I never had this before today, on 30.1. A ton of files. Works fine in v30 on two different machines, very reproducible. This has to be a bug.

I have had the exact same problem.
It only happens when I open an illustrator file sent to me by someone else and I have to replace the missing links while opening the file. The links are updated with their new location and then the document is saved. It is when I try to re-open my save file that I get the "Illustrator could only partially read this file" error. Nothing I do will repair the file.

However, if I ignore the dialogue for replacing missing links when opening, and instead manually go through each link after the document is open and replace the links that way, then the resulting saved Illustrator file opens up successfully every time it is opened after that.

Replacing the links manually is obviously a much slower process, so this bug needs to be fixed as soon as possible.

I have same issue. This file is very important to me, please help me fix as soon as possible
my Illustrator version is v.28.1

Hi Anish,

I am running into this issue with my 49MB file. It has critical work compiled over several days. Could you or somebody help me recover my work? Please let me know if you'd like me to email you the crashing file.

I am on 26.0.3 and having this issue with already saved files. Can't even open my files from 1 month ago. Yesterday trying again and restarting my computer solved the problem but I can't open them today, no matter what I try (Saving as PDF, changing location and name, trying older versions etc.) Can't believe ı'm having this issue with a paid software from adobe. This is ********...

I am facing the same issue on my iMac with Illustrator version 26.0.3. If I restart my Mac, the file will be opened correctly. But this annoying error will happen again after some save command. I am running MacOS Catalina on iMac 2019 (CPU Core i9 3.6Ghz, 64GB of DDR4 RAM and VGA Radeon Pro 580X 8 GB).

I'm on a 2019 MBP (so Intel Based) & also having the same issue on 26.0.3 - have been for a while (since before the 2022 calendar year started from my recollection - I'd wager as far back as December) - the only solution is to not close the active file but of course, that's also been destroying the battery on my Macbook running illustrator 24/7.

Update: so I'm running 25.4.1 now and the issue appears to be resolved - not too sure what's going on here - I also see further down the thread where someone notes that this version hasn't worked for them

Everything in my document was fine the other day, but when I went to open it, this error appeared and only one artboard remained, the other 31 were gone.

There were also issues where when I've edited an image on Photoshop, Illustrator couldn't relink it automatically and I had to manually replace the image all the time. Even just saving my edited images on Photoshop, it will give me "access not granted" error, to where I would just need to either change the file name or remove the file first from my external drive, and then it'd save. As for my Illustrator, this is the THIRD time I worked on my project and the SAME error appeared, and all my data is gone.

My OS is macOS Monterey, Version 12.2.1
MacBook Pro 16 inch (2021)
Apple M1 Pro, 32GB Ram

Adobe Illustrator 2022 (26.0.3)

Im on the latest version of illustrator and I am having the same problem all the time. It just started happening to me within the last 2-3 months, and it keeps happening more frequently. Some of my file sizes are only around 200-400mb (I read that someone below is only having the issue with files about 600mb.)

Here it's the same.

I embedded all the linked images, even reduced their sizes in some cases, but nothing really changes.

I even installed Illustrator v. 25.4.1 but the issue remains and the best workaround is to try multiple times to open the file until it does it properly.

Also, Illustrator started to crash for apparently no reason, when saving the file

It's frustrating and disappointing to say the least.

Wow, so much art lost :(
Please send this .ai file to sharewithai@adobe.com, maybe the team can advise something...

After I wait for 40 minute - 1 hour I can open file again but I have some question Why this case it happen?

When I open my ai file it show me that massage : Illustrator could partially read this file We recovered as mush of the file as possible, but some content might be missing. open to view the recovered file. but when I opened my file it just show 1 art board and another art board that I do it missing, what should I do, I do this file so many day I almost finish and when I almost finish my work it missing, help me plssssssss. (MACOS Monterey 12.1 & My version Illustrator is v.26.0.2)

Unfortunately 26.0.2 Illustrator update does not recover some complex files. I still got a warning message:
Illustrator could partially read this file and To preserve appearance some text has been outlined...

Most of the file content is missing. I can only see one artboard with outlined text, expanded effects and all layers brokean apart... So frustrating!

It's funny that Affinity Designer can open the same file wit no problems! It's such a shame, Adobe! 

This is happening to me too. I just updated Illustrator because the previous version crashed. Now I can't open any of my work files. Getting very frustrated

I am having this same issue. I did not have any linked images in the file, just multiple groups of vector paths. I saved multiple versions of the file because I have had previous data loss with adobe apps and illustrator can not read any of them.

Hello, I'm having a similar issue on version V26.02. It also happens on older versions when I try to uninstall and load one of those. I'm on a mac, big sur 11.6.1, i9 chip plenty of ram.

It happens more often on files over approximately 600mb in size, it's less of a problem on smaller files. For me I get the error on files with embedded images (a bit different than the user above).

"Illustrator could partially read this file".

The only work around I have is closing Adobe Illustrator, then trying the file again. It can take multiple attempts before it opens properly. This is why this one could be tricky to troubleshoot as some times it does open correctly

This only started happening a few days ago, prior to this I had no issues opening larger files. Im now trying to keep my files under 500mb to avoid this from happening which can be a struggle depending on the creative.

Yes, just ran into this exact same bug. Uninstalling this beta version immediately…

I've come across a consistent and reproducible bug whenever I save an AI file with Illustrator (Beta) v26/25.5 on Mac mini M1 running Big Sur 11.5.

When the .AI file is saved with linked images and opened with Illustrator 2021 or below, it spews the error "Illustrator could partially read this file." This never used to happen in prior versions to 25.5.

I've troubleshooted using different settings and even uninstalled and reinstalled both v26 and v25.5 to test with the same results.

If I were to save the AI file with embedded images, everything works fine. Likewise saved as an EPS file.

This is forcing me to ditch Illustrator (Beta) for the non-native 2021 version but this also means resaving files with embedded images before they can be used.

Frustrating and annoying. Anyone knows of a fix or workarounds?

I'm having this issue with multiple files now. Latest version plenty of space and RAM and the file's are local.