Seriously, someone at Adobe please dig up a copy of Illustrator 2017 and see how Smart Guides worked in that version. It's been broken (and fixed in new broken ways) ever since!

It'd be nice to have them work correctly again in less than 8 years.

I confirm, I have the same problem with this. If I want to pull the smart guide to a point it often lands next to it. It is not being attracted by it.

Not really. Smart Guides require much deeper refinement than just fixing this one problem, and nobody in the team is at for now, I think... Should check.

So far I can advise to ditch using smart guides for artboards, and make rectangles instead, followed by Object > Artboards Convert to Artboards command (I have in on Ctrl+F5). Actually, it’s been my proffered way for creating these since day one of having multiple artboards... I know, a workaround, but an efficient one).

Any luck on this? One year since my last comment, smart guides are still broken. Video attached.

Seriously, this is classic Adobe poor form that goes unfixed for years.

How are we going on this? Are we 'smartifying' the smart guides yet?

Here's mine.

Yep

Here is one more video. Just trying to clone some rectangles and let them snap to each other... When you zoom in, you can see there is a gap between them. Such an easy task and it just does not work properly. Most of the time, doing stuff like this, I have to zoom in, to get the snapping result that I want and to double check, if everything is in place...

I agree with all the statements below.
The way smart guides snap to objects beyond the view or to a random (for us) picked point is maddening.
The video shows the exact reason I prefer creating new artboards with a set of custom made scripts and hotkeys.
Thank you all for pushing this. I very much hope to force some good changes, when smart guides problem is put on the table.

The video shows the general problem very well, thanks for sharing it! Just want to add, that the problem is not limited to artboards neither to pixels as a measurement unit.
...and also snapping to (ruler)guides shows similar inaccuracies.

Here you go Egor. Here's an almost blank Illustrator document showing guides fail epically.

If you take note, you'll see that the first artboard is 1080x1080px and is perfeclty placed to the pixel.

Even though Illustrator tells me the new artboard I'm creating is snapped to the top and bottom of the other artboard, it's a completely different size and isn't aligned to either top or bottom.

This is a compounding issue due to the bug that adds extra pixels when exporting, so things quickly become a mess at no fault to the user.

You can also see in the video that nothing I could have done would make the artboard snap. It basically refuses to snap.

@ anonym

What you wrote sums it up well. What I can add to it: I often have to zoom in, to get something alligned properly. For example, when alligning an object to a guide it often does not show, that it snaps. After zooming in and trying again, it works. And as you already wrote: Illustrator often snaps to some random object and not to the nearest or logical one... I just can continue to advice Adobe developers, to get a copy of Freehand from the attic and have a look at it’s snapping beahaviour. It had great visual and acoustic feedback and you always could rely 100% that your object is in place. In Illustrator I double check (Zoom in) every time...

Hi Egor,

I believe I know what the issue is, and I have a file that I can show you.
However, as I work professionally I can't share the file here. It's private and I don't have rights to share.

In summary however, I believe the issue is as follows:

- The 'reach' of snapping in Illustrator is too broad. I believe smart guides often try to snap to anchors on other artboards.

- The indicator to show that you're snapping to the artboard is not clear enough. It should be a different colour to show that you're snapping to the artboard edge instead of an anchor or other object that you can't see. Currently every snap indicator is pink

- In fact, this would also come in handy when aligning to the artboard center or aligning artboards with each other. Often I see a centre pink smart guide line and think 'oh great I'm aligning to centre', but actually illustrator has picked some random anchor point on some complex shape to snap to.

- Perhaps snapping should be separated out (have a separate Snap to Artboard function)
OR
- Prioritise snapping to the artboard edge when within 5 pixels or so.

What I've found is that often when Illustrator is telling me that my object is placed against the edge, it's actually snapping to some other random object.

You have to understand the communities frustrations. It's not always easy to capture this stuff, and we often can't share files due to sensitivity.

If you still have this issue, please provide a document that behaves like this for you and a video demonstrating the issue.
'It's been better in older days' is not enough to replicate the problem, and there are a lot of ways to use Illustrator.
Please, help to track it down.

+1. AI smart guides are the worst. Unline InDesigns which are amazing.
If they think they've fixed the issue, I think they need to rethink how smart guides are handled in Illustrator. I'm on version 26 and it still SUCKS.

@OliverMalms all true, also because the competition is on the wind ... Affinity for negligible cost certainly has better functions (which work better), it also has many shortcomings, but as also illustrators, if we are used to the lack of illustrator we can do it also for those of Affinity, maybe one day, soon they also implement the deficiencies ... then it will be death for Ai ...

You are so right, nicky... I miss the precision of snapping in Macromedia Freehand everyday that I use Illustrator. Snapping in Illustrator behaves weird, inaccurate, illogical and having to use third party tools for a function that should be essential is just embarrising. I also miss the accoustic feedback from Freehand. I could always be absolutely sure, that everything is exactly in place. In Illustrator I often have to zoom in, to double check and have do pick up an object twice to get it snap where I want it to... And that are just 2 examples. Over the years , after acquiring Freehand, Adobe implemented quiet a few useful features from it (even if it took years...) So now, Adobe, please make snapping in Illustrator just as accurate and easy like it was in Freehand decades ago. Snapping in Illustrator sucked from the very first day and it still does...

well, I believe that at the threshold of the year 2022, Illustrator is not yet able to return drawings built with precision, there is always a tolerance of error that is inadmissible for a vector drawing software.
The mistake can stay there as long as you create artistic illustrations, but think of all those who build web interfaces, pixel icons, die-cut paths for packaging with illustrator !!!
To be honest, for jobs like packaging dies I was much more precise with Macromedia Freehand! He had some fantastic point or track alignments, he was never wrong. And it's funny, because it is a very old software, with so many bugs, Adobe has acquired the Freehand license but cabbage not even the cunning of taking things that worked well in freehand and transporting them by enhancing them in illustrator?
To think that it is not an illustrator who is not able to do it, but I think they make it purposely inefficient, suffice it to say that with smart graphics plug-ins you get very powerful snaps and alignments, perhaps they use a magnet or a much more powerful glue !!!
Even Affinity's competition works better on snaps!
So dear ADOBE, is there anything you are not telling us? Why do others make their and your software work better and YOU the undisputed leader of the graphics market are not able to upgrade your weapons?
These are thoughts that go through your head ... that's all

PS: often even with the zoom at maximum 64000% you can't even snap precisely between your curves ... what's the point of zooming so high at 64.000% if you can't even be precise? (affinity makes it even higher 3715551169.5%))

I have recently updraded to Illustrator 25, and it's still not working as it should… :-(

what I miss seeing in Smart Guides is still not being reflected in the current version. I don't think I'm imagining that at one time using Smart Guides Illustrator would give you prompts when you were aligning to top/bottom/middle/left/right edge of a shape - that's the feature I miss most.