The 1.435.148 Defender Antivirus update has resolved the issue for me.

What hasn't been resolved:

- Why was this an issue in the first place? None of the other Adobe flagship products had the issue. What is it that Illustrator passes to the clipboard that Defender didn't like?
- What is Adobe doing to prevent this from happening again?
- Two weeks with minimal communication to the user community is unacceptable. We should have been given daily updates that we could at least pass on to our clients. How will Adobe address this in future?
- Many users like me spent a significant number of hours trying to resolve, test and workaround the issue, losing a lot of time and delaying deliverables for our clients. How will this be addressed?

Today MS Windows Defender security intelligence was updated to version 1.435.165.0 and this seems to have fixed the "copy" issue in Illustrator.

Confirmed that KB5063875 Windows update has fixed the problem on our users' Win11 computers. This is a big relief!

I had an update for Windows Defender security intelligence this morning and it seems to have fixed the copy crash issue.

In my case, the issue started on 31 July, after a series of Windows 11 Updates were installed on my laptop. Ctrl+c or "copy" (selected from menu) causes freeze and crash of Illustrator, with both old and new files. I managed to take some screenshots of the error report and it seems to me that the software fails to load a DLL file.

UPDATE:

Aug. 12, 2025 - I contacted Adobe and they are aware of this issue but do not yet know the cause. They are working with Microsoft as well.

All of our users have witnessed this issue over the past several days -- after a recent Windows 11 security update was installed. We use enterprise-controlled laptops so we can't disable MS Defender. We have tried everything from resetting prefs, reinstalling previous builds of Illustrator, etc. Even the beta crashes.

It is only happening with Illustrator on our Windows computers, not InDesign, Photoshop, or other CC apps.

This is a BIG hindrance. We need a solution FAST.

I'm equally unable to disable Microsoft Defender as I have no admin rights in my company. I have tried all sorts of files, new and old, .ai and .pdf, RGB and CMYK, I tried both via CTRL-C and via right mouse click, I tried cutting (CTRL-X), I tried reverting to older versions of Illustrator all the way back to v28.7.8. All giving me the exact same issue when I select and then copy/cut any random object.

I'm unable to disable Microsoft Defender. It's a company computer.

Adobe is facing a potentially severe problem and the response so far is uncertain. Whether the company is truly addressing the matter or simply letting it linger is unclear. This is not a minor glitch it’s a critical threat to the design community’s trust. Are Adobe’s developers actively working to fix it, or are they offloading the responsibility to AI?
Or worse has the issue itself emerged from their rush to embed AI into the core of the software? Either way the silence and delay are unacceptable.

I had been running 29.7 without any issues. When the update for 29.7.1 appeared I updated. It worked fine for a couple of days, but now Illustrator crashes whenever I use Ctrl+C or Edit > Copy. It only appears to be when I copy objects on the artboard. If I copy a value in a field e.g. a colour hex value from the colour panel, it doesn't crash. I tried reverting to the previous version that was working for me (29.7), but it crashed with Ctrl+C. I have also tried rolling back to 28.7.8, but it too now crashes. Although an object can be copied with alt-click + drag, this is by no means a practical or efficient workaround, nor does it cater for all Ctrl+C use-cases . For me, Illustrator is practically unusable at the moment.

Copying anything causes a crash of Illustrator. This is a critical error, stops all work. It is a core function. Using version 29.7

It's frustrating that even basic bugs remain unresolved in Adobe Illustrator for weak, quite unexpected from a company like Adobe. Its really shame on them.

Preferences --> clipboard handling --> SVG code
try to uncheck it

I have same problem. Any solution yet?

Illustrator crashes before I can Paste a Copy for SPOT UV in Artboard in two ways.
1. CTRL C causes immediate crash.
2. Select Copy from drop down menu also causes crash.
Performed Windows 10 update few hours before crashing started to occur but unsure if Illustrator was included. Creative Cloud shows I'm up to date but doesn't specify the actual date. So, I cant say for sure if the update is causing the problem.

HP Spectre x360 Convertable