When N key is pressed to get the Pencil, it says "an unknown error occured"
I am in AI 27.0.1 on a 2021 MacBook Pro running Monterey. Each time I hit the N key to get the pencil, it says "an unknown error occurred." It doesn't crash, but I can't use the pencil.
StacyTC
shared this idea
The problem got 'solved' by unplugging a Dell monitor connected to MacBook Pro. Changing the resolution also helps.
However, this is not a true solution, but a workaround. If you have this issue too — please vote and comment.
-
Jon commented
Of course, after posting this last update, this issue is happing with a lot more frequency. Like every 5–10 minutes. I've even restarted my computer several times. WTF.
-
Been switching back and forth between AI 2022 and 2023 today. Each time this issue presents itself — again, usually hours after I start working — I have to save and quit, and relaunch the file in the other version — only for the same thing to happen hours later. THIS IS SO FRUSTRATING.
-
Shift+N is the Shaper tool. I would like to add that one of the other suggestions was to try using the pencil tool in an earlier version of AI. I switched to using AI 2022 for the project I'm working on that demands lots of pencil usage, and things seemed to be working fine. Then, all of a sudden, after two days of using the tool for several hour stretches, I finally got this error. I really don't understand the randomness of the error, or why it seems to happen after HOURS of using the tool. It's so unbelievably infuriating.
-
I wonder what changes if the tool gets reassigned to, say, Shift+N instead? Will the error still pop up? This would allow to see if the tool is somehow faulty, or rather the hotkey N itself.
But I can see this is not comfortable at all, so it’s just an idea I’d personally test... -
This is still an issue. And it's very random. I've been working for 4.5 hours in Illustrator today, using the pencil tool, and only just now got this error.
-
Please for the love of god look into this. Since there doesn't seem to be anything else about this issue online, it appears to be extremely rare, and only happens under very specific circumstances, but if it's happening to more than one person, it *has* to be happening to more people that just aren't posting about it.
-
Yes, YES, 1000x YES. FINALLY, after searching the internet for a couple of weeks, I found something online that references this. I have this issue too!!! It recently started happening for me, but admittedly, I never really used the pencil tool, and I recently started using it a lot for a new project.
I have a 2021 16" MacBook Pro with the M1 Max chip running MacOS 13.0, and have a dual monitor setup with a 2022 27" Apple Studio Display acting as my primary display (the MacBook Pro acts as my extended display).
This issue started happening in Illustrator 27.0.1 a couple of weeks ago (when I started using the pencil tool a lot). The only temporary solution I've found is to save the file, quit Illustrator, and then relaunch Illustrator. It's a temporary solution, because, when Illustrator relaunches, I'm able to use the pencil tool, but after a random amount of time (sometimes 5 minutes, sometimes an hour; it really is random) I get the error again, and need to repeat my temporary solution of saving, quitting, and relaunching.
I reinstalled Illustrator 2022, hoping it was merely an update issue, but it's happening there, too. WTF is this?? I really need to use the pencil tool a lot for this project (like 5 hours per day for several days), and having to quit and relaunch Illustrator multiple times per day to deal with this is not only extremely frustrating, but is costing me countless time I don't have.