I've used Illustrator on and off since about 1988 [I'm a casual user, not a power user], and this is the first time I've ever seen this. I worked on the file all night, saved it repeatedly, closed it and opened it several times. Now, about 10 minutes later, when I open it, it's as if the file is a single image - totally uneditable. I've obviously tried clicking everything I can find... nothing helps.
I've opened some other files I worked on last week, and they still edit fine [how long will it be before they succomb to this sleeping sickness, too?] Their tabs say "CMYK/Preview", while the paralyzed file says "RGB/Preview" [You'd think it would be trivial to change back and forth, wouldn't you? BONG - it's not. After maybe 150 tries of every button around, no luck]. The STROKE and FILL menus contain no color choices, only one object [the entire picture] exists and can be selected, etc.
Basically, for the first time in 25 years, I am totally dead in the water in Illustrator, with a screaming deadline, no clue how to fix this, tried everything for hours, looked at dozens of utterly useless forums, and have no real desire to spend another 16 hours recreating these pictures from scratch. [Plus, how would I know these files would not become zombies, too?
Any thoughts would be appreciated.