Expand appearance not working in Illustrator CC2019 as it did in CC2018

[helenb2169016]

I was asked by Ashutosh Chaturvedi Sr. Quality Engineering Manager, Adobe Illustrator to send in a file showing this issue.

This is a link to the .ai file. Madpattern P3M1.ai - Box

If you open the file, select the layer called P3M1 and choose Object > Expand Appearance in Illustrator CC2019 it is greyed out. While Expand is available it doesn't give the expected/desired result.

In Illustrator CC2018 - using the same file, and the same selection, Expand Appearance is available and it works as expected. Basically this is how it has worked for lots of versions of Illustrator.

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post but if someone can get this to Ashutosh that would be awesome! Thanks!

[Raghuveer_Singh · Accepted solution]

Hi Helen,

Thanks for sharing the file, we are able to repro this at our end & yes it got broke in 2019. We are currently investigating this issue further.

I would request you to report this issue as a bug on Illustrator User Voice (Adobe Illustrator Feedback​) so that we can track it there also.

As a workaround I suggest you to just move your sub-layer P3M1 outside the Clipped Artboard layer (It should be treated as a single layer) than you can use the "Expand Appearance" on this layer P3M1 and then drag the P3M1 layer back to the Clipped Artboard layer in its original position.

Apologies for the inconvenience.

With Best Regards,

Raghuveer Singh

Illustrator Team

[amandathompson]

Yes, Expand Appearance isn't working for me either. 

Is this ever going to be fixed?

[Monika Gause]

Yes, Expand Appearance isn't working for me either. 

Is this ever going to be fixed?

By @amandathompson

Please show us a screenshot of your object which includes the appearance panel.

[amandathompson]

Thank you very much for replying so quickly.

The Expand Appearance in Illustrator 2020 now works when Filters in the Appearance panel's effects are moved onto the Strokes (Appearance panel) in question. 

The Expand Appearance would not work when the filter was in the bottom of the layered effects in the Appearance panel.

Perhaps my ignorance was the problem here.

Thanks again for your time and help.

[amandathompson]

Please could tell me where I can get a version of Illustrator CC 2018 to download and install?

This version 2018 23 of Illustrator is now so far back that I can not download it from my Creative Cloud app.

But I can not use the Expand Appearance function in Illustrator 2020 so it seems I need to go back to Illustrator 2018 in order to work how I want.

Could you please advise?

[madelinefolz]

So a year later and this isn't fixed yet?? 

[sarashed]

This is still an issue for me as well. Also the "workaround" suggested above does not work either.

[fefem43462195]

hi.
don't make any changes after applying the effect, it will keep Expand Appearance work.