Hello, is anyone able to use InDesign now ? I am experiencing a severe issue with InDesign where files are reported as corrupted, and I am unable to save them under any circumstances. When opening an older file, InDesign initially reported that some image links were missing. I relinked and updated all the images. After updating the images, the file suddenly started showing as corrupted. Attempts to repair the file failed, and I could not save the file. To troubleshoot, I tried creating a completely new document. Even in a brand new file, as soon as I add a colour block to the parent page, InDesign immediately reports that the file is corrupted and will not allow saving (while it's a brand new file ?!) I have tried multiple versions of InDesign, including 2025 and 2026/21.1, and also reinstalled the software and reset preferences, disabled GPU preferences, but the issue persists. Every time I attempt to add a certain colour block, the file becomes unsavable. I tried to open all of my previous files with InDesign (which were all perfectly fine BEFORE), now they ALL suddenly show as "corrupted". Has anyone encountered a similar problem? Is there a known workaround for this bug or a solution? Please help, I am a startup art business and all my proposals, business plans, and invitations to clients are all based on InDesign. Thank you. <Title renamed by MOD>

Question

InDesign files corrupted and unable to save after Windows 11 update KB5074109 (January 2026)

Forum|Forum|4 months ago
January 14, 2026
87 replies
47571 views

Hello, is anyone able to use InDesign now ?

I am experiencing a severe issue with InDesign where files are reported as corrupted, and I am unable to save them under any circumstances.

When opening an older file, InDesign initially reported that some image links were missing. I relinked and updated all the images.
After updating the images, the file suddenly started showing as corrupted. Attempts to repair the file failed, and I could not save the file.
To troubleshoot, I tried creating a completely new document. Even in a brand new file, as soon as I add a colour block to the parent page, InDesign immediately reports that the file is corrupted and will not allow saving (while it's a brand new file ?!)
I have tried multiple versions of InDesign, including 2025 and 2026/21.1, and also reinstalled the software and reset preferences, disabled GPU preferences, but the issue persists.
Every time I attempt to add a certain colour block, the file becomes unsavable. I tried to open all of my previous files with InDesign (which were all perfectly fine BEFORE), now they ALL suddenly show as "corrupted".

Has anyone encountered a similar problem? Is there a known workaround for this bug or a solution? Please help, I am a startup art business and all my proposals, business plans, and invitations to clients are all based on InDesign. Thank you.

Show previous replies

A

Amber23913206clyk

I started having this same issue with file corruption and save failures for every InDesign file I have opened that is saved on my local Dropbox. I can only 'save as' idml files. I re-installed InDesign and tried reverting to an earlier version in my attempts to fix it before I found this thread. This did not work.

It is not possible to uninstall the latest Microsoft Windows update KB5074109 on my computer using any of the methods in the linked article. Is there any other workaround?

I

irma.clark1

Participant

I am on Windows II home 65 version and I also cannot uninstall the KB5074109 update. I also cannot save any file from InDesign. This is a major update and it is not listed in the uninstall update window and there is no uninstall link that I can find on the Microsoft Windows support page of this update.

A

Anonymous

Try this Command Line

Some cumulative updates can only be removed via WUSA.

Press Start

Type cmd

Right-click Command Prompt → Run as administrator

Paste this exactly:

wusa /uninstall /kb:5074109

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi everyone,

Thanks for sharing all the detailed reports here. As seen across this thread, multiple users are running into the same file corruption and save failures after installing the latest Microsoft Windows update KB5074109. We have already flagged this with the InDesign product team and a bug has been logged internally. The team is actively investigating this behavior and working toward a fix.

For now, the current workaround is to revert the KB5074109 update and check if that helps resolve the issue. Several users have confirmed that rolling back this update restores normal saving behavior.

I'll keep this thread updated as soon as we have more information or guidance to share.

Thank you for your patience and for helping surface all these details.

Abhishek

Y

YUN-FEI5C68Author

Thank you so much! Hopefully , the issue will be properly resolved, so we won't panic again when the next update arrives.

M

Martin37254816uw1a

Hi, I am also having this problem. I can't save any files and it has deleted my recent files from the start up. It says the files appear to be damaged, like you I have opened a new file and it does the same thing. Not sure what to do now, can anyone help?

M

Madeleine5E49

I have had a few hours of being able to work normally after deleting the latest indesign versions and reverting to v21.0.2. However- I've just gone to save my work, and have a message (different from before) saying the file seems to be corrupted, would you like us to repair or save anyway. I just saved and crossed my fingers. Only just got over my fried nerves from earlier. I still have dropbox paused syncing. Please Adobe- do something!

