Adobe Community: Not Enough Memory to open the Illustration- HELP!?

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Not Enough Memory to open the Illustration- HELP!?

Dec 12, 2011 11:22 AM

Tags: #error #memory #message #adobe_cs5_illustrator

Hi I support many users here at my company on several different systems but unfortunately there is no real support for Adobe programs.. Any idea on why one of my users is getting this error message? We just upgraded all to Adobe CS5.0 and everytime she opens a sketch in CS5 this error message comes up stating "Not enough memore to open the illustration." I've already re-installed the CS5.0 suite a couple different times and IT double checked and the user has plenty of memory on her computer..She's on a PC if this helps. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Since she can't open past this error message, she has to go back to using CS4, but we're eventually removing CS4 from all the computers.. Thanks!

23121 Views 31 Replies Latest reply: dandesign, Apr 8, 2013 10:02 AM

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1. Monika Gause,

Dec 12, 2011 11:36 AM in reply to rachel_c_tnf

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Does this happen with only one file or with others as well?
Does this happen on other computers?
Can the file be opened with CS4?
What's in the file?

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2. rachel_c_tnf,

Dec 12, 2011 11:39 AM in reply to Monika Gause

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Hi Monika,
It's many other files, it happens randomly so far. For example, this past Friday she did not receive this error, now today, Monday she is..I'm able to open the same files on my computer without getting this error. And yes she is able to open the same file in CS4. Not sure how to answer the last question, other then a sketch with 3 artboards? Thanks!

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3. CHMprepress,

Dec 13, 2011 2:23 AM in reply to rachel_c_tnf

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You say you can open it on your computer, is the installation (computer, ram, system, ....) the same as here computer or do you have the same installation to compare it with.
If so and it is only going wrong on here computer, than this can only mean there is something wrong on here computer. In that case reformatting could be a option.

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4. rachel_c_tnf,

Dec 14, 2011 9:50 AM in reply to CHMprepress

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CHM- How do I go about reformatting?

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5. Grant Vanderhule,

Dec 14, 2011 1:34 PM in reply to rachel_c_tnf

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I am experiencing the same issue with Adobe Illustrator CS5 on a computer running Windows 7 64bit. The computer in question is configured the same way as several others in the same business unit, but this is the only one that is having trouble with Illustrator. The error will first appear seemingly at random upon opening a file, but afterwards nothing can be opened in Illustrator without returning the "not enough memory" error. Illustrator itself doesn't seem to open correctly either, and appears as an extremely minimized window with barely enough room for the File and Edit menus. I have already checked the computer while the error message was cropping up, and it was not running low on either hard drive space or RAM, nor was the Illustrator process using up an inordinate amount of system resources.

Rebooting will sometimes resolve the issue temporarily. I was also able to temporarily resolve the issue by browsing to C:\Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\ and renaming the Adobe Illustrator CS5 Settings folder. When I next opened Illustrator, the folder was rebuilt from scratch and everything was working normally again. After a little while, the problem resurfaced until the folder was renamed again. It seems that something in the settings folder is becoming damaged, but I don't know which file specifically or why that is happening. The user the computer was set up for works with many of the same files that others in her business group work with on a daily basis, and this issue has not cropped up for any of them.

Any advice on how to track down the exact source off the problem would be appreciated.

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6. rachel_c_tnf,

Dec 14, 2011 1:39 PM in reply to Grant Vanderhule

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Grant- YES! The same exact thing! Word for word..Advice very much appreciated, please!

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7. CHMprepress,

Dec 14, 2011 11:49 PM in reply to rachel_c_tnf

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Did you already defragment the disk in the computer?

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8. Grant Vanderhule,

Dec 15, 2011 6:43 AM in reply to CHMprepress

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The drive is not fragmented.

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9. rachel_c_tnf,

Dec 15, 2011 11:09 AM in reply to CHMprepress

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Hi Grant- between yours and CHM responses I'm confused.. Am I supposed to defragment something? Thank you so much by the way!

