ILLUSTRATOR IS ABSOLUTE GARBAGE

[Peter Gifford]

Me again. Another thing ... I had set up my page I wanted and saved it as a Startup file in the plugins folder as per manual instructions - and that doesn't work either. Some things (eg removal of symbol and style sets etc) stay the same, others (eg page setup, palette locations) change back to default.

Crap.

A friend suggested I mention that I don't have the Classic environment installed, and that Illustrator may need it to function properly. Seems ridiculous to me since there is no warning during the installation that the Classic version is required, but very little would surprise me at this stage ...

Peter

[Gary Newman]

It seems to me that buggy software would be buggy for everybody.

One of the problems Adobe has faced is, they release a version for the Mac, and then Apple updates the system software (as they have several times), introducing bugs to Illustrator. Adobe finds out (from us) about the bugs, makes fixes and releases an update (which they’ve done, what, twice?). Then Apple introduces Jaguar, creating more problems.

But not problems like you’re describing. I’d look into the bad RAM idea.

[Teri Pettit]

Palette locations are not saved in the startup file, they are saved in Preferences.

Rule of thumb: if an attribute can change when you open a different file, then it may be saveable in the startup file, but if it doesn't change on Open, then it can't be saved in the startup file. Note that your palette locations never move when you open a new file.

(And not all attributes that can be saved on a per-file basis get inherited from the startup file, since some of them are overwritten by the options set in the New Document dialog.)

[Scott Withrow]

It seems to me that buggy software would be buggy for everybody.

Only if everybody had exactly the same environment.

For example, let's pretend that there's something in Illustrator that reacts badly with specific video cards. It's Illustrator's problem, but only those with the specific video card see the problem.

Or how about saying that the gradient slider bug only manifests itself when the user has their mouse and keyboard hooked to the USB hub in an Apple Studio Display 17 CRT monitor?

Would either of those hypothetical situations automatically and completely exonerate Illustrator? Not the way I see it.

Just because a few people see a problem does NOT automatically mean they're at fault.

I've reinstalled OS X and Adobe Illustrator 10 more times than I can count. Probably four or five times since Jaguar. Always because someone convinced me that I was doing something wrong. And every single time, a virgin install of AI sitting on a virgin install of OS X displays the exact same behavior. Yet other CPU and RAM devouring apps run great. At least in my case, it's not bad RAM, bad CPU, or even bad after shave. An incompatibility? Perhaps, but what about a stock G4/867 should I be reasonably expected to replace because apparently ONE applications has problems with it?

Occam says it's the app, not the hardware.

The bottom line is, if I had done none of these things, I would be a hypocrite for complaining about AI. But I've done the dance, I've asked and pleaded, I've submitted every shred of info that's been asked for, and nothing has helped. If there was a solution, it WOULD have worked it's way to the surface by now.

I've jumped through every flaming hoop that's been put before me. If there's another, bring it on. The asbestos stops chafing after you get it broken in.

[Peter Gifford]

Hey Scott - go man go!

Oh, and my palette locations did move when I opened a new file, they were not saved in Preferences.

I'm completely stumped now. I have no bad RAM problems with any other program, and this bug only surfaced recently. I even just updated my versions of Arial and Times New Roman in response to a tip, and it made no difference. Yet I sent a file to a friend and it printed fine.

I don't know what's responsible now - but as Scott points out, when you don't get weird behaviour like this in any other app - and I have memory sucking apps for professional 3D for example - you can't help but blame the one committing the crime ...

Peter

[peter huisman]

I must admit, I still work in Classic, and have no problems at all. But I do encounter (on different groups) a lot of people with the same kind of problems.

And then to think I saw on the Apple site, yet another version of OS X will be anounced, named Panther.

Maybe you should give it a try posing your question an a usenet group: <news://alt.graphics.illustrator>. There is someone out there who was (or maybe still is) co developer of Illustrator (at least his name appeared in the Illustrator 8 starting screen as I remember).
Not to vent at him please, but just to get his opinions and tips.:)

Peter (the other)

[Thurgood]

You guys are having fun it seems to me.

I was curious about Scott's Lament, it could win an Academy Award, but seriuosly folks. Scott hit it on the head. A group of people could all have the same problem because of the way either their system is set up and their hardware as well.

Video Card well I guess. Bad RAM, bad hard drive, perhaps.
Perhaps they even got the RAM or hard drive from the same place.

But you hit on the head Scott you all just might have something in common that are causing your problems. And I guess Adobe should accept the responsibility for this unidentified cause and effect relationship.

That's seems logical to me.

Good point.

[JasonSmith]

Hope I dont sound like I'm defending some 'huge corporation's buggy software', but I just downloaded the AI 10 demo last week and I've had no problems whatsoever - in fact it has solved a few problems in the process.

Using Jaguar - opening 350mb .ai files. Blows away AI 9 with those types of files.

[Peter Gifford]

Right, it's humble apology time - for the printing problem at least.

I've discovered the culprit. Hewlett Packard. There was a new PPD file at <http://www.allosx.com/1032414369/index_html>

The reason I didn't explore this is because I had just downloaded the PPD file for my 4MV Laserjet about a week ago and assumed that was the most recent one. It turns out that was causing the crashing and it has just been updated.

Again, I apologise, that was a printer problem, not an Adobe one.

