Illustrator crashes when saving anything!
Well, my copy of Illustrator running on Windows Vista would not save for the past few days. At first I assumed it was a corrupted or funky file problem specific to the one file and found a work around file for Photoshop. A few days later I needed to use Illustrator to copy a vector into Photopshop and convert to a smart object. Every time I cut and pasted Illustrator would hang and then eventually crash and nothing would be pasted into Photoshop. Okay, so I decide I’ll save the Illustrator file and then place it in Photoshop via File / Place. Still no joy, the second I went to save, it crashed. Just to make sure I wasn’t going crazy I created a blank canvas, typed something on it and go to save it, again Illustrator crashes with the message “Adobe Illustrator CS3 has stopped working”. Wonderful, so helpful, and the “Check online for a solution” wasn’t even working for me, but to this date even when it has worked in other programs it rarely provides a useful solution.
Time for some Google power. After doing a few searches I realize that this is not an isolated issue, and could be one of many problems. One post on a forum stands out though. Illustrator CS3, at least on Vista, requires that your Print Spooler be running. Well, this is another issue I have not solved yet. I have a randomly crashing Print Spooler. Anyway, I start up the print spooler and sure enough, Illustrator now saves. Why the print spooler is even needed I don’t know, but I think it would be helpful if when this happens illustrator could recognize it’s not running and say “Hey, your Print Spooler is not running, Illustrator requires it to be on, please start it up”, or something along those lines.
Here’s how you can check your print spooler.
Go to your start menu. In the search box type services. Your services dialog will open. Scroll down to Print Spooler. If it is running already then this might not be your problem, but try restarting it just in case. By the results of my Google search there are many other reasons why Illustrator might not be saving, but hopefully this helps some people out.
Joe December 2, 2007 at 9:59 pm
Thanks a bunch! This saved my sanity.
Luffie January 23, 2008 at 1:04 pm
thanks a lot dude!! you’ve just saved a man’s life and 2 man’s sanity!!! god bless!!!
Sonny February 6, 2008 at 3:18 am
SAVED ME TOOOO
Thanks
Ghiavolu March 18, 2008 at 9:38 am
Thank you ! You are a life saviour !!! I was having the problem illustrator crashing on drag & drop to photoshop. I reinstalled adobe 100 times, i formatted computer , reinstalled windows – GOD!
The thing is i`m tweaking my xp for performance and for /3GB switch , so…
THANK YOU MAN! God bless!
(from ROmania)
Micha March 19, 2008 at 7:52 am
ohh thank god … I’m not very religious but god bless u man u saved my life
Paul May 6, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Wierd but yes that works!!! Thanks for saving me a bunch of time looking this one up! I disable my print spooler because well I have no use for it but obviously Illustrator does!
paige July 24, 2008 at 1:24 am
awesome…it worked. thanks so much!
Jamie July 27, 2008 at 4:57 am
Gosh, one of those silly stupid problems that take a keen eye to spot. Thanks so very much for this solution. I had been relying on the Vector Smart Object work flow in Photoshop and this saved me.
Jonas & Martin August 8, 2008 at 8:40 am
Hi, we both had this problem with Vista and most programs in CS3. Starting/restarting the print spooler solved the the problem, but the print spooler subsequently stopped after each saving. We solved this by selecting “properties” for the print spooler, goint to the “Recovery” tab, and setting “Subsequent failures”: to “Restart the Service”.
Thanks a lot
sunny August 11, 2008 at 2:05 pm
mine crashes when i’m trying to get it started.. i tried your method as well, but still not working.. is there any solution for mine? if so, would appreciate it if you can drop me an email..
Ian Hoar August 11, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Hi Sunny, if it is crashing when it starts then it is a different issue than the crash on save bug. Have you tried uninstalling it and reinstalling?
archi 101 August 17, 2008 at 4:17 pm
WOOP!!! saved me….with assignment due in 7 hours it wasnt looking good. THANKS A LOT!
John Lau August 20, 2008 at 5:23 am
Brilliant, I turned off this stuff accidentally a few days ago!
This article should be added to Adobe’s KB!! Thankyou SOOOO much.
Broder August 30, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Had disabled print spooler and dependencies since I don’t use the printer much. Reinstalled Illustrator several times before I found this post, thanks!
Nicolas October 27, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Thank you! you saved my night and days searching to fix this problem.
i just enabled my print spooler in windows vista home edition
Wizdumb November 1, 2008 at 3:26 am
Thanks so much man. Its funny though. When I first installed illustrator my save worked once the first time I tried to save a project. After that it didnt. This saved my life…literally
Michael December 20, 2008 at 11:29 am
Thank you. I tuned my XP for speed with Pro Tools LE. The spooler option worked for me, too. I first thought the version cue/update problem would be the fault, like it is for other mac users.
Good luck and many thanks.
JayPii January 4, 2009 at 4:33 pm
I too had this problem with my Illustrator! I have a Mac though, running leopard, so the spooler setting wasn’t an option.. I went into my printer setting and realized my iMac and my mothers Mac Mini were networked and it was using her printer. The printer was set to Idle. I simply removed that printer from my defaults and “Tadah” illustrator saves.. I am guessing illustrator needs a printer to save, so by either removing default printers or making sure your printer is working will solve the problem.
Thanks for the article!
