Can't Delete or Replace Files Because They Are "In Use" By Someone Else

[LenHewitt@adobeforums.com]

James,

This is virtually always a network problem. Adobe only support working
across a network when using Version Cue (which unfortunately will not
recognize Samba shares).

In all other circumstances the supported workflow is to copy the file from
the network drive to the local HDD, open it from there, save to the local
HDD and copy back to the network volume

[Karen_C@adobeforums.com]

I disagree about the network problem - I have a stand alone computer because it's just me, and the problem happens often regarding saying that you can't delete the file because it's in use by another program.

I have resorted to emptying all temp files, emptying recycle/trash, rebooting machine and trying again. That usually works.

I would love a simpler answer.

[Martin Bishop]

We usualy have this problem when we have had a Quark document open
that uses the graphics. Even though the document is not open Quark is
still claiming it is using it. When we close Quark, then the file can
be deleted.

On Thu, 1 Apr 2004 00:58:35 -0800, [email]Karen_C@adobeforums.com[/email] wrote:

>I disagree about the network problem - I have a stand alone computer because it's just me, and the problem happens often regarding saying that you can't delete the file because it's in use by another program.
>
>I have resorted to emptying all temp files, emptying recycle/trash, rebooting machine and trying again. That usually works.
>
>I would love a simpler answer.

[James_Strickland@adobeforums.com]

I agree with Karen. Our common practice is to copy the file to a local HDD, work on it, then copy it back to the server. As a practice, anybody in our company that actually tries to work on an Illustrator file over the network just about gets flogged. Also, I have had the same issue as Karen where this problem occurs on a file that is actually created on my local drive, and never touches the network.

[B. Philippus]

James/Karen:

Is it your experience, that these files are usually ones that have placed (embedded) bitmap images in them, noteably *.psd, sometimes *.jpg, or rasterized elements within Illustrator?

Bert

[James_Strickland@adobeforums.com]

Now that you mention it. It does seem that this problem started happening when I embedded a GIF in each file.

[B. Philippus]

Yup, I think we're onto something, maybe. I'll do a search in the knowledgebase for raster/deleting trouble and see if there's documentation...

(I just did, but found nothing helpful there. The troubleshooting steps given assume that the computer will let you change extensions, resave, copy/paste and other stuff that is like way not possible anymore when this refusal to delete comes up)

[kgothman@adobeforums.com]

We have been having the same problem working both within our office network and also when working with a illustrator CS file straight off the PC hardrive.

It appears sometimes after you close a file, somehow a temp file is remaining open for it. When we rebooted the PCs that used that file it cleared up the problem.

At least it worked for us today. So you might try that.

It is an annoying problem. Hopefully Adobe will come up with a fix that can be downloaded.

[James_Strickland@adobeforums.com]

I just emailed Dave MacLachlan from Adobe about this issue. Hopefully he or someone from Adobe will take a look at this topic soon and try to figure out what is going on.

[Fulana_Detal@adobeforums.com]

"Another problem is happening on the WinXP machines. Often, when a user tries to delete an Illustrator CS file off his machine he gets the same message as above about the file being in use. Once again, the user has to restart his machine before the file can be deleted."

That is an XP problem ... I have seen it with various files produced by different software, like MSWord ... not just Adobe. It happens with local files as well as network ones. There's no remedy (short of changing to a better OS) except to try to SAVE AS and risk losing the work.

The network file problem ... it's possibly because of the way Windows machines identify drives (as a,b,g,j, etc. on each local machine). If the network shuffles drives, Linux/Unix/Mac boxen can cope because they are looking for a network name or address or a symlink, NOT a letter.

[Rick Moore]

This may not be applicable, but I had a similar problem on my standalone
home machine. I was geting the "Acrobat PDF file format is having
difficulties, unable to open file for writing it may be locked or
unavailable" message. I fixed this by going to the "Illustrator Thumbnail"
tab in the properties of an Illustrator file and selected "Don't Generate"
for icon thumbnails.

