Illustrator Gradients Turning Black

Question

Over the course of the day, 3 of us working in Illustrator found we were having the same problem at the same time. We are working on 3 separate computers, and it seems to happen no matter who created the file or who is trying to open it (we are on a network and frequently pass files back and forth).
We just upgraded to CS4. On a lot of the stuff we are working on, we are filling shapes and compound shapes with gradients. These are fresh, just-created files. When we close and save the file, and then open it again, those gradients will turn solid black (or gray if the was opacity was brought down) no matter what colors they were before...as if the gradient was never there. Our senior designer saved a file and opened it a second later, and things with gradients had turned black. ...So the files are perfect and print-ready when saved... and the thumbnails look correct in bridge... but when Illustrator opens it again, the fills where the gradients were are black. It doesn't seem to happen to simple filled retangles. Could there be something wrong with how our compound shapes are constructed that is causing the problem? What things should I try in order to troubleshoot this problem as quickly as possible?
Thanks!!!!

Answer 1

I have several issues with Illustrator including gradients, but mine is slightly different.
I have prepared 24 attorney bios for a law firm using Illustrator CS4. They each have a blue gradated bar at the top. Each and every time I open these documents to make edits, I get a message about missing links and I have to replace them one by one, then when I click on the text to edit I get an error message and the text reflows. Additionally, the gradient in the pdfs I create (using the print quality default) are printing differently on my client's Xerox.
Although I originally created some of these documents in CS3, they now only open in CS4-possibly due to the fact that I had the trial version of CS4 on my iMac, They are all in CMYK using the same color space (sheetfed uncoated).  I made edits to 8 of the Illustrator files, saved them all using the same settings and sent them to my client. She said in 4 of the bios, the gradient is printing purple. I tried changing the settings, recreating them in CS3 and putting them into PS and saving as PDFs. But now they are all printing purple. And, no, she doesn't need to change a color cartridge on her Xerox.
I even sent both an approved pdf and the one she said prints purple to a prepress technician and he said the files are identical. I am ready to jump out the window, which is a dumb idea seeing how I live in a ground level apartment.  Anybody out there that can prevent me from going crazy??