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10. maau1985,

Dec 30, 2011 1:19 PM in reply to rachel_c_tnf

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Hi All,

I'm an IT technician. I have one of my users who is facing this memory issue. She is the only one who is repeatedly getting this. When she initially got the problem, we were unable to fix it (re-installing, googling fixes) so we sent her a new HDD and it was finally resolved. After say 6 months she reported the problem again. I had uninstalled, cleaned reg entries, temp and rebooted. Installed the app back, ran the latest patch 15.0.2 and rebooted and it started working again. Now after 2 weeks she has reported the problem again. I have tried same steps to fix it. The problem is, she is the only person with this issue. Her team has no such issues. Any help would be appreciated.

She is using LenovoT410, Intel I5, 8GB RAM.

Thanks!!!

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11. rachel_c_tnf,

Dec 30, 2011 4:02 PM in reply to maau1985

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I will be out of the office starting 12/16/2011 and will not return until
01/03/2012.

For issues/questions with WebPDM or Enovia please contact the Help Desk.

Happy Holidays!

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12. jacquie-c815,

Jan 19, 2012 11:49 PM in reply to Grant Vanderhule

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Thank you Grant!!! I was having the same problem. Re-booting didn't help. Changing the Roaming\Adobe settings file name worked -- for now. Thanks for the tip.

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13. Marmite_2012,

Feb 17, 2012 3:01 PM in reply to rachel_c_tnf

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Hi,

I'm having the exact same issue on a brand new MacBook Pro with a ton of memory and a recently installed version of Illustrator 5.1. Problem just started occuring a couple of days again. The only help posted from Adobe related to the "Not enough memory to open the Illustration" message is that the file is corrupted. I'm having the same issue intermittently with many files so I don't believe the error issue is related to a corrupt file. Weirdly, I followed another poster's advice and placed the 'corrupt' file in a new illustrator file. After closing the 'new' file out I then was able to open the original file with no problems. Lion OS is 64bit also, could that be an issue? Sorry the tech stuff is beyond me. The prospect of losing important files to a software glitch is very scary, come on Adobe time to step up and figure this one out!

Thank you,

Laura

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14. vojtech_svec,

Mar 20, 2012 4:34 AM in reply to rachel_c_tnf

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Hi,

this tends to happen to me for no apparent reason all the time.
I haven't found any way [including task managing / formatting / reinstalling / what have you] to fix this.

What seems to work most of the time, though, is this:

start up Illustrator and open the file through the program

[not by doubleclicking the file icon of your illustration or dropping it inside the program].
It doesn't make the problem go away, but it will get your files open.

Vojta

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15. Paul Gauci,

Apr 7, 2012 11:06 AM in reply to Monika Gause

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I have just subscribed to Illustrator and I have experienced the same problem the first time I used it after upgrading from the trial version.

Interetsingly, when I used the trial version, I opened and edited several files which were larger than the one I am having problems with now (a 9MB jpeg).

My OS is Win 7 Ultimate 64-bit and I have a lot of memory to bank on.

Paul

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16. gunnarlinn,

May 21, 2012 12:13 PM in reply to vojtech_svec

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Hi all. I have had this problem since CS2 on a couple of MBPs, always with the latest systems. My current can is a 17" MBP 2.2 Ghz with 8 GB RAM and 10.7.4 plus Illustrator CS4 (14.0.0).
The error message comes up now and then when I try to open a file with one or a few already open (but not always, it's very sporadic). What always helps for me is restarting Illustrator. The problem has nothing to do with corrupt files, since the files will open nicely after restart.
This has been annoying me for years, and I'm still waiting for a bug fix.
Gunnar

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17. Ushebti,

May 26, 2012 1:22 PM in reply to gunnarlinn

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This has happened to me several times off and on
Generally, there is nothing wrong with any components of your computer and your file is not corrupt.