But ... I still stand by my comments re slowness (man I hate that rotating coloured wheel), not saving preferences properly, changing units and not remembering the last figure in the Move dialog ...

Peter

[Thurgood]

Probably room for improvement, although those last three problems you list I am not familiar with myself.

[Dave MacLachlan]

Classic is not required for Illustrator 10 to function.

[Gary Newman]

Yes, please explain what you mean by those last 3 problems.

[Dave MacLachlan]

Maybe you should give it a try posing your question an a usenet group: <news://alt.graphics.illustrator>. There is someone out there who was (or maybe still is) co developer of Illustrator (at least his name appeared in the Illustrator 8 starting screen as I remember).

Oddly enough, I've heard from a friend of a friend that some Illustrator engineers even read these forums. In fact rumor has it that they've even been posting occasionally. If you can believe it, I was told that there's one (who shall remain nameless) who's had her name on every splashscreen since Illustrator 3? or was it 88? ;-)

Seriously though...there's several of us who read these forums. I won't say that we read every thread...but these forums do get read. Issues that get brought up here often get discussed by both our marketing and engineering depts.

Scott, I wish I knew what was wrong with your machine, and others like it. We've got a whole dept of QE people who'd love to have figured it out. We don't just test on ONE stock model. QE has machines with a variety of video cards, CPUs, software extensions, monitors, printers, etc you name it. The problem is that there's almost an infinite number of permutations of hardware and software. Also we run into problems where people associate a "fix" with a "problem" which often leads to frustration because it may not be the actual "fix" which solves the problem, but a side effect of the fix, or even worse, just plain coincidence. Hence you always hear "trash the prefs", "fix your permissions", "re-install the software", "corrupt font", "dance three times around the machine on Tuesday and howl at the moon" etc. Like many complex systems (e.g. medicine, psychology, the hiccups) there's a whole bunch of "folklore" surrounding the facts. Unless we're sitting in your office, with our tools beside us, we can only guess at what's going on in many cases...and I realize that that can be EXTREMELY frustrating.

BTW if you haven't tried the dance and howl, you may want to give it a shot...at the very least I bet your stress levels will be lowered significantly.

[Gary Newman]

Not if it doesn’t work.

[Ann Shelbourne]

Just run AI 10 on stand-alone 9.2.2 and you will never see issues (1) through (6) again.

Promise.

Can ANYONE explain why they insist on running on an OS that causes them such pain and grief?

Eye Candy must be incredibly addictive -- one week in 9.2.2 re-hab. would make you feel much better.

[Scott Withrow]

Scott, I wish I knew what was wrong with your machine, and others like
it.

Isn't it even remotely possible that nothing is wrong with my machine? Let's review. And please feel free to correct me and/or update me wherever possible.

1) Gray drag box bug:
Apple's bad. Adobe points out, Apple fixes. Adobe must update AI to take advantage of Apple's fix. Status: Pending, not hardware related.

2) Slow redraw/scrolling:
AI 10 running on OSX creates some kind of double video buffer temporal paradox conundrum. 10.0.1 update provides some relief but does not eliminate problem. Solution: redundant buffer must be removed from AI. Status: Pending, not hardware related.

3) Gradient slider bug:
Introduced with the 10.0.3 update. Confirmed by numerous others on this forum, most of whom are less prone to hyperbole than myself. Adobe shrugs shoulders and goes "hmmm". I've personally reproduced bug on two machines about as different as can be. Staus: Unknown, hardware unlikely culprit since problem appeared after 10.0.3 update.

4) Random unexpected quits:
Started from day one. I found a printed slip in my AI box that said "The application Adobe Illustrator has unexpectedly quit". (Okay, not really.) Primary culprit seems to be "corrupt" fonts. Appears to be related to AI spewing "Adobefnt" files all over creation. Severe pruning of fonts will reduce but not eliminate random crashes. Other forces may be at work as well. Solution: Never use fonts. Status: Unknown. Not hardware related, as machines that pass ALL hardware tests, and run perfectly with RAM hogs like Photoshop and FCP will still have problems with AI. This of course does not mean that some AI crashes aren't RAM related. But it doesn't indicate that they all ARE, either.

5) The Houdini Toolbox: It gets away no matter how hard you try to pin it down. Could be some weird OS X problem, (permissions or something), but AI is the only Adobe app that does this. Solution: Make hotkey for toolbox. One that's easy to remember. Status: Unknown. And come on, you know it's not hardware. Really. (Granted, it's a minor annoyance, but it should be fixed anyway.)

6) Hideous brushed metal appearance spreading throughout the UI like evil cudzu. Oh, wait, that one goes to the OS X forum. Never mind. ;-)

[Gary Newman]

“Can ANYONE explain why they insist on running on an OS that causes them such pain and grief? ”

If it caused me pain and grief, I wouldn’t run it. In fact, I run OS9 on my G3, because AI 10 runs too slow in OSX there. But on the G4 --- no grief. No pain. I don’t care about the eye candy, but I am addicted to being crash-free and to multiple processing.

[Steve Voltmer]

Gary, I don't think you can speak for the vast majority. I don't here too many good things about the latest version of Illustrator. I know from personal experience though, that at my shop all the computers we upgraded Illustrator to 10.03 have the same problems as many have discribed in these forums. I know there are some bugs concerning page setup that Adobe will not even acknoledge.

