Mine is doing this too. I press ESC to dismiss the dialog box but if I try to adjust kerning again, Illustrator crashes. I've lost work on the same file twice because I forget that KERNING DOESN'T WORK. Just for the record, I do have automatic data recovery turned on but I can't set it up to save constantly—it slows everything down.

STILL. BROKEN. Come on Adobe. This software is too expensive to have so many **** long-term problems.

I am using Illustrator CC 2018
Whenever I am working with type, if I want to change the kerning, the software gives the message in the attached file & completely freezes. I can't exit or do anything. I have to force quit the application in order to get it to work again, which makes me lose a majority of my work and then have to redo.

I'm having this problem too. Why do i bother updating my software??

Still an issue. The save shortcut still works thankfully but the interruptions to work-flow and productivity are something I thought Adobe would take seriously.

I'm having the same issue, even with just the one text box. I'm trying to change the kerning to "Optical", but before I even have a chance to click on anything this warning comes up. I can't click okay or get out for the dialog box either. Many force quits later, this is getting very old.

The link posted by the admin no longer is available and the 22.0.2 version does not seem to be available in my updates. PLEASE ADDRESS!!!!!

"Kerning on extended selections" just cropped up for me today when I updated 2017. Installed the pre-release build and this did not fix the issue. This is incredibly frustrating!

"kerning on extended selections" is still an issue and ruining my typography. What the heck!!?

I've encountered the pictured error/warning dialog box a couple of times now when trying to change attributes on a selection of several text boxes. I am actually only trying to set the value to '0', but it seems easy to trigger this error inadvertently.

Each time I have encountered it, I cannot click 'Okay'. It is impossible to dismiss the dialog box and I've had to force quit the application.

I am using CC2018 on a Mac with High Sierra.

This is still an issue. Illustrator up to date.

Godamn.. how can this kind of f*ckups exist on software that should have been tested and tried?

..anyways, for time being, ALT + O seems to be solution to get rid of the warning message, so you don't need to force quit Illustrator. I haven't found any other way to close the warning..

Ai 22.0.1 (macOS High Sierra v10.13.2)

When inputing a value for kerning in character palette, sometimes a dialog box pops up that reads "Kerning on extended selections can only be set to auto or zero..." From that point, I cannot click ok, Ai is innoperable and I have to force quit.

Thank you for the bug fix!
I tried new version(22.0.2), and checked fix it.

Same problem. Extremely frustrating!

When the popup appears, it won't allow you to click OK, but you can press enter on your keyboard and it will go away. Super annoying that I can't switch the kerning to Optical. It seems to work for some text sections, but not others. All the same typeface.

The same problem is here!!! Fix it, please ASAP!

+1

Kerning is very frustrating on Illustrator CC18.

If I try to reset a whole text box kerning settings to 0 or optical I get the error:
"Kerning on extended selections can only be set to Auto or 0. To modify spacing between multiple characters, use the Tracking option." I can't even click OK to dismiss this error. And then have to adjust all kerning one character by one.

Also if I adjust the kerning before the first character on the second line, the adjustment does not display unless I move the whole text object. Really awful to use.

Ditto all comments, used to work fine. Now I have to correct kerning one by one on multiple boxes ANNOYING!

I don't understand how this bug remains. It seems like most graphic designers don't do anything besides adjust kerning, post about kerning, criticize kerning. A person has to select all the text and set the kerning to 0, then a person may select "optical" or whatever. Else-wise, this error pops up that won't close by clicking OK, I have to press escape 4-5 times and click around, and get upset.