[Tony_Stuart@adobeforums.com]

James

Flogging is a bit harsh!

We have a busy publications unit where all files generated by all programs are created and saved on our network drive. We just couldn't handle the hassle of copying to and from local and network drives.

As I keep telling people on these forums, we have had no problems at all in using our network drive.

But back to the thread. I haven't experienced this 'can't save' issue with Illustrator, but I sure have with Acrobat (especially version 6). Very annoying indeed.

[Paul_J_Dietz@adobeforums.com]

I'm running Illustrator CS on WinXP Pro, and I've experienced the "file is in use by another user or program" error and the "Acrobat PDF file format is having difficulties, unable to open file for writing it may be locked or unavailable" error with files that I've stored only on my local HD (never on a file server) and contain no rasters images.

I've only had this problem with Illustrator files, and I first noticed this happening in version 10. Did anyone else notice this in AI10?

[James_Strickland@adobeforums.com]

Well...while we don't actually flog our employees for working on Illustrator files over the network, we do discourage it. Many of our files have anywhere between 200 and 300 layers and can be 50 to 60MB compressed. We just feel that with files of that size it is much safer to work off of a local drive.

The problem with not even being able to delete a file off of the local hard drive is not specific to WinXP Pro we also have the same problem on a machine running W2K.

[Thomas_Ellefson@adobeforums.com]

I noticed this same problem, and it had a laughably easy solution in my case. If you're looking at a directory list (or folder contents, if you prefer) in explorer and try to delete an AI file, for example, you have to wait for it to load the icon before it will let you delete it. If Windows is still updating all the icons from the windows default/unkown to an AI icon, you can't delete the file. Note that whether you use preview images as icons or just the default AI icon doesn't seem to matter except in icon load times.

tye

[Mac_McDougald@adobeforums.com]

Similar probs with PhotoShop 7 and earlier solved by either:
- telling Windows NOT to generate thumbnails (filetype properties
option), or
- renaming or deleting psicon.dll

I see one can disable icon generation in the same way with .ai files;
might this clear the problem?
I don't know what .dll file might be the equivalent of the psicon.dll
file for AI, though, if one wanted to try the second option.

Mac

[Rick Moore]

It's called aiicon.dll, and I believe it causes the same problems as
psicon.dll when the small icon thumbnail generator is turned on. I don't
delete it because you still get a preview in Thumbnail view even if the
generator is off and there is no alternative like the PS browser. I have not
seen the Windows icon update conflict with the thumbnail generator turned
off, and I also still use psicon.dll in Photoshop CS with the generator
turned off and haven't seen the conflict with it, though the Adobe engineers
say it still exists.

> I don't know what .dll file might be the equivalent of the psicon.dll
> file for AI, though, if one wanted to try the second option.

[brmclennan@adobeforums.com]

I've had this problem too. For those using WinXP there's an easier work-around than restarting. Open the task manager (ctrl-alt-del), go to the processes tab and kill off explorer.exe. This terminates the windows explorer, but leaves your other applications running, and you don't need to restart the machine. Once you've made sure explorer is dead (poking it with a stick will do :-), restart explorer.exe with the run command (File menu in the task manager). You should be able to delete or rename illustrator files after that.

The problem does indeed seem to be with the icon for the file - I had a .ai file created with ArcGIS and could not delete it any way I tried - even after trying the above or after a restart. I found the thread about problems with the file icon/thumbnail causing similar problems with photoshop. I turned off the thumbnail generation (properties) - no good. So I went and found aiicon.dll and renamed it (to aiicon.old). No problem deleting the problem file after that.

I hope that helps. Cheers, Bruce

[James_Strickland@adobeforums.com]

This problem exists on some MacOS X systems as well. If I use a Windows machine to turn off thumbnail generation on each file, will this also fix the problem on the Mac machines?

[James_Strickland@adobeforums.com]

I tried disabling thumbnail in the file properties and also renaming the aiicon.dll file. All that ended up doing was giving each file a generic windows file icon. I still had the problem of being told the file was busy or in use.