Illustrator is a mess on Dell XPS 13 7390 2-in-1

[katame]

I've been dealing with numerous issues since i bought this laptop in January:

- Illustrator crashes about once an hour, if not more. ALT+drag to copy/paste objects, ALT+scroll to zoom, and SPACE+drag to pan seem to be exacerbate this. (I tried toggling GPU enhancement -- no luck) Crashes generally happen more often if i'm using the Dell active pen.

- After crashing, linked images in recovered files need to be relinked.

- Opening files with fonts synced from Adobe Fonts brings up the dialog box saying fonts are missing, though i've confirmed they're synced in the web app. Clicking "activate" triggers a lot of loading, but no syncing. Oftentimes the "activate" button will simply become clickable again, with no change.

I've tried reinstalling and resetting preferences, as well as the GPU toggle mentioned above.

As a side note, the girlfriend has an XPS 15 from 2018 and also experiences more crashes than is normal; though not as many as i do. Her issues seem related to the ALT key, too? (fun aside: alt-dragging in Rhino3D is very laggy, and AutoCad is a mess.)

currently running 24.1.1, but, again, these issues have been around since January. The font syncing has been more problematic lately.

Windows is currently on build 18363

PS not finding any illustrator-specific events from today in event viewer, but there are a lot of DPTF errors. (at this point i don't know what i'm talking about)

[R abela]

Have the same laptop and same issue

[Evan5F8E]

Any updates here? I'm having the same problem. Not sure how to move forward on this one.

Thanks!

[Evan5F8E]

Also, to be clear, I'm using the same model and my symptoms are exactly as described in the post.

[katame]

Thanks for replying -- i had completely forgotten about this thread as Adobe was no help at all 😜

[katame · Accepted solution]

I fixed the issue completely with a fresh install of Windows!

I used Windows installation media -- not a Dell reimage.  I assume this means that Dell's bloatware is the culprit here.  I did my best to limit what i reinstalled of Dell's junk, but all drivers are reinstalled.*  If someone else feels like reinstalling all of Dell's software and checking Illustrator's performance against each one, please update us, but i'm happy to be rid of the bloatware anyway so i won't be troubleshooting that.  Everything works as intended now, and i'm finally able to use the laptop for its intended purpose.

*You might have trouble with the headphone jack, but uninstalling every audio driver and reinstalling Waves MaxxAudio should bring back the automatic "what did you plug in" dialogue and enable you to use headphones again.

[Evan5F8E]

Hi Katame,

Thank you for the detailed reply. To be honest, I'm nervous to reinstall Windows. I've screwed up laptops in the past without being able to get the correct drivers for things to function.

I wonder if it's possible to approach this problem from the reverse direction by removing Dell software until it works.

Do you remember which specific Dell software you have reinstalled? Only the Driver's I presume? That way, I'll try systematically removing the other software that you don't have and I don't need.

Thanks again!

[Bobby Henderson]

Any Dell computer system should have a Service Tag number which can be used at Dell's website to pull up the correct drivers to download. These days I think it's easier than ever to get a notebook computer back up and running with a clean install of Windows. A few months ago I upgraded an old Dell XPS 15 notebook with a new 1 terabyte SSD and doubled its RAM from 8GB to 16GB (I bought the SSD and RAM from Micron/Crucial). I installed a clean, unadulterated version of Win 10 Pro on it by going to the Microsoft web site and using its online tools to create an install image on a USB memory stick. It installed the new copy of Windows without a hitch; I was even able to use old notebook's Windows 7 serial number to activate the installation. This approach was so much easier than how it would have been years ago, which would have involved hunting around for old install CDs and other discs.

[sarahh61318074]

Im experiencing the same issue- illustrator crashing every half hour or so and when I reopen whatever I was working on I have to relink everything. I did a clean install of windows (and a reset) and Im still having the same problems

[Evan5F8E]

Did you use a Dell image or a clean install of windows without the Dell software? I'm asking this in regards to Katame's comment above that a fresh install worked for them (not using Dell image).

[sarahh61318074]

Hi Evan- I did a clean install with installation media directly from the windows website, so it shouldn't have any of the Dell stuff. I also uninstalled a good amount of the apps that came with the windows version, and no dice. Will be calling dell later today

[sarahh61318074]

I don't blame you for being apprehensive about performing a clean install- it was a bit of a nightmare for me. It took me a few hours to complete since my computer wasn't picking up any drivers when trying to install windows. I tried all of the troubleshooting I found on the internet and ultimately had to get my brother who is a computer science major and who has previously done a clean install to figure it out

[sarahh61318074]

After an hour on the phone with dell and two hours with Adobe I think I've found a solution: just use illustrator beta instead. Beta is apparently where they test out new features so it's exactly the same, you just get access to updates sooner (from my understanding.) So far it has worked for me, and is a simpler solution than a clean windows install. Something about illustrator is obviously not compatible with something on the XPS so hopefully in the future Adobe is able to fix the problem

[Evan5F8E]

Thank you so much for the continued updates, Sarah. You saved me from doing a fresh install of Windows to no avail. That's definitely not something I have time for.

I'll try it out tonight and report back with my findings!