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

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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 RaoCorrect answer

Community Manager

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

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courageous_sharpness2333

Participant

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

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

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Michael37345559x3fv

Participant

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

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

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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綾橋75700839

Participant

私も同じです。リンクを更新するとエラーがでて落ちます。早く解決してほしい。

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Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi @綾橋75700839,

Sorry to hear you're experiencing the issue when updating links. The product team is aware of this behavior and is actively working on a fix.

In the meantime, could you please go to InDesign Preferences, disable the Generative AI options, restart InDesign, and test updating the links again? This has been an effective workaround for several affected users.

Please let us know whether this resolves the issue for you. I’ll keep the thread updated as we have more information from the team.

Thanks for your patience,
Abhishek

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綾橋75700839

Participant

生成AIオプションを無効にしましたが状況は変わりませんでした。InDesignをアンインストールし下位バージョン(20.5)を入れなおしたら問題なく作業ができています。

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staceym42219281

Participant

This keeps happening to me. So frustrating. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the program several times now. still glitching and locking up. what is going on??

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leo.r

Community Expert

Try resetting preferences and caches:
https://www.rockymountaintraining.com/adobe-indesign-rebuilding-preferences-cache/

Also, if on Mac, make sure Full Disk Access is granted in System Settings > Privacy & Security.

What are your InDesign and operating system versions?

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graphic designr9873315

Participant

This is happening to mine too! It’s extremely irritating having to force quit the program 5-6 times per day. Please fix this glitch. I have disabled the Generative AI settings already so that is not the issue. I have also had this issue with Premiere Pro to the point that I am using the 2025 version. There is something seriously wrong with this years’ versions.

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JWEx

Participant

Like others, InDesign has been freezing on me. I have disabled Generative Ai settings in Preferences. InDesign remains active, but the menu bar along the top disappears, so I cannot access FILE, EDIT, LAYOUT, etc. I can save the file using keystrokes, although the program seems totally unresponsive. Certain other features are not accessible, such as the Tint Slider in Swatches. I must Force Quit the program and restart numerous times.

I do not have any issues with Photoshop or Acrobat. I am using InDesign v. 21.4.1.

Mac OS Tahoe 26.5.2.

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Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi @JWEx,

Thanks for sharing the details, and I'm sorry you're experiencing this issue.

Since you've already disabled the Generative AI options and the behavior still persists, it looks like you may be encountering a different issue than the one currently being tracked in this thread.

Could you please let us know whether this behavior occurs with all documents or only specific ones? Also, when the menu bar disappears, does it happen after performing a particular action (such as placing images, opening files, exporting, or editing text), or does it occur seemingly at random?

Additionally, could you please try launching InDesign from a new macOS administrator account and let us know if you observe the same behavior there? It would also be helpful if you could share a short screen recording showing the workflow from launching InDesign until the menu bar disappears and the application becomes unresponsive.

Looking forward to your update so we can investigate this further.

Abhishek

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JWEx

Participant

Thanks for your response. The problem exists with a number of different documents, and seems to be random, both in the documents it occurs and the timing of occurrence. Sometimes the program works fine, with no interruptions. I have not responded until now, as I have been trying to determine if a pattern exists.

I did launch InDesign in a new macOS administrator, and did not have any issues while using the program, but since there are no support files to import into the new InDesign file, I could not test it properly.

Below is a screenshot of InDesign when the menu bar disappeared and I had access to only the Finder menu bar. Luckily I have been able to save all files, and have only lost menu bar activities.

One other strange behavior is that at times, while in use, the InDesign file will move behind other program windows I have open (e.g., Chrome). I will try to pay more attention to when this happens.

Thanks for your help.

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MHilmershausen

Participant

STILL having to force quit InDesign because of it freezing at least twice a day. Sometimes when placing an image—AI or not—the program gets stuck and I have a loading spinner, can’t click on anything, and the program shuts down. Sometimes my work autosaves, and sometimes I lose it entirely. Other coworkers are complaining about how slow it is and how much it freezes as well.

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Beth_Weeks

Participant

any fixes? can’t export a simple PDF!!

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Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi @Beth_Weeks,

Sorry to hear you're running into this issue.

Could you please let us know if you've already tried disabling the Generative AI options in InDesign Preferences, as mentioned earlier in this thread? For many users here, that has helped resolve the freezing issue while placing images and exporting.

If you've already tried that and the problem still persists, then it may be a different issue that we'll need to isolate. Could you please confirm your exact InDesign version and operating system details? Also, when you try to export the PDF, what exactly happens? Do you receive an error message, does InDesign freeze, or does the export complete with an incorrect output?

Looking forward to your update so we can investigate this further.

Thanks,
Abhishek

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alexanderk37969147

Participant

I’m having similar issues. When placing and image or drag it from Windows Explorer onto an InDesign document, the mouse cursor changes to the loading cursor and Indesign becomes unresponsive. I need to shut down InDesign from the task manager and then start it again. It works fine until I need to place images. This happens on all documents, both new and old. This is on version 21.3.

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leo.r

Community Expert

Did you try to disable Generative AI options in preferences, as mentioned earlier in this thread?

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alexanderk37969147

Participant

Yeah, that seemed to actually have helped. I had no idea that there’s an “Auto-generate Alt Text when placing images” setting. But, yeah, that seemed to have been the cause of the issue I experienced.

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