A

AmberJanelLeto

I/m having the same issue. I can't work on Dropbox or locally after the latest update. I uninstalled the update, unfortunetaly it still isn't working. I have been reading and trying to solve this issue for hours. ADOBE PLEASE

HELP!!!!

M

Marketing1918

Inspiring

We were using the most recent version of InDesign 2024 without this issue. We just now moved to InDesign 2025. So far no problems. What version were you running?

Our standard operating procedure is to use the major release prior to the current release for InDesign. So now that 2026 is out, we will run on 2025, unless specific problems require us to stay on an earlier version. We rarely have major issues with the newest release of Photoshop or Illustrator, but get burned every time when we use the latest major release of InDesign.

M

mnorthwinter

Participant

Please review my reply again for the answer. Anyway, I rolled back to 21.0 and it didn't help, but now I'm also getting errors with Cloud failing to update and failing to reinstall Acrobat. The whole collection is suddenly having trouble. Going to try reinstalling from scratch again with 20.xx (not looking at the versions at the moment)

M

mnorthwinter

Participant

I had to go back and install Acrobat from a .exe per the install failed instructions on Cloud. It looks like Cloud as a whole is broken at the moment, unable to update repeated error 191. Tried fresh install, same issue, and not letting me install/update programs through it. Manually they work fine, and I have working indesign, photoshop, and acrobat for now through independent installs.

M

Madeleine5E49

So- I open a file, make some edits, then when trying to save, get error message saying file is corrupt, and after that I get various other error messages before InDesign closes. I try all the stuff suggested here.. but have discovered that when I turn off Dropbox syncing, all is well- even with the files that I was told were corrupt. I've been using dropbox for years with no problem.

Anyone having similar problems?

A

Andy_Cinn

It seems related to this windows update:

2026-01 Security Update (KB5074109) (26200.7623)

I had the same issue. It was resolved by unistalling the update. My sync is to onedrive.

M

Madeleine5E49

Thanks so much- as after I wrote the above I carried on having problems even with sync paused. I've reverted to v21.0.2. So far seems ok, although I still have dropbox sync paused. Can't risk anything yet, as literally every work file I opened had the same problem.

B

borja_3943

Hola a todos, Desde la última actualización de Windows (14 de enero de 2026), estoy experimentando un problema con Adobe InDesign. Cada vez que intento abrir cualquier archivo .indd me aparece el siguiente mensaje de error: "No se pudo concluir la operación debido a un error de base de datos. El archivo 'nombre_del_archivo.indd' está dañado (código de error: 2)." He probado lo siguiente: Abrir varios archivos .indd (incluido este y otros más antiguos). Todos generan el mismo error. Mis compañeros están obteniendo el mismo error, con archivos que hasta ayer todos funcionaban correctamente. He probado a reinstalar InDesign, pero el error persiste. El error empezó justo después de la actualización de Windows, así que sospecho que puede estar relacionado con esto, aunque no estoy seguro. ¿Alguien sabe cómo puedo solucionar este problema o recuperar la funcionalidad normal de InDesign en mi equipo? Gracias de antemano por cualquier ayuda.

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi @borja_3943,

Thanks for sharing the details. To help narrow this down, could you please confirm the exact version of InDesign you and your colleagues are using? It would also help to know whether everyone seeing this issue is on Windows only and if macOS users are unaffected.

Additionally, please confirm the exact Windows update that was installed. You can do this by typing 'Update history' in the Start search box and sharing a screenshot of the installed KB number.

In the meantime, please try the troubleshooting steps outlined here and let me know the outcome: https://adobe.ly/49mtli6. If possible, also try reverting the recent Windows update and then test again to see if the issue is resolved.

Looking forward to your update.

Abhishek

B

borja_3943

Thank you for responding. It seems we are facing a situation similar to the one described in this thread:
https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/indesign-continously-crashing-and-can-t-save-nor-export-any-files-since-last-windows-update/m-p/15662586

When we stop working on OneDrive and switch to working locally, the error disappears and everything works perfectly. The problem is that we work with catalogs that we design collaboratively, and using OneDrive was the optimal solution for our workflow…

M

mnorthwinter

Participant

Start of 2026 and now version 21.1 is doing this. I'm trying to roll back now to see if it helps.

I

irma.clark1

Participant

What worked: I installed InDesign 20.5.1. I then deleted my newer version of InDesign. Reboot. Open file and choose "convert" and then resave.

I did not have the option to uninstall the latest windows update.

S

sincere_customer6585

Unfortunatey, this may not work permanently. Because I tried this yesterday and thought it worked, but now today the problem is back. Hopefully you'll have better luck than I'm having.

shaun-lee

Known Participant

I am suddenly unable to save any document. This started occurring this week; I was able to create and save identical files last week with no issues on the same machine.

