Illustrator 2018 & 17 crash on startup Mac

Hi Bill,

thanks for the detailed reply to my problem.  I've had a look in the preference folder as you suggested but neither of the files seem to exist in the first place for me to then delete them.  There are preference files for After Effects, acrobat, Premier Pro, Speed Grade etc... but non for illustrator.

Alex

If during the install of CC 2018 you checked "Import previous settings and preferences" in the Advanced Options (see screen shot) that were offered then that could be the source of your problems.

I would suggest deleting all preference files for CC 2017 and CC 2018 and then making sure that CC 2018 has run and even saved a new file and then quitting it and restarting the computer and then running it again just to confirm. This should establish a new set of preferences for it to run on without it trying to run off of the CC 2017 preferences. At that point you could try running CC 2017 if you absolutely need to so that it can establish its own preferences. Hopefully, then both versions can coexist.

To delete preferences:

With Illustrator closed launch a Finder Window in column view and click on your home folder. With the Option Key pressed choose Library from the Finder Go Menu. Within the Library folder find the folder called Preferences and within it find the following two files and delete them: “Adobe Illustrator <Version #> Settings” (earlier versions of Illustrator might just say “Adobe Illustrator”) and “com.adobe.Illustrator.plist”. When Illustrator is next launched it will create new preference files and the program will be restored to its defaults.

After you’ve reset up the program to your liking, it is a really good idea to create copies of your personalized “mint” preference files (make sure that you quit the program before copying them—that finalizes your customization) and use them in the future to replace any corrupt versions you may need to delete.