[Gary Newman]

I don’t claim to speak for anyone other than myself, and the half dozen or so computers I manage. I’m pretty sure that if Illustrator were as buggy as some suggest, I should be experiencing these same problems. I’m also pretty sure that those users who ARE happily using Illustrator with few problems (vast majority? I have no idea.) are not coming to this forum to report their lack of difficulty.

[Jeremy Bohn]

I would describe Illustrator 10 as glitchy. The first time I used it was when I was filling in for someone at a Print Shop. Small glitches like the Hide command turning itself on and off and being unable to nudge objects with the arrow keys kept coming up (this was on 2 different machines in 2 different cities). Trashing the prefs worked but the symptoms alwyas came back.

Now on my computer, I have to put up with the disappearing tools act, the Hide command turning itself on (now that I know that's what it is, though I can turn it off) and as of yesterday, a new one: the shift key is ignored - cannot shift-click to select multiple items, cannot shift-drag to constrain proportions when resizing. Arg.

Speed is another issue. I could understand large projects slowing down the system, but I frequently do up quick black & white flyers etc. and it takes way too long to save (beach ball cursor comes up) and switch programs (the interface l a g s a lot). By the way, Photoshop 7 runs fine.

Other issues I have are simply annoyances: color profiles - I got so sick of being asked about color profiles everytime opened a file I turned that feature off (you can't embed one in an eps file?), I hate it that a new document opens to fit the screen, in my case to 97%. (Why not go right to 100%?) etc. etc.

Illustrator 10 is almost up there with DreamweaverMX in terms of glitches.

B&W G4/500 640MB RAM, OS 10.2.5 - (Illustrator installed since January 2003 - just missed the rebates and now I see I should have waited a bit longer for 11. Arg.)

[rupert stubbs]

Just to add my voice to the growing chorus. Illustrator 10 is buggy in OSX. Mine has started crashing a lot. It certainly suffers from beach-ball-itis. That's a shame, because it could be a great programme. Does InDesign suffer from the same flaws?

[Gary Newman]

When you say Illustrator “has started crashing a lot ,” what do you mean? It was working fine, and then started crashing? Wouldn’t buggy software sort of be crashing from the get go? The fact that it just started implies something other than bugginess.

Beachballitis cure: Do a finder-level search for “adobefnt” and trash any that end with .lst that are larger than 1 mb.

[Thurgood]

Clean the cache form your system and perhaps you have something else working that is crashing as you work in AI check out your crash logs you might be surprised.

[Big Giant Head]

How do you clean your Cache apart from washing it in the bath?

[Gary Newman]

Is that like money laundering?

[Joel Berry]

I use AI 10.0.3 on OS X 10.2 with NO problems. None. Zip. Nada. Zero. I also use Illustrator 10 at work on Windows XPerimental... No problems there, either. It is very stable, very reliable.

Now, Freehand 10... that's a different story altogether. But Illustrator works like a charm for me...

And Adobe really isn't paying me all that much to say these things ;0)

[Gary Newman]

Well, I hope they aren’t paying you more than they’re paying me.

[Scott Withrow]

Please tell me how you fixed the gray dragging box bug.

[Thurgood]

A freeware called CacheOut, I think it is free ware.

It will clean the cache in your browsers and system with a couple of clicks of the mouse.

Then you should also run the Cron the easiest way is with another Freeware called MacJanitor.

This is for OS 10.2.4 well Jaguar!

OS 9.2.2 and earlier I believe there are freeware for this as well.

[Joel Berry]

By the way, Peter...

"ILLUSTRATOR IS ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"

Them thar's fightin' words 'round here...

;0)

[Gary Newman]

“Please tell me how you fixed the gray dragging box bug.”

My fix is - I don’t even notice it any more.

[Scott Withrow]

"Doctor, it hurts when I move my arm like this!"

[JasonSmith]

Thurgood - thanks for the MacJanitor tip.

[Stitzlein]

cocktail is better than any of these apps-it repairs permisssions, prebinds files, runs your cron scripts and cleans your caches-all in one push of a button.

get it on versiontracker.

[Thurgood]

However be careful with Cocktail because if you hit the wrong buttonwell it does an excellent job of removing files even imprtant ones, but it does all that you need to do in one app I downloaded it myself.

Unfortunately I hit the wrong button and deleted all locked and invisible files on my OS X boot. Not something you want to do.

Trust me on this one. And the beware of the DS Store files I was curious as to how it would handle things and chose by accident again the desktop folder. Well I certainly have a very clean desktop. I wonder where all those files I had went.

[graffiti]

I wonder where all those files I had went.

I'll look around again but I'm pretty sure they're not here.

[Bruce Cohen]

Illustrator 10..... is a nightmare in OS 9....

Illustrator 9 had some Page Setup incompatibilities with files that were originally designed in Illustrator 8...

Illustrator 10's page Setup doesnt SAVE.

Illustrator 10 quits unexpectedly for no apparent reason (kinda like when I used AI on a PC)

I cant print half of the things I could when I used AI9 in system 9... (Due to the lousy quality Print drivers that apparently dont work with my Hewlett Packard Color laser jet....

MY CONCLUSION..........

