CS won't open my version 9 files!

[Tad_P@adobeforums.com]

I upgraded 2 weeks ago to X Panther and Illustrator CS. I have hundreds of 9 files and most of them open and work fine, but, today I just discovered that many of them don't. When I go to open them I get a message like, "Unable to open file, Illustrator is having trouble reading PDF, a non-negative ineger expected"

Does anyone know what this error means? Why does Illustrator even need to deal with a PDF when it's an Illustrator 9 file? All of these files can't be corrupt.

Here's what i've tried that does not work.
opning it normally
turning off "use low res proxy for eps" and "copy as PDF"
restarting the mac and illustrator
opening it in Illustrator CS trial version on a PC
opening it in acrobat on PC.
importing it into a new doc on both pc and mac
creating a pdf of it

When I transferred it to the PC and changed the extention to eps or AI it does show a thumbnail of it, so I know at least that much is there.

One other thing is that there are no fonts in this file, so it's not a font issue.

Thanks
Tad

[jonf@adobeforums.com]

The obvious question is, are you sure these weren't saved as pdf files? If you didn't add the .pdf extension to the file name maybe you could have forgotten? When you do "Get Info" from the Mac Finder, what does it claim the files are?

[Tad_P@adobeforums.com]

They are AI9 files as are ALL of the files i've created in AI. They have the AI9 icons and say Adobe Illustrator File when I go "Get Info". I've also tried importing them into Corel Draw. Corel said the file was corrupt, but i'm not sure that is accurate.

T

[EPP@adobeforums.com]

have you put the .eps or .ai on the files. I have had the same problems with OSX, with quark files as well sometimes.

[Douglas_Habben@adobeforums.com]

Do they open in 9? If so, be sure you have done the 9.0.2 update and try resaving them as 9 native, EPS and PDF from 9 and see if CS can successfully open any of the resaved files.
BTW: Illustrator's native format became PDF based with Illustrator v9. That's why you are getting the PDF related error message when opening.

[cristin_denight@adobeforums.com]

I had the same message when opening my illustrator 10 files in CS. I messed around with the preferences and under file handling and clipboard I checked, enable version cue, and unchecked, copy as PDF. I am not sure which one did the trick but now they are opening fine.

[Tad_P@adobeforums.com]

UPDATE:

Yes, I had tried all of that stuff, but it wouldn't work no matter what I checked under preferences. The problem was that I couldn't try them in illustrator 9 again because I no longer have AI9 only runs on OS9 (the whole point of going to OSX was to totally get rid of OS9 and not have to run the programs by running 9 from within 10 which screws up your mac) If you follow that.

Anyway I finally just went to Kinkos and tried to open it on THEIR AI9 running on OS9 and it gave me the SAME MESSAGE!

What finally worked was having my wife try it on HER mac at HER work in AI9 running on OS9 and that worked! I have no idea why it worked on hers and no place else. But, it's still BS because I can't do that for every file that is like that and there are more and more popping up daily.

[Dee Holmes]

Can anyone clarify...

I thought from OSX you can go through Classic Mode to run older programs.

Is there a special setting you have to do to run older programs when setting up OSX?

[Adam Wuellner]

Dee Holmes wrote:

> Can anyone clarify...
>
> I thought from OSX you can go through Classic Mode to run older programs.
>
> Is there a special setting you have to do to run older programs when setting up OSX?

I don't recall, but there might be an option /not/ to install it when
you install OS X. I'm pretty sure that if it's optional, it does at
least install by default.

You can check whether it's there by opening System Preferences (Apple
menu) and looking for the Classic prefs; they are in the System group at
or near the bottom. If it's there, you can run OS 9 apps. Open it up
and familiarize yourself with the options - they are relatively few and
straightforward.