Did you try deleting the preferences file and letting AI start building a new one?

Why don't you try installing AI on a completely different computer, make sure that the anti-virus environment on that computer is completely different than the one you are having problems with. Just see what happens on a different machine, maybe it has something (a conflict) to do with other software installed on that box?????? Are you running any third party plug-ins within your AI installation?

I just installed AICS4 on my notebook PC as a back up and am getting the same corrupt aiprefs file almost every time too.

AI re-writes the aiprefs file in some arbitrary manner -- totally readable in notepad -- but no resemblence to the good version I managed to save as a backup.

The only difference in the install is the notebook has an old version 6 of Acrobat (I don't think they allow a second install like AI) and the aiprefs refers to saving clipboard upon exiting as PDF. I can't seem to get a clean aiprefs after changing that.

CS3 used to crash upon exit for many people and that clipboard to PDF was mentioned as a possible solution.

Does anyone with the CS4 aiprefs issue also have an "ancient" acrobat version installed?

I did a clean install before installing CS4 and the AI prefs issue

still occurred. CS4 is basically the only thing I have installed and

this happens. It's very weird.

This happens to me on two separate machines.

I've ran the file compare utility and you look at the differences in

the text and neither of them really make sense to me. How does it even

know the preferences are corrupt?

This is a very frustrating situation as I can never enjoy the Recent

Files List, and that every now and then when I want to change up my

preferences I have to go through a process of unlocking (read:

disabling Read Only) and backing up the file, opening AI changing

prefs, etc, and relocking. The only way to keep from getting the

corrupt prefs is to mark the prefs file as Read Only, but it totally

disables recent file lists and gives the hassle I just described.

What's odd is that the "working" prefs file can get corrupted when I

try to change preferences. I'll back it up first to be careful, then

unlock the one in AI, open AI, change a pref, close it and lock it,

and next thing I know it's corrupt again. So then I'll try putting the

backed up locked prefs file that was working and it will be corrupt

too. That may not make sense as I've described you, but I assure you I

understand it completely. Something is definitely wonky!

It's funny because I see a lot of suggestions to some people's issues

that say "you might have corrupt prefs, try moving the folder/deleting

it". Our issue IS the corrupt prefs!

Well, I'm out of ideas.

I can only think that it may be specific to certain configurations of hardware. Why that should be I don't know, but we seem to have ruled out everything else.

My machine that was having this error was an old Compaq worstation SP750, dual 1ghz Xeon, 3gb RAM, ATI FireGL X1 graphic card, multiple SCSI HDDs. The machine I'm using now is an HP XW6000, dual 3ghz Xeon, 4gb RAM, ATI Radeon card, multiple SCSI drives. Both machines have the same installation of Norton AV enterprise edition.

The most likely culprit may have been the video card drivers. The Radeon drivers are significantly different from the FireGL drivers. Just guessing.

Hm, I guess I had one more idea after all.

I've just recently started getting this message. And I noticed that my preferences for Photoshop and InDesign have changed as well (though I don't get the warning that its corrupted).

I've been using CS4 without fail for quite some time.

No new software or updates or anything new to my computer. As long as I don't restart my computer its fine.

Sometimes my softwares will lock up and I have to force quit the programs, like if I have too many programs running, and my laptop is starting to slow. But I've done this many times. Why suddenly is this Preference File Corruption thing happening, and to all three core softwares (InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator)?