Illustrator is not TOTAL GARBAGE... but the combination of OSx and lack of third party support is TOTAL GARBAGE.....

AND ITS AMAZING how much finger pointing and blaming.... these companies do to each other ...... without .... RESOLVING the problems...

(AND I DO THINK IT IS A JOKE that ADOBE could think releasing Illustrator 11 out before the product is working for most of their loyal devoted customers...... WHO... we should remind ADOBE started using their products on a MACINTOSH... not WINBLOWS XP....

seems that Adobe..... is going for the MONEY.... not the loyal group of mac users that grew up with Adobe's product line...

[Jim Hazelwood]

I tried using AI 10.0 with OS 9.2.2 for a good two months before I finally gave up and went back to 8.0.

Tried everything under the sun to make it work, but I agree with you that it just isn't a solid app.

Painfully slow, errors, problems one right after another. I haven't crashed in a week with 8.0 and it does everything I need. Oh well.

[Ann Shelbourne]

And I haven't crashed in months using AI 10.0.3 on Mac OS 9.2.2. And there is no "slowness" either.

I think that your problem lies outside Illustrator and could well be caused by faulty fonts, the way that you manage them, or by bad hardware (such as faulty RAM or HD problems).

[Gary Newman]

Wait a minute... Adobe is out to make MONEY???

I haven’t crashed in months either - AI 10.0.3 on OS 10.2.3, and it works plenty fast.

[Scott Withrow]

It's all our fault. Adobe is perfect, Apple is perfect, and there are no bugs or problems anywhere in any product they make.

The only way we can save ourselves from our own stupidity is to spend spend spend, buy buy buy.

If you buy new stuff and upgrade fast enough, you'll never be at any one version of anything long enough to even know if there are any bugs or not! It's called the Total Moto Psycho Advanced Upgrade Subscription Progress Package, and can be yours for a paltry $5000 annually.

And remember, RAM gets stale! Replace yours every two months!

[Thurgood]

And another thing?oh, wait?I forgot what I was going to write?but it would have showed you a thing or two you can bet on that!

So there!

[graffiti]

instead of throwing money away on a program that's unusable

If it's unusable, what have I been doing with mine?

[Diane Walls]

I, too, am completely disgusted with Adobe for its v.10.0.3 Illustrator. EXTREMELY slow and many machine "lock ups". I'm going back to v. 8.0 after reading all the other complaints of others using various systems and having the same problems.
Adobe won't refund my money or give me credit towards the next upgrade... I, too am considering switching to Freehand instead of throwing money away on a program that's unusable.

[JasonSmith]

Day 27 in my 30-day demo of AI 10 - today I finally saw some minor strangeness with a particular file, it could have been the file though.

Other than that, beats the hell out of AI 9 in classic.

[Scott Withrow]

C'mon, Diane ... don't be a quitter. Throw more money at it. You know you want to.

[Gary Newman]

And mine? And my four co-workers? And my home G3 (which admittedly - and happily - uses OS9)?

[Scott Withrow]

Sorry, Gary, once you copped to ignoring certain bugs, you lost your cred. <g>

[Gary Newman]

Nake that “bug” - singular. I think the only one I copped to ignoring was the grey dragging box. And actually, I don;t really ignore it - I just don’t notice it. The dock-bounce-back bug is WAY more annoying.

[Bill Schuhle]

Diane,

Ironically enough, if you'll visit the FreeHand forum, you'll find a number
of longtime FH users seriously considering a switch to Illustrator because
they find versions 10 and 11 (MX) of FreeHand "unusable" as well.

Bill Schuhle <<< still a FreeHand 8 guy after all these years

[atomiclotusbox]

a bad day in illustrator is better than a good day in freehand

:D

[Del Vanderver]

WOW!! After reading all this I think I must be really lucky or blessed. I have been using illustrator since version 8 and currently use 10.03 running in OS 10.25...I always keep all software up to date. I have only had a few problems with illustrator. The spinning beach ball plagued me for a short time, but once I deleted the AdobeFnt files it was fine. I have and do sometimes get the mysterious disappearing toolbar but rarely. I almost always have illustrator, Photoshop, Indesign, Itunes, Classic, Mail, and Safari open all at once and never have any problems. I am using a a Dual 1ghz G4 with 1.5 meg Ram.
I think you should completely wipe your drive and re-install OS X and then the updates and then illustrator and it's updates and see what happens.

As for Freehand, I believe in Macromedia Products but I think you will be sadly disappointed with freehand. While the new Mx version is feature rich and boasts the same interface as other Macromedia Mx products, it still cannot compete with illustrator in my opinion.

[Wade Zimmerman]

Del there is nothing that wrong with AI 10.0.3 it works ppretty well unless your name is?well we won't go into that.

It's a short list any way!

[ray lambert]

atomiclotusbox,

Uhhh....well.....lets not start that again.

This "Illustrator is absolute garbage" thread has gone on now for 71 posts. I dont think now would be a good time to start throwing rotten tomatoes. Besides, it just gets kind of old.

[Scott Withrow]

Okay, if you're going to start taking swipes at those of us who are having problems, it's time to put up or shut up.

Wade, I'll write you a check for $50 if you show me how to fix the gradient slider bug.

Everybody wants to tell me I'm doing something wrong, but nobody wants to tell me what it is.

