macOS: Adobe Illustrator freezes when saving as .ai file to Nextcloud desktop location

[oshy666]

Hey there.

Came upon this bug that prevents one from using Nextcloud Files on Mac altogether in creative work when using Adobe Illustrator.

When opening a Nextcloud folder on Mac OS and then opening the .ai file in Illustrator, the file opens successfully in Illustrator, but when saving the file as an .ai file (the native Illustrator file type) the program freezes during save each time. Saving as an .svg file for example does NOT freeze the program.

Been testing with similar results on Illustrator v. 30.X.X versions and also on v. 29.8.6. Same problem on all.

Tested also saving different files that had been opened from a Nextcloud location/folder, and they also cause freezing when saving as .ai file.

Tested saving on Photoshop newest versions (date 7th April 2026) and they do work. Issue seems to be only related to Illustrator.

Searching the net and asking different chatbots the consensus seems to be it's a wonder Adobe even works with OneDrive for example, since their cloud file handling is inconsistent. However, is there something Nextcloud platform can optimize to fix this issue?

Thanks for your time and efforts.

[oshy666]

Update after a new test:
It seems creating a new file in Illustrator, and copying the contents of another file to that within Illustrator, and then saving the document was the solution. Might this have something to do with Nextcloud Files (desktop and syncing the files, or using virtual files toggle within the app?) I don't know, but glad the saving actually worked / there was this workaround.

[i2h3]

@oshy666 We need more information before we can investigate. Our issue tracker has the "Bug report" template which helps to ask for the necessary details. Most importantly:

• Which macOS release do you use?
• Which Nextcloud desktop client release do you use?
• Does this also happen when you create a new Illustrator file and just save it directly without any content modifications?

For now, this sounds like an Illustrator problem. Especially, when the other apps from Adobe also work fine. It might be a hiccup of Illustrator in regard to the content of the file. In our code, there is no differentiation between third-party apps, the files they use and how their content is handled.

[oshy666]

Thanks for the reply. Here's more details, and actually found a solution.

• MacOS version is Tahoe 26.3
• Desktop client: Nextcloud Desktop Client Version 33.0.2 (macOS running on cocoa)
• This doesn't happen when I create a new Illustrator file and save that to a folder within Nextcloud desktop locations. In that case everything works as expected, file is saved and Illustrator doesn't crash. Can also open it later from Nextcloud and everything's good to go, saving works and editing works etc.
  Crashing also didn't happen when I saved an .svg or .eps file to a Nextcloud desktop location, only saving Illustrator's own .ai file format seemed to crash Illustrator. I also tested opening a few different files, and saved those, and they also crashed. Seems I just have to start a new file and copy the contents to it, and save as new file in Nextcloud which circumvents the issue.

Indeed it seems it's an Illustrator problem, and am happy I can continue using Nextcloud :)

[ismasans]

Hi, I haven’t experienced this problem myself, but I’m not sure if it’s related to this Illustrator or macOS bug: https://community.adobe.com/questions-652/adobe-illustrator-2026-app-would-like-to-access-data-from-other-apps-1550511

It could be related to full disk access permissions for Illustrator.
Have a try and see if that fixes it. ;)