I DO! Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

GeForce 8600M GT:

  Chipset Model: GeForce 8600M GT

  Type: Display

  Bus: PCIe

  PCIe Lane Width: x16

  VRAM (Total): 256 MB

  Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)

  Device ID: 0x0407

  Revision ID: 0x00a1

  ROM Revision: 3212

  Displays:

Color LCD:

  Resolution: 1440 x 900

  Depth: 32-Bit Color

  Core Image: Hardware Accelerated

  Mirror: Off

  Online: Yes

  Quartz Extreme: Supported

  Built-In: Yes

DELL 1908WFP:

  Resolution: 1440 x 900 @ 60 Hz

  Depth: 32-Bit Color

  Core Image: Hardware Accelerated

  Main Display: Yes

  Mirror: Off

  Online: Yes

  Quartz Extreme: Supported

  Rotation: Supported

Having used Illustrator from the very beginning, I am always amazed at the lack of interest on the part of Adobe to correct a bad situation that users are finding with Adobe software. Over 1400 have viewed this topic meaning there is significant interest, yet the problem will only be solved by selling users another upgrade. It's happened before (e.g., CS3 crashing upon exit).

The problem lies in the fat that AICS4 is writing a bad aiprefs file upon exit. Nothing is corrupting the file. It's perfectly readable. It's just not what AI is expecting upon the next startup. I don't see how that's hardware related.

This is quite disappointing, I remember this bug from 10 years ago.  It's unacceptable that it's still around.

In short: thread not solved.

I am in the process of convincing Adobe there is a problem. Or I

should say I am in the process of some extreme troubleshooting. After

a bit of back and forth with their tech support, they concluded it

must be a Windows problem when I said I didn't want to replace media

and that it worked on another machine just fine from the same media.

The last time I talked to support they said to talk to MS about their

stuff because it must be a Windows issue and they'd never heard of

this happening before. Guess they don't read the forums huh?

Well, since they want me to deal with Windows what I'm going to do is

use one of my other hard drives and clean install Windows and the

other software.  I'm going to start with simply installing Windows XP

Pro (without even sP1..) and upgrade straight to SP2. I will not

update any further beyond SP2. From there I will install Illustrator

and repeatedly test it to see if the preferences corrupt. If I open it

about 15 times with no corruption, I will then install one update at

a time. Retrying the opening cycle over and over and over until I have

corrupt preferences.

I feel /mostly/ safe in assuming that nothing SP2 and previous should

be interfering with the software, but I'll find out. If I get corrupt

prefs right off the bat with SP2 well.. crap.

I'm kind of wishing that I had gone ahead and let them replace the

media now, but I'm pretty convinced that if I can install on another

machine with no problems then it must not be the media.

bluz1st,

I don't think it's a Windows issue either, but when you say the magic

words like "well it works on another computer.." they hand off the

blame. By the way, this thread as far as I an tell was started by

(osias_gamoras) on Dec 31, 2008 at 5:08 p.m.

Well, I work on a Mac, running Snow Leopard, and I get the same problem virtually every time I start Illustrator CS4. So, Adobe tech support claiming that "it must be a Windows problem" is code for "we have absolutely no idea how to solve this problem that has been reported by numerous users for some time now." Beyond the annoyance lies a very real problem: when a user modifies their Preferences file (for example, to change Scratch Disk settings), a message is displayed that says "Changes will take effect the next time you start Illustrator." Well, guess what? The next time I start Illustrator, I get the "corrupt Preferences file" message, and Illustrator writes a completely new Preferences file, wiping out the changes I made. Meaning, it is IMPOSSIBLE TO EFFECT CHANGES TO THE PREFERENCES FILE!! Are you listening, Adobe? This is a significant and well-reported BUG in your software that you have to quit denying and FIX!

I don't think so...

I've been working with Illi since the CS3 version on the same PC (a very old one) and every new CS version gets me the same error every time I close and open Illustrator (in an alternate way, i.e. I open the program just fine the first time then close it, then open it again and get the corrupted preferences...close it and open again without any problem then close it and open and get the error ad so on...) Right now I'm working with CS5.1 and still have this issue.

It's pretty sad that they haven't fixed this yet, fortunatelly I didn't changed many presets on the program so basically it doesn't affect me directly, but as someone said is really annoying to see the message everytime and the fact that I am unable to store my recent opened files....

Is there a way to speak or suggest to the developers to do some research and test and fix this thing for future releses? Otherwise, I'm afraid we should live with it...