Is it some kind of secret, or what?

[Jim Hazelwood]

The secret will be revealed in the next upgrade.
$200, please.

[ray lambert]

Wow Jim, do you work for Macromedia too! ;-)

Making fun of your customer base for having a problem that was created through your own corporate negligence, then charge them to fix it...Its sheer Brilliance!

Can I get in on this deal...maybe if I draw really, really crappy and sloppily get my work in to the computer, I can convince my clients that more money can fix my own crapulence. Wow, what a concept! Makes me sound like I'm part of the government or something.

[Wade Zimmerman]

What exactly is you're problem with the gradient slider?

Perhaps I can help you. But start a thread on that issue as it might become difficult to follow, I am serious perhaps I can see something that has been overlooked or I can confirm that it is a bug.

[Scott Withrow]

Here's a link to get you started. I'd bump it but it's so OLD it's landed in the archive.

Christopher Gentry "My gradient palette has gone insane!" 2/5/03 10:20pm </cgi-bin/webx?50@@.1de6599a/55>

There's another one that's more recent, but I can't remember what the subject was. It started out as something else and morphed in to a gradient slider thread. Someone even post a movie of the bug in action ....

[Scott Withrow]

Here's the other one:

Teri Pettit "Who still has the 10.0.1 updater?" 3/10/03 4:06pm </cgi-bin/webx?50@@.1de81e40/30>

I think the links are actually to later messages, you'll have to review both threads in their entirety for full effect. Hope you have a comfy chair.

[Wade Zimmerman]

I have OS 10.2.5 and 10.0.3 and I don't see the problem.

I I click on a diamond slider and make it active then click along above the gradient bar only the slider moves. If I click on the bottom sliders it becomes active and I can change the color. If I clcik anywhere else in the along the bottom of the bar it adds a slider at that point and nothing moves.

What is the problem?

Confused.

[C Nelson]

I have had slow performance and crashing issues from the beginning. Now it crashes at startup all the time.

Garbage is a harsh word but unusable is not.

I too believe this product is extremely buggy (has been from the beginning) and Adobe should take this into consideration at the upgrade for the next version. But who really cares about the next version - Fix this one now! Please!!

[Scott Withrow]

Well, Wade, you're going to have to dig a lot deeper than that if you want the $50. <vbg>

Seriously, though, if you didn't pick up on what the problem is, move on. I'm tired of repeating myself over and over, and subjecting myself to more derision.

Nobody cares, not even the people who also see the problem. They're all "yeah, whatever, I'll look the other way and maybe I won't see it" and "oh I'll just wait here until Adobe tells me to send in my money".

Besides, who really uses the gradient palette, anyway?

It's not going to get fixed. It's just not about fixing bugs anymore.

[JasonSmith]

"Nobody cares, not even the people who also see the problem. They're all "yeah, whatever, I'll look the other way and maybe I won't see it""

Funny - that's exactly how I feel about Freehand. I'm slowly coming to grips that I got the only copy *ever* to have problems, and everyone else's is working perfectly.

<whatever>

[Gary Newman]

I looked into this problem when Scott (and others) began talking about it, and I can confirm that, for me, this problem does seem to exist, and it would seem to be a bug. However, I couldn’t get it to misbehave as much as it seems to for Scott.

If I have a gradient-filled object selected while I adjust the sliders, the color stop jumps about one click in ten. The more objects I have selected, the more frequent the behavior. If I have no objects selected, there seems to be no misbehavior at all.

I think it’s a bug, but then the engineers can’t seem to reproduce it, so what should they do? I’d harp on it a lot more myself if it were a problem for me, but I generally adjust the sliders with the mouse in my right hand, while my left hand is poised above Command - Z, so any misbevior takes a fraction of a second to correct.

So, I see the problem, and I care - just not very much. I hope it gets fixed for you.

[Joan Parker]

I've been using Illustrator for years and recently went to 10 on OS X. Version 10 is just full of problems and incompatibilities with Suitcase. Adobe needs to get this fixed because it really is awful.

[Ann Shelbourne]

Suitcase is the problem -- not Illustrator.

(I use ATM Deluxe/Mac OS 9.2.2 and experience no problems with Illustrator 10.0.3.)

[Wade Zimmerman]

I use Suitcase and don't experience thse problems?

Scott,

I live without the $50.00 and I guess you'll live with your bug.

Have fun!

[Scott Withrow]

I was really hoping someone would cash in on my offer.

[Wade Zimmerman]

Nah! You're enjoying yourself. I can tell you that Although I use to be able to duplicate your problem I am no longer able to do so. Of course unlike you I have fonts on my system and I have plug ins and I have installed and reinstall and have uninstalled and have updated software and fonts.

Which might explain why I no longer can reproduuce the problem I once was able to do.

Hmm?could I be on to something?nope Scott says that's not possible.

I'm stumped.

[Scott Withrow]

Wade it seems to me that you're being awfully sacrastic. If you think you have stumbled on to something, say so.

Otherwise, what would make you think I don't use fonts? Do you for a fact know how many times I've wiped my entire G4 and started over in the vain hope that "this time it will be different"?

