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AI 2020 (v24) fails to open - error loading plugins

Illustrator 2020 (v24) crashes on launch. I am running it on an iMac running under OS 10.14.6.

I attempted to open Illustrator by clicking the Open button within the Creative Cloud launch window and by double-clicking the AI app within the application folder. Both launches resulted in the following error being reported, then the application failed to open:

Error loading plugins.
SmartExport.aip
SmartExportUI.aip

Attached is a copy of the error report that I sent to Apple.

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Dan Tabata shared this idea  ·   ·  Report…  ·  Admin →
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  • Steve Netzel commented  ·   ·  Report

    Thanks a million, Bryant D!! That worked like a charm for me!

  • Bryant D. commented  ·   ·  Report

    I had the same problem on macOS with Illustrator 24. I found that on macOS, I was able to get the error to go away by renaming (or deleting) the following folders so that all new Preference and Settings files were created. You may want to preserve some files in these folders (like Workspaces or Color swatches).

    These are the folders I renamed, adding -old to the end of the folder. Next time Illustrator launches, a new one gets created:

    ~/Library/Preferences/Adobe Illustrator 24 Settings
    ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe Illustrator 24

    After that Illustrator launches up just fine for me. There's likely a file or more that is somehow corrupted in these folders. I didn't take the time to determine the exact file, just renamed and reclaimed anything I still needed from the previous folder and put it in the respective location in the new folder.

  • Renee commented  ·   ·  Report

    Dan Tabata -- I have a die-cut plotter that's plug-in is only available in AI 2019, I will need to keep it on the same computer for that reason. I have uninstalled and re-installed 24.2 several times and am still receiving the error messages when attempting to launch. Any advice?

  • Dan Tabata commented  ·   ·  Report

    I've managed to get AI 2020 (v24) to launch properly by doing the following:
    1) uninstalled AI 2020 (v24)
    2) reinstalled AI 2019 (v23)
    3) uninstalled AI 2019 (v23)
    4) reinstalled AI 2020 (v24)

    That seemed to clear up whatever was causing the xxxxx.aip error loading plugin problem.

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