Chaos January 16, 2009 at 10:14 am
thanks a lot ! You’re my hero , I wub you ~~ ( wub means love , sounds like a baby saying “love” since he can’t pronounce the letter “l” correctly 😉 )
John February 10, 2009 at 5:53 pm
I’ve been toggling between user accounts for months, to get around this. (The second account wasn’t hooked up to the same printer, so it worked fine)
Thank you!!!
I’ve linked to this post from my Illustrator Scripting blog”. Keep up the great work, I’m a new fan!
Rob February 20, 2009 at 8:29 pm
You’re a genius. This solved two problems I was having at once. InDesign was crashing on startup, and Illustrator crashed on save. I never would have guessed it was related to the stupid Print Spooler service.
Kit March 8, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Ah, you are a saint! Thank you so much for figuring out that problem; never would’ve figured it out myself.
Vani Ala April 1, 2009 at 4:11 am
I thank you a million times. I was frustrated the past few days trying to solve this issue.
Appreciate the help.
jose April 21, 2009 at 8:31 pm
a million thanks!!!!! i can’t believe it worked on my problem too. thank you and may your life be full of blessings!!
samson April 22, 2009 at 11:53 am
THANKS A TON! WAS BANGIN MY HEAD AGAINST THE WALL! MANY THANKS
RelD May 16, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Very Thanks Man !!!!
Dino May 18, 2009 at 5:28 am
Just wanted to tell you that this post is still helping many people including myself. Thank you.
Kent June 11, 2009 at 10:50 am
My God!!!!!!! Thank you very very much! This info solve my problem!
Kent June 11, 2009 at 10:52 am
Thanks alot!!! U stop me from chewing my Illustrator CS3 disc!
blissweb June 17, 2009 at 1:04 am
Fantastic dude. I knew there must be a rational cure for this somewhere.
I like your suggestion too. Come on Adobe, check the print spooler and popup a message before crashing and burning.
Especially as people usually resort to “Saving” just after they’ve accomplished something, something worthy of saving, which would take them a long time to redo if they lost it 🙁
Duh !!!
pagna May 25, 2011 at 1:52 pm
my illustrator crash when save too, i was restart the print spool ready but it still crash when save the same before.
Breakablez July 7, 2009 at 1:09 am
Great !!!
Helpfully…
thanx dude…u are awesome..
Alex P August 14, 2009 at 5:05 am
Hey man that was a very helpful posting.. You have saved me reinstalling 10 PC due to false information of virus activity. this helped me to be a star 🙂
Thanks a lot dude..
Sova August 20, 2009 at 2:46 am
Thanks a lot!!!!!
c October 29, 2009 at 12:49 am
you have yet again saved one more (me) from insanity! Tnx!
Tamasys November 6, 2009 at 5:03 am
Thanks so much! I lost a document I worked very hard on a while ago because of this, and have been afraid to use Illustrator since. It’s great to be able to use it again :D.
Hans Julius December 16, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Great!!
One extra tip for users with a mobile office and multiple printers; make sure that the printer set as ‘default printer’ is working. My default printer was one at my university (and I am at home now) so the same problem kept occuring, until I set adobe pdf printer as default printer. 🙂
Juan Albarran December 18, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Ian,
I have a problem with my Illustrator CS4,
Everytime that i start up the app it crashes immediately..
and apear a window that says
The application Adobe Illustrator CS4 quit unexpectedly.
Mac OS X and other applications are not affected
Click Relaunch the application again. Click report to see more datails or send a report to Apple…
I dont know what to do.. The problem starts since i had the Illustrator CS3.. i thougth with the CS4 it not would not happen again..
JC December 19, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Thanks — solution worked under Windows 7 (64) too. Lifesaver.
Justin January 11, 2010 at 9:37 am
Fantastic, worked for me too! Thank you!!!
Herwin March 26, 2010 at 2:28 am
I LOVE YOU!!!
Joyce May 2, 2010 at 9:52 pm
Thank U Ian!! U rock!!! I LOVE U TOO!
Just in case anyone who cant locate your “Print Spooler” option like I do, try go to :
Start > Run > type “msconfig” > Services > checked on “Print Spooler”
Hope this helps!! 😀
Petr Bajer June 10, 2010 at 7:54 am
Thank you very much, it really helped me too. And “thanks” to Adobe for wasting my time again.
johndre2 September 23, 2010 at 2:04 pm
The same thing happens for windows 7 and the same fix work. Just an FYI for anyone coming here with that OS and the same problem like me…..Thanks
Ian Hoar September 23, 2010 at 3:10 pm
Thanks, good to know.
Avishag November 14, 2010 at 10:39 am
Thank you!!!
you’re a genius
Prad December 5, 2010 at 6:32 am
Hey….thanks a lot man…. i was frustrated on how to solve this problem.. and now it worked…. once thanks a lot for sharing this useful info! cheeeeeeers! 🙂
Hero-type May 18, 2011 at 6:12 am
Thank you so much. I was very near tears with this problem. I simply restarted my Print Spooler and the file that was hanging for literally HOURS suddenly saved.
Ridiculous! But yes, thanks again!
chris June 27, 2011 at 3:52 am
an easy fix for this problem is to set Microsoft Document Writer as the default printer in the ‘Printers and Faxes’ control panel…
Sarah Keyes August 7, 2011 at 12:24 am
Holy crapnoodles thanks so much for that. I use CS5 at work, which autosaves like the awesomeness that it is, and forgot to save on my old CS3 at home, and on top of that I start getting this garbage that crashes every time I try to save. Stupid spooler.