I have tried, and will continute to try, anything anyone suggests to remedy the problem. But after being able to replicate this problem across 3 G4 machines that are as different as they can be, (one at home, one at school, and one recently purchased by a friend), I'm forced to conclude that the ONLY common item between them is Adobe Illustrator 10.0.3.

I've done the legwork, folks. And yet, people still take jabs at me. Whatever.

[joanne lensink]

I have just lost ANOTHER major professional graphic in process in Illustrator 10. I too am going to take Illustrator 10 off my G4 (with mega memory) and go back to Illustrator 8 which has been my daily friend since it came out. I HATE ILLUSTRATOR 10!!!!! Artists should be told about the many bugs and slowness and problems with this upgrade. Telephone support would not talk to me because I am 3 days past my free support. I will not pay more for an upgrade I find useless. Unless Adobe addresses this, I will go to all the dot.coms, including Amazon.com and let as many people know these frustrations. I too may look at FreeHand for the next upgrade.

[Stitzlein]

wow, i'm amazed at the acidity towards ai10 in this discussion. like wade, i was having zero problems with ai10 under os9 for a while-until my hard drive bit the dust and i inherited a new one from another machine. this hard drive had ai10 on it already. strangely enough ai10 was completely bonkers on this drive, crashing every 30 minutes, slow as hell. completely opposite of my previous experience. you know what the difference was? on the previous hard drive i had osx and os9 partitioned away from each other, with separate copies of ai10 for each. so i installed another copy of ai10 just to use in os9, and all my problems went away. food for thought.

[joanne lensink]

Thanks Stitzlein,
Your food for thought makes me think I will REINSTALL Illustrator 10. I will post back in a few days, after I have had time to try it, to let you all know if this made any difference. Could it be that something went awry at installation? I will see.

[JasonSmith]

Again, dont think that Freehand would be the solution to your problems....

[Terry Lyle]

Another voice. I run a production art department with 10 Macs. We've upgraded with little trouble all the way to V.8. (Still the best version!!!) Version 9 caused some trouble. We found that we could not get Version 10 to work for us. We couldn't print files, couldn't change page setup, crashed frequently...all the stuff everyone is talking about. We've faced the situation where no one can actually tell us what to do to fix the problems. Adobe points to others as the problem and when we call them they point to Adobe. Still, we must move on since some of our customers are sending V10 files to us. (Although surprisingly few, since 10 has been around so long and we get dozens of files every week). So we keep trying and like Scott we're just looking for someone who can tell us specifically what steps to take to solve the problems. Until then we cling to our faithful V8. (Interestingly our our transition with Photoshop to V7 has been flawless.)

[Christopher Gentry]

Scott,

I still have that gradient slider problem and I am not looking the other way. I am living with it and I am sure it will be fixed in illustrator 11. I for one am not happy that we will have to pay for bug fixes but that seems to be the reality of it. The gradient slider problem has happened to me on EVERY machine that I have tried illustratpr 10.0.3 on. I too would like to know what the difference in the 5 computers that I have used with 10.0.3 and their computers are.

Once again there was a bug (that I can't remember what it was off the top of my head) that adobe couldn't replicate (according to the adobe guys on this board) and miraculously the problem that did not exist fixed itself with the next update. ; )

Freehand is no solution to anything. It used to be a great product but it no longer is IMO. I tried the new Freehand MX and it absoultely blows illustrator 10 out of the water as far as zooming and panning is concerned but it was crash city.

The way I see things is that illustrator is a very complex program and it has two real bugs. The gradient slider bug and the grey box. Some people complain about it's speed I am not seeing that here. On my dual 1.25 MDD it cruises right along. I definitely think it could be sped up a little but all in all I can't complain about the speed of the app. As far as the speed issue goes the only thing that seems a little slow to me is zooming and panning. I guarantee they will fix this in illustrator 11.

I worked in illustrator the other day for two days straight. I was doing line drawings of air conditioning units for a instructional brochures and I was really putting illustrator to the test. It did not crash once.

I can't emphasize enough how well OS X and all of it's apps that I use are working for me. There are a few bugs here and there but they will get ironed out over time. I just work and work and work while mail is open and checking all day long, itunes is playing, both photoshop and illustrator are open and being switched back and forth, and I occasionally surf the web. I might even pop open maya personal learing edition to try and learn a little more about that complex as a mofo program. Computer never crashes. I could never say that about OS 9. The OS 9 days consisted of at least two restarts a day and about a 14/1 ratio of work to maintainence/repair computer. With the clean install because the house of cards has totally crumbled annually.

I think everyone needs to realize what has taken place with OS X. In around two years time apple has given me an OS that was built from thin air and now FAR SURPASSES their old OS in both functionality and stability. I personally applaud the people behind this and think of it as nothing less than a miracle.

The guys at adobe are still new at programming for OS X and I think they have done a pretty good job all around. These apps are not perfect and they never have been. Unlike most other developers I think the guys and gals at adobe really try to give us a quality product. For the record I felt REALLY RIPPED OFF when I first installed illustrator 10.0. That was a terrible piece of code. Since applying the updates that adobe has supplied us I feel my money was well spent. There is someone behind the guys who bring us these products telling them when they have to hit the ground running and they are the reason that we get software that is not ready for prime time.

If you have the right machine OS X is a dream and a few bugs here and there do not ruin it for me.

