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Becky25617854viti
Participant
February 19, 2026
Answered

InDesign 21.2 Freezing and Becoming Unresponsive During Normal Workflows (Opening Files, Placing Images, Exporting PDFs) on Windows and macOS

I’ve been having major issues with InDesign locking up ever since this update. It doesn’t crash so it doesn’t send a report either. At least two times every day, I need to either force quit the app or restart. It is very frustrating!

      Abhishek Rao
      Abhishek RaoCorrect answer
      Community Manager
      August 17, 2026

      Hi everyone,

       

      Thanks again for all the reports and testing shared in this thread.

      To help with the ongoing investigation, could anyone who previously experienced the spinning cursor/freezing while placing or updating files please confirm whether the issue still occurs in InDesign 21.5 or later?

      If you can still reproduce it, please try the workaround mentioned earlier: go to InDesign Preferences via the Edit menu, disable the Generative AI options, and test the workflow again to see if that prevents the freeze.

      Please share your results here. In the meantime, I’ll continue to keep this thread updated with any further information from the product team.

       

      Thanks,
      Abhishek

       

       

      <Marking as correct for better visibility on the thread>

      View reply

      85 replies

      jacquiw73259306
      Participant
      October 17, 2026

      I’m currently on 21.6 and had this issue. Turning off all Generative AI options seems to have cured it (fingers crossed)

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        angular_sincerity2335
        Participant
        October 9, 2026

        After trying EVERYTHING. The only thing that worked was to download a previous version of inDesign v.21.1 - No more freezing or crashing.

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        angular_sincerity2335
        Participant
        October 9, 2026

        I’m still having the issue even after following your suggested steps. v21.6
        Thank you.

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        DerOberfranke
        Participant
        September 28, 2026

        Habe das gleiche Problem mit der Version 21.6 x64

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        Anubhav M
        Community Manager
        Anubhav MCommunity Manager
        Community Manager
        September 28, 2026

        Hello ​@DerOberfranke 

         

        I’m sorry to hear you’re having similar trouble with InDesign. Would you mind trying the suggestions shared in this help article (https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/desktop/troubleshoot/launch-and-crash-issues/slow-performance.html) and let us know if they help?
         

        Looking forward to hearing from you.
        Anubhav

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        DerOberfranke
        Participant
        October 9, 2026

        Habe alles überprüft und nach Anweisung gemacht. Das Problem besteht weiterhin.

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        samarinaa47520588
        Participant
        September 20, 2026

        still having this issue 

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          Dan Iosif23277824j246
          Participating Frequently
          September 9, 2026

          The product team is aware of this behavior and couldn’t care less, for the last six months. Oh, what a surprise!

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            Chase Creative Studio
            Participant
            September 4, 2026

            Any resolve yet on this? For months my InDesign is crashing either when I save it, or when I place an image. It completely freezes and I have to quit it, or it crashes my Windows and I have to restart Windows.

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            courageous_sharpness2333
            Participant
            September 3, 2026

            This problem is severely affecting my workflow. Was desperately hoping that the latest update (V21.5.1) would help but it just seems to get worse as the months go by. It started off by happening once or twice a week a few months ago, now it happens every few minutes.

             

            Yes, I have tried resetting preferences every single time.

            Then I read somewhere that it might be related to accessing artwork off a network or portable drive. So I’ve tried running artwork directly off my desktop, no luck there, same issues.

             

            I thought maybe it’s our standard artwork proofing template, I have recreated it again and again. It seems to help for a bit longer until InDesign freezes again.

             

            Now I’m trying the disable AI method. And have recreated the proof template again entirely from scratch. We shall see. (I will count the minutes until it crashes again!)

             

            Specs:

             

            Windows 11 64bit

            Lenovo Ideapad

            AMD Ryzen 5 5600H with Radeon Graphics (3.30 GHz)

            6GB NVIDIA Geforce GPU

            16,0 GB RAM

            Assorted SSD drives

             

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              Chase Creative Studio
              Participant
              September 4, 2026

              It’s severely effecting my workflow too, they need a fix for this ASAP

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              Michael37345559x3fv
              Participant
              September 2, 2026

              Yes, this is still happening in V 21.5.1. Turning off all Generative AI options does seem to cure it.

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              Cyril Chadwec37586468pkmi
              Participant
              September 2, 2026

              I’m having a problem since last week, it suddenly would freeze and crash my indesign, leaving me to not able to use indesign at all. I uninstalled and did a proper clean of Indesign and Photoshop. Please I need help, it didn't do this in the past 2-3 months.

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              leo.r
              Community Expert
              leo.rCommunity Expert
              Community Expert
              September 2, 2026

              what’s your operating system version? also, did the problem start after a recent InDesign update? If so, try to revert to an earlier version as a test: Creative Cloud app > InDesign > 3-dot menu > Other Versions.

              will the problem go away?

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