Initial error: "InDesign is unable to perform the requested operation."
Follow-up error: "InDesign is unable to save this file. We tried, but it appears to be damaged."
Error Code: "Cannot save '[filename]'. The file is damaged (Error code: 2)."

Steps to Reproduce:

Create a new document.
Add minimal content (e.g., a few rectangles).
Attempt to Save or Save As on local file system.

Occurs in the latest release and after rolling back to v 20.0

Changed Units & Increments (mm to pts/inches) to rule out rounding bugs; also reset all preferences and restarted machine.

HALP!

shaun-lee

Known Participant

The errors only occur when saving the 3.4 mb file into my local DropBox directory

moritzf67071910

Participant

I encountered the same issue for any files, that are synced via dropbox desktop app and gets changed by InDesign (2025 and 2026), overwriting with the same file name.

InDesign seems to have problems to save the updated indd file, while Dropbox tries to upload the *.idlk (lock file). As there is no way to my knowledge to exclude specific files from Dropbox's syncing, my onle work around for this time is:

1.) Deactivate/suspend dropbox syncing while I am working on the InDesign file (via the dropbox badge in the system tray). After closing the file in InDesign, the lock file is removed and Dropbox syncing can be activated.

2.) If you do not want to activate/deactivate Dropbox (via the badge icon) manually, you can still do single versions for every change _v01, _v02 i.e.. As this is quite tedious, I would recommend to work with option 1 for the time being.

Maybe the Adobe team for InDesign can look into this issue? My problem is, that if you run in into this issue, Indesign tries to close/reopen the corrupted file on startup, leading into a resetting the preferences for Indesign totally. It does not happen 100% of all startups, but I had two resets on one afternoon. Issue appeared after latest windows security update (2026/01/14).

D

Dennys35550628i1u5

I am experiencing a critical crash issue with Adobe InDesign 21.1. apparently (but not 100% sure) after installing the latest Windows update (KB5074109). InDesign crashes whenever I try to save a file that is located inside a Dropbox-synchronized folder. The file opens correctly, but after making any modification, attempting to save causes InDesign to crash and the file is not saved. Importantly, the crash occurs even if Dropbox synchronization is manually paused. Simply having the file located inside the Dropbox folder is sufficient to trigger the crash. If I take the same file and create a Package outside the Dropbox sync folder (for example on the Desktop or any local non-synced directory), InDesign works correctly and saves without issues.

Could you please advise on how to resolve this issue?

• OS: Windows 11 Pro
• Version: 25H2
• Build: 26200.7623
• Windows Update: KB5074109
• Application: Adobe InDesign 21.1.0

Anubhav M

Community Manager

Hello @Dennys35550628i1u5,

Thank you for getting in touch. To find out if this issue is related to a Windows Update, you can follow the recommendations in this article (https://adobe.ly/4pGZkyr) to remove the update and check if it resolves the problem.

Moreover, Illustrator is designed to work with networks, removable media, and cloud-synced folders (like Google Drive / Dropbox, and OneDrive), and it has been thoroughly tested across various configurations. However, not every configuration, including different software, hardware, settings, and access permissions, has been evaluated. As a result, your setup might lead to errors, crashes, or unexpected behavior. You can find more information about this here: (https://adobe.ly/3LNpHor).

To prevent such issues, we suggest working on your files from a local directory, such as the Desktop, and then manually transferring them to removable media, a network drive, a cloud-synced folder, or by using Cloud Documents.

Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions or require assistance. We are here to help.

Anubhav

M

manuelfmorales

Thanks, Anubhav!

I have had this problem with not being able save InDesign documents (Win 11; and just installed in CC the InDesign English Arabic version) a couple days now.
But, after copying my InDesign structure to Desktop (instead of OneDrive), I am now able to edit and save the document. I have just managed to save 4-5 times...I hope it continues to work fine.

Å

Åsa3893745521f4

Hi,
Last night my Chrome was automaticly updated and as for so many others, InDesign stopped working. No reinstallation och cleaning of temporary files has manage to solved the problem. BUT I found a helpful workaround! I can "Save as..." but no matter what "Save"/Ctrl-S. So, even if it is not convenient, I might keep my deadline on friday.
All the best to you all / Asa

leo.r

Community Expert

Hi,
Last night my Chrome was automaticly updated

By @Åsa3893745521f4

Just to make sure: did you really mean Chrome or was it Windows?

Å

Åsa3893745521f4

When I wrote my reply I thought Chrome caused the problem but I uninstalled the latest windows update and that solved everything. So I suppose Chrome was not to blame.

Regards / Åsa

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