[Scott Withrow]

Christopher,

As always, all well said, and I appreciate that you state your case without becoming patronizing.

<offtopic>
Regarding Maya PLE: BTDT. Anyone who thinks they've got it all together needs to take a spin in that app. Healthy dose of humility, that one is.

But there is so much potential there that the intense learning curve almost becomes fun. Releasing the PLE was a stroke of genius from A|W. If nothing else, they probably make a tidy sum from all the tutorial books they sell. (Very good ones, BTW.)
</offtopic>

[Stitzlein]

well said chris.

joanne: i want to be clear that you should have two DIFFERENT installs of ai10. one for osx, one for ai10. after two days of torture with one installation, ai10 started telling me that i need to install jaguar to work with ai10-in os9! wtf is that about? anyway, a clean install dedicated for os9 is what i recommend. let us know if that helps!

[Wade Zimmerman]

Scott I don't know what the difference is with the way I have my computer software installed as from before, if you recall I think I was the first person to confirm your post about the gradient sliders. But I can no longer repridcue it. What I am saying is that this is not necessarily something that is entirely a bug that is coming from AI there simply may be something that you and the users that experience have loaded on the your computers that contributes to this. The Gradient sliders behave as it should for me but I can't find what the conflict is as it is no longer apparently on my computer's hard drive, at least I would think that is the case.

However you might be able to uncover the problem since you still hasve the symptom.

Chris that was very well put.

[misterboat]

hmmm Illustrator9/10...

Tiff placement/export is flawed.
Place a 300 dpi photoshop generated tiff in illustrator
export as 300 dpi tiff from illustrator and you can see the
loss of quality by placing it on top of the original in photoshop.

Release layer clipping mask releases all masks on a layer
including locked object masks.
Make layer clipping mask can kill/steal an object/opacity mask
if they are stacked at the top of a layer even when they are locked.
So if you accidentally hit the layer mask icon on the base of the layers palette
you could lose all your masks without even realising.

Transparency on top of large image files can print inaccurately, flatten incorrectly
or export as PSD/tiff incorrectly .

Using opacity masks on placed image files can result in print errors
where the image disappears, when you reopen the file in illustrator
the image has vanished but magically reappears when you click on where it used to be
(Note the source file is never moved from its folder).

Masked images can shift.

Files with placed images and interacting transparency can refuse to flatten.

I have also had issues where an illustrator 10.eps has shrunk when placed in Quark 4.
Saving as PDF files have reduced in size.
Crashes when I switch to outline mode.
Save for web (layers as frames .swf) errors
where 2 identical frames are created for every layer.
Freezes when I update a placed image in Photoshop (that spinning wheel too).
I could mention the 1mb files turning into 250mb files after flattening (all options tried).

Indeed the only way I can use Illustrator 9/10 transparency
for print (bearing in mind that non of my clients accept 9/10.eps files)
is by exporting as an uncompressed PSD, then LZW compressing in Photoshop
and reimporting under a text layer and then exporting as an Illustrator 8 file
and then opening the file in Illustrator 8 to correct the overprint options of the non transparent type
to then re-export as an Illustrator8.eps.

I can’t even copy and paste an Illustrator file into a smaller sized Photoshop canvas
as for some reason it will constrain it to fit
(no matter what options are set in illustrator preference files).

Prior to versions 9/10 back to the 1980s I have only ever had 2
minor problems with Illustrator and these were easy to predict and rectify
(nested eps files and gradients in complex compound paths).

I am sure some problems could be related to OSX, fonts or whatever but
not the internal image placement, masking issues etc...

I do like Illustrator, but I also have to put food on my wife’s table.

Take care everyone.

[Christopher Gentry]

Wow!

I have never had anyone tell me that I put something well. I usually just get called a Dumb A__!

[wlanni]

"Macromedia rocks when it comes to clean, functional, stable applications."

I see you have never used Flash extensively. If ever there was a buggy, crashing application...

[wlanni]

I never got into freehand, as we had illustrator 8 installed on the machines I was working on at the time, and I just felt more comfortable with previous photoshop and illus experience.

I'm thinking of writing an applescript that would remove those pesky typ files like every two days. have it run on startup or something.

[JasonSmith]

"I see you have never used Flash extensively."

Or Freehand - and yes I've upgraded to MX.

Still a pig, although less than FH 10.

[Toni Toomey]

has given me an OS that was built from thin air

Not according Linus Torvalds, who says OSX was built from an old hodgepodge of OS code developed some time ago in a Carnegie-Melon project (ref: his biography). 'Course, we all know the guy isn't to be trusted; I mean, who does he think he is giving away the kernel to his OS.

I NEVER thought anyone would hear me say this, but AI10 is working fine on my XP machine. Don't use it much on the MacOS9. However, in the interest of full disclosure, I should say that the graphics I create are pretty rudimentary in terms of how much they demand from the system.

Wade, havin' a bad day there? Nonetheless, you crack me up.

Dave, do the engineers at Adobe ever have fantasies about being allowed to work unfettered by the Marketing Department?

T

[Stitzlein]

Mr. Torvaldis probably hasn't even used OSX, and obviously has no expertise in making friendly interfaces for his ideas-a difficult task which requires focus and vision. These concepts are unfortunately alien to the open source model.

