When you launch Adobe Illustrator, the necessary plug-ins, fonts, drivers, and other third-party elements that are required to function properly are loaded. In the past, when Illustrator encountered an error, for example – a damaged font or an incompatible plug-in, the application would crash and it was difficult to diagnose the cause of the problem.
Safe Mode is a new feature that:
- Assists you in diagnosing and troubleshooting the problem-area, thus providing you with a way to fix any issues.
- Determines the cause of a crash, prevents the particular file from loading with Illustrator, and provides a listing of the problem-causing elements when Illustrator restarts.
- Enables Illustrator to start despite encountering fatal, crash-inducing fonts, plug-ins, or more.
While running in Safe Mode, Illustrator functions normally, except that the disabled items will not be available for use within Illustrator. For example, if a font has been found to be damaged, Illustrator will no longer display that font as an available option to apply to text elements.

Note:
This procedure assumes, at Step 1, that Illustrator has been functioning normally until now.
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(This step may repeat multiple times) Illustrator restarts. If an error is found, the cause of the error (font, driver, plug-in) is identified and disabled from obstructing Illustrator launch.
The Illustrator startup screen, during Safe Mode, indicates progress of diagnostic tests
Note:
This step is repeated for each crash-inducing file that Illustrator finds. Do not interrupt diagnostic tests.
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Note:
At any point in time, click the Safe Mode link in the App Bar to see the Safe Mode dialog. Or, you can click Help > Safe Mode, to use the Safe Mode dialog.