The only corruption is in your Illustrator preferences.

The link below describes a couple ways to delete your pref's

http://www.justskins.com/forums/small-file-yet-not-96071.html

Deleting pref's has worked for me every time
(I have no idea how they get corrupted, but it is what's happening)

Good luck!

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18. Paul Gauci,

May 26, 2012 10:38 PM in reply to Ushebti

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I looked for the Illustrator Preferences in my Win 7.
In order to be sure before I take any action, would the file to be deleted be AIPrefs in C:>Users>Administrator>AppData>Roaming>Adobe>Adobe Illustrator Settings>en_GB>?

Thanks

Paul

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19. Wade_Zimmerman,

May 27, 2012 12:12 AM in reply to Paul Gauci

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Yes that is it but what you do is rename or move the whole settings folder not just the preference file inside otherwise you may not get the right element that is corrupt and believe it or not the folder itself can become compromise

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20. Paul Gauci,

May 27, 2012 12:16 AM in reply to Wade_Zimmerman

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Thanks a lot

Paul

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21. Wade_Zimmerman,

May 27, 2012 11:15 AM in reply to Paul Gauci

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You're welcome!

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22. totallockout,

Sep 26, 2012 12:50 PM in reply to rachel_c_tnf

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Just read through this thread and am astounded that Adobe arent:
a) Contributing to the discussion with some clear and specific instructions to resolve this and
b) Providing access to some form of technical support (paid for) where a technician will access your PC and fix this.

I'm not confident to try some of the fixes proposed. I now have an expensive piece of business software that cannot be used.

Step up Adobe - I feel a Twitter campaign coming on.....

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23. FrannieKN,

Sep 27, 2012 11:36 AM in reply to rachel_c_tnf

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Is anyone else running a font management program? I'm kinda thinking my issues started when Suitcase Fusion 4 updated. I'm on a PC, but I read another forum where Mac users might be having issues with FontExplorer. (http://forums.adobe.com/message/4582586)

I'm not happy about having to go back to manually enabling fonts, but it'll save a lot of time over intermittantly having to reboot my computer throughout the day (which doesn't always resolve the problem, but it helps). I wish Adobe would pipe in because I'm beginning to develop a conspiracy theory that Adobe just wants us to "go to the cloud". Ugh.

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24. Scott Worthington,

Oct 1, 2012 11:29 AM in reply to totallockout

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The error can take place for a variety of reasons.

Some are simply related to how memory is managed, many of which we attempted to resolve in CS6.
Others are related to things like damaged preferences, which was mentioned earlier. This is when steps contained in http://help.adobe.com/en_US/illustrator/cs/using/WS714a382cdf7d304e7e0 7d0100196cbc5f-630ca.html might be useful to help reset them.
Some versions of this error message are actually do to how the application window isn't large enough and it would be a good idea to make sure that when you open the application without the file, that it is in a reasonable dimension instead of say, a 1x1 pixel square.

We would really recommend trying your preferences first. With a bit more information relating to your system then other recommendations can be made by myself or others.

If on a Mac OS system, one of the easiest, safest things to try is to restart into Safe Boot if preferences don't help the behavior. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1455

This can help narrow down if there is any outside interference potentially adding to the issue. Similar steps can be made on Windows systems but that is just an example.

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25. totallockout,

Oct 1, 2012 12:43 PM in reply to Scott Worthington

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Scott, thanks for the feedback. To set my problem in context, when I (try to) open AI, I get the following screen (see image). The top menu bar and three dialogue boxes which I think are part of the control panel. Therefore, following the instructions in the link you provided are difficult.

I am running AI (from CS5) on Windows 7. I can open the preferences section but thereafter, not sure what to do.

The instructions refer to removing or renaming the AIPrefs file. How do you do that.

Thanks, but further guidance needed.

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26. Scott Worthington,

Oct 1, 2012 1:13 PM in reply to totallockout

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Why don't we first start with the size of your application window just in case.