As for AI10, i agree that a fast PC brutally overcomes it's performance issues. But XP didn't introduce a revolutionary imaging model that Adobe engineers have to figure out either, for better or worse.

[Toni Toomey]

Stitzlein,

Please don't take my remarks as a criticism of the Adobe engineers. It's remarkable that they accomplish what they do under the time pressures dictated by the marketing department (if it's anything like most other software producers).

It's also remarkable that they're able to get their programs to work on the variety of platforms--constantly changing platforms at that--and still make the program do essentially the same thing on each OS.

You're right, Torvalds most likely has not used OSX. I was just going by his comments in his biography where he describes the genesis of the OSX kernel, which would mean it's not really a "from scratch" collection of code. I wasn't really making an important point.

T

[Bill Schuhle]

As you may recall, when Steve Jobs got the boot from Apple many years ago,
he started a computer company called "Next" whose machines ran a Unix-based
OS that Next apparently tweaked considerably (and which, as I recall, had a
pretty friendly UI as well).

A few years ago, when Apple decided to jettison their in-house attempts at a
completely new OS and went shopping for something more off-the-shelf to
start from, after considering the BeOS (and possibly others), they ended up
purchasing the Next code and development tools (if memory serves) and ended
up getting Jobs back in the bargain.

I don't know what the reference to a "Carnegie-Mellon project" is all about,
but in any case, I don't think OSX could be described as being created "out
of thin air".

Bill Schuhle

[Dave MacLachlan]

Toni...

I think marketing feels more fettered by the real world of engineering ;-) If it wasn't for silly constraints like processor speed, development time and the fact that we like to take every other Sunday morning off, marketing would have an infinitely fast version of Illustrator that would read your mind, have multiple pages, work in n color spaces in 128 bit color with unlimited layers, undo, and full UTF32 support while retaining backwards compatibility to LisaDraw...and just wait for the next version! ;-)

As far as Mr. Torvalds goes...one can't exactly say that Linux came out of nowhere either. In a lot of respects it has a lot of similar heritage to OS X. One could get into the whole micro/macro kernel argument..but let's not.

And finally, regarding the "revolutionary imaging model", it looks like LongHorn is going to be introducing something extremely similar...why doesn't that surprise me? ;-)

Finally, could we move this thread over to a different topic? I'm finding this topic title to be a real downer.

[Stitzlein]

dave sez: "And finally, regarding the "revolutionary imaging model", it looks like LongHorn is going to be introducing something extremely similar...why doesn't that surprise me? ;-) "

exactly-in 2005 (har dee har har)

[andrewdowner]

Whell just a small thought have just swiched from freehand to illustrator im finding it a little hard to get used to
but the reason i changed because i thought freehand 10 was crap i would not change
and i have used freehand since i started!!!

[Macho Man X]

Same here. The originator of this post ought to be happy he's not using
Freehand :) And that's amazing coming out of this die-hard Macromedia
fan. Illustrator users have it good :P

In article <1de86b...@WebX.la2eafNXanI>, andrewdowner
<and...@harknessdesign.com> wrote:

--
::: MachoMan X :::

[Gary J Moss]

"Illustrator 10 is buggy in OSX. Mine has started crashing a lot. It certainly suffers from beach-ball-itis."

DITTO!

I'm really weary of the spinning beachball. I don't know what Illustrator is doing here. My guess is that its memory swap routines are really not in tune with OS X.

I'm also weary of the random crashes. Why haven't there been any updates to fix bugs in Illustrator 10 as there have been with other Adobe products??

-Gary Moss

[steven drake]

I've had no problems with AI 10.03. One thing you might try [I read this somewhere else in this forum] along with the suggetsions above [basic fonts in system folder, etc] is that if you're using Norton AntiVirus, turn off 'Automatic Detection'. When I dd this I noticed a marked improvement in AI's speed and it seemed to fix a lot of quirky ills on my G4.
steve

[Wade Zimmerman]

I'm going to try and start a thread with perhaps a better title insppired by some of those users who have recnetly moved from Freehand to AI 10.0.3.

I am goign to title the thread

AI 10.0.3 Working Fine for Me?How About You?

[Gary Newman]

Gary Moss

Search out and delete any files called "Adobefnt05.lst". If it is over 1 mb in size, it has encountered a bad font and become corrupt. Deleting this file fixes it. Illustrator will make a new one, which will eventually get corrupt and start gowing when it encounters the bad font again. Give it a try.

[Scott Withrow]

You know, I think it would behoove Adobe or someone to make a simple "font checker" that would sniff out bad fonts and/or corrupt ones.

I still think it's lame that this has become such an issue, but I also think the creation of a Q&D utility to assist with it would be better than the black eye this fontlst issue has given one of Adobe's flagship products.

[Ann Shelbourne]

Adobe had an excellent font checker called ATM Deluxe. (It also manages fonts better than any of its competitors.)

Those of us who are using 9.2.2 still have it, but it is time that Adobe took it out of the cupboard, dusted it down and updated it for OSX.

[ken upham]

Why not a progress bar instead of a beach ball? That surely would be less frustrating, as the user gets a good idea of whether he has time to fill his coffee or not.

The only thing I have against Ill10 is that it doesn't parse files for me that 9 will. (Quark EPS's and PDF's). I use Freehand only for film output of customer provided files.