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(Michael_LaCoy)Calculating status...

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Illustrator CS3: Very Slow Open, Very Slow Save

Mar 18, 2009 5:21 AM

Hello all,
I just recently have been issues with Illustrator CS3. Up until about a few weeks ago, it had been running flawlessly. Now, whenever I try to open up any EPS or AI, Illustrator will literally take at least a minute to open it. This happens with a complex 2mb AI files, but also for a tiny simple files consisting of a 1" square on a blank artboard. No matter the file size, it will take around a minute to open it up.

Opening a 44kb .eps: 75 seconds
Opening a 210kb .ai file: 67 seconds
Saving a 76kb .eps: 56 seconds
Export to grayscale PNG: 66 seconds
Export AI Layers to SWF Files: 2 seconds

This is ridiculous.

Saving is the same issue. It takes a ridiculously long time to save even a blank document.

It's not my machine (2x2.66ghz Intel Mac with 5gb ram, OSX 10.5.6). Photoshop feels a little sluggish too, but not to this extent. InDesign, Flash, Dreamweaver, Acrobat all run perfectly. I even uninstalled all the CS3 products and reinstalled to find the same issues. And now that I've been given a time sensitive job, I need to get this program running quickly again.

I'm not sure what I can do to solve the problem, aside from trying to reinstall OSX and start fresh. Any and all help is appreciated! Thank you!

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BenWMac,

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Mar 18, 2009 9:13 AM

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Try http://www.adobe.com/go/kb401028

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Jeff Dafoe,

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Mar 18, 2009 12:42 PM

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Just a shot in the dark here but have you used "Apple Jack" on your mac to "clean it up" before reinstalling the entire OS?

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Jeff Dafoe,

Community Member

Mar 18, 2009 12:44 PM

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Also, are you getting the same sluggishness when saving to your hard drive therefore eliminating a network issue?

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(Michael_LaCoy),

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Mar 19, 2009 11:04 AM

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Well, I reinstalled Mac OS X before even trying those methods. It was less of a hassle than I thought it would be. Solved the problems with Illustrator. Everything is running fantastic.

But, I was just working in Photoshop, opening about ~20-30 small PNG's at a time to resize, grayscale, etc. I opened up about 60 at once to make things go quicker. They all opened up, with a little bit of lag. Now, if I even try to open up 10-15 PNG's at a time, they load very slow, like the problem I was having before with Illustrator...

Is there anyway to reset some memory settings? Or clear some cache? I believe this is what caused my issues with Illustrator before (opening too many files at once.)

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Nini Tjäder,

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Mar 19, 2009 3:07 PM

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How much free space do you have on your harddisk?
And do you have a dedicated, preferably external, scratch disk? That's particularly what Photoshop needs, but also Illustrator.

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(Michael_LaCoy),

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Mar 20, 2009 4:50 AM

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I've got 210GB left on my Mac HD. I've literally only got CS3 Design Standard and Flash CS3 installed on it. Funny you mention an external HDD, just recently my Mac doesn't want to read either of my firewire external HDD's in either the front or back ports. I didnt think this had any relevance to my problems. But, those were not used as my scratchdisk for Illustrator or PS.

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Jesseham-JAh5zI,

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Mar 20, 2009 9:19 AM

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There's a weird bug with photoshop and bridge - I don't know what sets it off - but sometimes, horrid loading times in pshop can be remedied by clearing your recent items menu in Bridge. It sounds stupid, but it has worked multiple times on multiple machines here.

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Jeff Dafoe,

Community Member

Mar 20, 2009 10:27 AM

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Michael,

It certainly wouldn't hurt to use AppleJack on your machine you can get it here, just make sure you download the appropriate version for your OS. I run this usuallly about once a week or so just to keep things clean etc.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19596

And if your the inquisitive type here is a good article that explains what it does.

http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=2005041817191411

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(EvaVrijdag),

Mar 25, 2009 4:33 AM

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Hello,
I had the same problem with Photoshop and Illustrator, I removed the com.adobe.mediabrowser.plist and it was solved. You'll find this at HD - MacPro (house-icon) - Library - Preferences - com.adobe.mediabrowser.plist

Greetings
Eva

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kavatone,

May 7, 2010 5:52 PM

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Deleting com.adobe.mediabrowser.plist as Eva suggested worked for me. Thanks!

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Ham1000,

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Sep 28, 2010 2:24 AM

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I've been having the same problem with Illustrator CS5 - ie. taking way too long to open/save even the simplest of files. Tried the removing recent items from Bridge thing, and Illustrator is now running perfectly again. How bizarre though. Hopefully Adobe are looking into this...

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FrannieKN,

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Dec 5, 2011 11:02 AM

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Clearing Bridge's recent doc list worked on a PC, too. (CS5.5)

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Jaxiter,

Mar 30, 2012 1:51 AM

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Deleting the com.adobe.mediabrowser.plist indeed worked. I had a look inside and saw that there's where the MRU's (Most Recently Used - Files that is) are stored. My guess is that the problem arrises when you open a file and then delete it (or, in my case more probable on a currently not reachable network-share). I'm on OSx Lion 10.7.3 by the way.

Thanks for the suggestion!

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