I can move a selected object with the arrow keys, but grabbing it and dragging doesn't work at all. I'm using Illustrator CS5 (v.15.1.1) on Mavericks (v.10.9.5).
Is there some setting that disables the selection/direct selection tools, perhaps?
34 Answers
If you've recently installed Pushbullet or similar Chrome apps that use the clipboard, your problem may have an easy solution: turn off the app(s), or disable its copy/paste feature, and restart the computer.
This is especially likely to work if, on rebooting your computer, the problem resolves temporarily and then relapses.
(Apparently Adobe and Chrome don't like to share the clipboard, Chrome wins, and Adobe sulks. I just figured this solution out yesterday after more than a week of workflow logjam with the same problem in InDesign.)
If that doesn't work, the next thing to try is resetting your preference setting files, but I'll stick to one solution per answer.
3For me this issue was solved by closing Chrome browser and then restarting the PC. Chrome seems to conflict with Adobe Illustrator in same way preventing it from allowing movement of objects. I don't know what extension or component of Chrome is the culprit. Best of luck.
2This happened to me, with both Illustrator and InDesign today - it turned out that there was a window running in the background that was trying to start Bridge. I closed that, and voila! everything worked again. This may not be the case for everyone having this problem, but could be the reason for some!
0Illustrator was doing this today - first time I'd ever seen it. I closed an open Acrobat instance, and Illustrator behaved correctly. I wasn't doing anything in Acrobat except viewing a file, no edits or saving in progress. Go figure. At least it worked.
