Dear Adobe Illustrator Engineering Team,

I am reporting what appears to be a compatibility regression or TIFF parsing issue that causes Adobe Illustrator to crash consistently when opening documents containing specific TIFF images saved with Compression = None (Uncompressed TIFF).

Adobe Illustrator 2026 on Windows
Standard TIFF, no compression
Interleaved (RGBRGB) pixel order
IBM PC (Little Endian) byte order

Illustrator crashes immediately when opening or placing TIFF files saved without compression.

The same files become fully functional after being re-saved using LZW compression, without any changes to image content, dimensions, color mode, bit depth, or metadata.

This behavior strongly suggests that the issue is related to Illustrator's handling of the uncompressed TIFF encoding path, rather than the image data itself.

Reproduction Steps
1. Create or export a TIFF image.
2. Save using:
Compression: None
Standard TIFF format
Place the TIFF into an Illustrator document, or open an existing Illustrator file containing the TIFF.
Illustrator immediately crashes or closes without warning.

Control Test
1. Open the same TIFF file in Photoshop.
2. Re-save the file using:
Compression: LZW
Reopen the Illustrator document.

Result: Illustrator opens normally and the image is rendered correctly.

Expected Behavior
Adobe Illustrator should maintain compatibility with TIFF files saved using Compression: None, as this is part of the TIFF specification and has historically been a standard format used in:

Print production
Publishing workflows
Archival imaging
Legacy design projects
Prepress environments
Actual Behavior
Immediate application crash.
No meaningful error message is displayed.
The issue is fully reproducible.
Switching only the TIFF compression method from None to LZW resolves the problem.
Business Impact

This issue has a significant impact on long-term project compatibility.

My organization maintains a large archive of historical design projects that contain numerous TIFF assets saved without compression. These files were created over many years and remain part of active production workflows.

Because Illustrator cannot reliably open these files, we are forced to:

Locate the original TIFF assets.
Batch-convert legacy images.
Rebuild or repair historical project files.

This creates unnecessary production delays and introduces risk to archived projects that should remain fully compatible with current Adobe software.

Technical Observation

Based on testing, the crash appears specifically linked to TIFF files using:

Compression = None (Uncompressed)

while TIFF files using:

LZW
ZIP

appear to function normally.

This may indicate an issue in Illustrator's TIFF decoding routine, memory allocation process, or compatibility handling for uncompressed raster data.

Request

Could the Illustrator engineering team please:

Investigate support for uncompressed TIFF files.
Verify whether this behavior is a known issue or regression.
Restore compatibility with TIFF images saved using Compression: None.
Provide guidance regarding any temporary workaround beyond manual conversion of legacy assets.

I would be happy to provide sample TIFF files and crash logs if needed to assist with debugging and reproduction.

Thank you for your time and for continuing to improve Illustrator's reliability and backward compatibility.

Best Regards,

Mohamed Zakaria
Graphic Designer & Brand Consultant