Saving our work is a MAJOR issue! Since updating, I'm having different ones. Sometimes when I command/save, then reopen that file, the last change I made is gone. Now, when I do a save as, Illustrator refuses to save the file as the name I input. It looks like I copy/paste a file name the client wants, then if I alter it within the save as window, it refuses to save the file at all.

WTF is up with this stuff? I'm no programmer, but how is it that major bugs like this come up with every new version?

This has just happened to me and the only relief I have felt is reading these comments and seeing I am not alone. I saved my file on creative cloud so that it will back up as I work. My auto recovery is on for both locally stored and cloud stored files. I was connected to and used a good internet all through the day. Yet, my app crashed and is opening to yesterday's version of work. My whole 8 hours plus of today's work gone. I have searched every where. Googled all things and cried my eyes out. Returning to start the project when I should be resting is nothing short of heartbreaking.

It also happend to me in the latest version of illustrator. Is there really no way to recover the work? I do have a pdf wich shows the progress.....

Just happened to me in version 26.2.1 on Windows 11. I lost about 6 hours of work. I've disabled data recovery in preferences, as this is the only thing I can imagine might contribute to the problem. So strange to save my work by hand every 15 minutes and still lose an entire day of work.

Still happening with version 26.0.2 for Mac.

This happen to me just now with version 26.0.2, lost 5 hours of work on a document. I only have the pdfs with the latest changes, the ai file shows an older version. Adobe supposed to be a premium product, what is this?

I don't know if this is even the reason this happens but maybe worth checking out for those of you who are still having this issue. I was having this issue on one of our PCs only. We recently upgraded to new PCs and when I was transferring files from the old PC I discoverd about 2 years worth of Illustrator temp files so they were not being cleaned up automatically. This is the only PC this was happening on and the only one where we had the issue. As I said I have no idea if its related but maybe people want to check if their system is holding on to all the temp files.

Have happened to me 3 times already in 2022, very Frustrating. Lost hours of work due to this!

Seems this is still an issue in the latest version 26.0.1
I am currently having the same problem
Can I please have a solution from Adobe!

I've had this problem a few times over the last year and again today. I renamed the file before opening, made my changes and saved as .ai and pdf. I opened the pdf to check that it was fine and all was good. I emailed off to a client and they rang to say the file had none of the changes I made. I reopened the ai and pdf and none of the changes had been saved. This is incredibly disappointing, we pay for a premium product and bugs like this are unacceptable, I look incompetent to my client and I'm now worried about every file I create not being correct. Adobe are you going to pay for the problem if I send a project to print assuming it's the correct version and it's just randomly decided to default to an earlier file?

Absolutely terribly frustrating some of my files do not save even if i click save number of times when I reopen it's back to the old version (this occures when I save a pdf version in the same file ALTHOUGH I HAVE SAVED THE .AI BEFORE EXPORT. small pdf version with no layers) Lost an hour of work feel very angry.

This has happened to me multiple times, and I am constantly checking ai files to prevent it from happening again, but just let one slip through and lost about an hours work. This happens with larger, more complex ai files, where I'm inclined to export a smaller sized PDF, which does not retain layer info. Meaning your work is gone forever. Very annoying. Please fix!

same problem here, strange that no one seemed to have noted the reason yet,
this happens as the warning, when trying to write a PDF file while saving, or closing the document while saving has disappeared. so this usually happens on larger files that take quite some time to save.

means: in newer illustrator versions, to avoid this bug that causes total loss of the last version,
you have to wait until "prepare saving" and the percentage of the saving has run through the whole process, 0 - 100%, and disappears on the top of the window.

to be sure, i would even switch to desktop and your folder where the file is stored in, to check if the date of the saving was updated.

in any case, if you try to write a PDF or close the window, and the file was not entirely and completely saved in the background, you will lose your changes, only the PDF will contain that!

this is not only driving me mad, i lost many files and hours due to that, and i hope it finally will be fixed soon by adobe!

I'm using 25.4.1 and its still happening

Had this problem again today 24 August 2021... its happening all the time. I save the illustrator file, then save as pdf to share the file. Opening the saved Illustrator file then shows that the file wasn't saved amnd is the old version. The pdf is correct, but now I have lost hours of work and have to try to import the pdf to get the work back. Pathetic!

This is happening to me- clearly the issue wasnt fixed. I thought I was crazy- like I swore I fixed these things! Hours of work lost, really really annoying. And all small detail work on a very large scale file, so extra annoying to find what actually saved and what didn't.

Just lost over an hour of work to Illustrator 25.1 – it crashed without warning, and with no file recovery option upon reopening.

Had been saving regularly, but autosave was mysteriously turned off in the preferences (has always been set to save every 2 minutes).

I am on 25.2.2, and I got this issue this morning! Apparently the issue was not fixed. I have sent the wrong files to client OMG! The bugs are getting worse in PhotoShop and AI

This issue is going to get me fired. How do you explain to the boss that this is a real problem? At this point, he thinks I'm nuts. Unacceptable!

I have had the same annoying problem after saving to a pdf the saved file reverts to a previously saved version. Clearly this issue was not fixed in the 24.0 release .. im running 24.2.3 and have had some embarrassing explaining to do. The thumbnails also does not update.