In the upper left of your graphic, you can see that your application window is rather small. In its' upper right corner, there is a maximize button right next to the X. Please use that to increase the size of the application and see if that changes anything when you try to open the file.

As to the preferences, it's a focus on either removing the folder in the location given:
<startup drive>\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator CS5 Settings\en_US\AIPrefs

Or to try it automatically:
Press and hold Alt+Control+Shift as you start Illustrator. Your current settings are deleted.

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27. totallockout,

Oct 3, 2012 12:55 PM in reply to Scott Worthington

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Solved: Thanks Scott.

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28. Pixel Eden,

Dec 22, 2012 10:07 AM in reply to rachel_c_tnf

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I fixed this issue using the preferences. I had a similar issue with PS CS3.

I went to Preferences > Plug-ins & Scratch Disks and set a "Primary Scratch Disk" to an E:\ drive as there wasn't one set. You can also just set this to your C:\ drive if you don't mind the temporary files slowing down your OS.

I'm pretty sure you get this issue because Illustrator can not find enough space on your hard drive to store Scratch Files (Temporary Files) so just throws you an error. I'm unsure however why vertain installations do this, it does seems to be a random occurance on random machines.

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29. rockers_muku,

Dec 31, 2012 10:37 PM in reply to rachel_c_tnf

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The same problem happened with me too while starting to use illustrator but i found that the same file can be open by opening it from the file menu or placing it ....................the problem in mine only appears while i try to open it Directly (from the file itself or drag to adove illustrator)

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30. ITDaniel81,

Feb 14, 2013 4:21 PM in reply to rachel_c_tnf

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I had the same issue, but i resolved it very easily.

What happened was that when i opened anything in AI CS5 the AI window was minimized, and then the error message appeared,
all i did is that i opened AI itself (Only The AI software alone, empty without a photo or other types of files new or ongoing projects ) i than maximized the Window from its minimized state and opened a file from within the AI itself (Anything pdf, Jpeg, psd ....ect) and than i closed AI completly without making any changes to the file or saving it.

Than i re-opened the AI again just to make sure that the window opened in its Maximized state, and lucky for me it did open in its neutral/defualt maximized window state, then i closed it again.

(If it doesnt maximize when clicking on the "2 squared icon in between the " - " and the " X " up in the right corner of the window" then you can manipulate the window it self by stretching it out with the mouse from the lower right corner by holding down the left mouse button on it and draging it down to the right)

Than after that i opened a file using right click and "Open With" and chose AI, and it opened successfully.

Hope this will work for you as well, it worked for me.

I assume this has something to do with how AI reads "Sees" the files pixels, and for some reasone when its window is minimized from the last time it was used and closed down in that state then it doesn't re-open in the maximized state and therefor it can't read or see these pixels in the correct way and thats probably why the error occur, this ain't suppose to happen but it happens as we have all seen.

Anyway, i might be wrong, just thought to share my experience with you Guys....

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31. dandesign,

Apr 8, 2013 10:02 AM in reply to ITDaniel81

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I am getting the same Error Message

Runtime Error!

Program:C:/Program Files (x86)/Adobe/AdobeIllus...

this Application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.
Please contact the appliction's support team for more information.

-------

I called Adobe and the support team does not offer assistance for free on 5.5 Creative suite since 6. 0 is the newest but my office is running Creative Suite 5.5 Standard..

I rebuilt the settings folder Grant had suggested in a earlier post in the thread , but had this message come up as well as a message stating

Can't Finish Previewing: There isn;t enough memory ID = -108

I looked at the scratch disk and it is assigned to the C Drive

If I buy an additional HD and install it and point Illustrator and Photoshop to use the second HD as the scratch disk will this fix the problem of not enough memory? The scratch disk currently points to the C drive.

Currently the system specs are :
Windows 7
Intel Core i7 - 3770
CPU @ 3.40Ghz
12.0 GB Memory
system type 64 bit OS

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