to 28.5. This really worked like magic. Again, thanks for helping out.

[olujoseph3552693448go]

Hello, i have found the solution to exactly what you complained about.  You will notice on the layers panel that the affected ones group seperately. now, the solution is that you will bring the main documents out from the layers, you will see some layers that have nothing in them and they are tag with white dots. let me know if you get it or not. how i got into the problem was when i right clicked on an image and clicked on isolate selected cliping masked then i mistakenly pressed cntrl + Z. check the attached docs to see for your self.

[Ib0001]

Ctrl+Shift+H / Cmd+ Shift + H

[OL_Tonic]

Thanks everyone! Command+shift+H worked for me.