Expert: Kevin Stohlmeyer - 10/23/2008

Question
i was working on an image with a large amount of compound paths, and illustrator ran out of memory. now, it shows in outline mode as its correct paths, but when i put it in preview mode it does not display correctly. i also tried to open it in photoshop and the file displayed as it was in illustrator. if my paths are all there, is there any way to rescue the file, or is it corrupted?

Answer
Hi Kristen,

error code -108 is out of memory. Your file is ok, but you do not have enough active RAM to run Illustrator or to show your preview mode. I get this question a lot so heres what you can do:

1. Check your memory usage monitor (activity monitor on Mac) and see how much actual RAM you have when running AI. You need at least 2 Gigs active memory to run certain aspects of AI.

2. Turn off all other applications and only run AI.

3. Check your fonts too many fonts active at one time = memory hog.

4. If you have a large number of effects applied in your doc, leave it in outline mode and go to Effects>Document Effects Raster Settings and turn it to lo-res (72 dpi) if it is already set to that, then go back and check 1,2, and 3.

Thanks Kevin