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defaultyctpbh6egm77
Participant
July 26, 2021
Question

Indesign keeps reporting file is locked on SharePoint Online

  • July 26, 2021
  • 1 reply
  • 1308 views

I have an end user that has an Indesign file saved to a SharePoint library.  There is also a Win 10 mapped network drive to the same SP Library, but most of the time, when she tries to open, Indesign reports that the file is already open with another user, which it is not.  Only 2 people have access to the library and the other person has confirmed they are not using the document.

Microsoft have looked at logs etc provided and say it's not a SharePoint issue, anyone have any pointers on where to look?

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1 reply

Randy Hagan
Community Expert
Randy HaganCommunity Expert
Community Expert
July 26, 2021

I'd suggest that you have a hanging InDesign lock file (.idlk) in your system, your colleague's system and/or your SharePoint drive that's at the root of your issue. Try the following steps, which will hopefully help you past your issue.

 

  1. Close down InDesign on all your systems. No files open, no applications open. Completely shut down.
  2. Search for all .idlk files in all your various locations — your system, your colleague's system, and your SharePoint server/cloud locations. Don't be surprised if you find a bunch of them. Kill them all. If all your InDesign applications are closed down, they're nothing but debris.
  3. Go back to open your InDesign document. Most likely, this will get you up and running again.

 

InDesign lock files keep you from accidentally opening — and changing — an InDesign file if someone else has it open. That's a good thing, until it hangs up a file and suddenly it isn't. Periodic purges of .idlk file debris will make it a lot less likely that you'll have the same issue in the future.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Randy

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    defaultyctpbh6egm77Author
    Participant
    July 26, 2021

    Hi Randy,

    Thanks for the reply, just deleted 18 idlk files from SharePoint, waiting for a call back from my end user.  I did notice these before, where it had created the file in the same folder as the document, I did delete them, and for a short while it was ok but then failed next day again.  Will advise if this resolves.

    Randy Hagan
    Community Expert
    Randy HaganCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    July 26, 2021

    The good news, then, is that you have isolated the issue, cured it temporarily, and can relay more precisely what is at the root of the problem.

     

    Cloud resources are notoriously bad about hanging up resources when saving/closing InDesign files, and  clearing/releasing these .idlk files. Some services, like Dropbox, can mitigate the issue by turning off smart sync utilities. Others don't have such readily-accessible fixes. I can't address the SharePoint cloud end of your situation. But I can tell you that orphaned .idlk files are bad juju, no matter where they are found.

     

    For an interim solution, I'd suggest that operators pull down a packaged folder from the cloud, update files from their own desktop, them upload the package with the latest changes back to SharePoint. This is not the preferred solution, but it will hopefully get you by while you work with whoever's managing your SharePoint resources to find a more permanent solution. Hopefully with this additional information, your Microsoft support folks can help you find a more effective solution for this issue.

     

    Good luck,

     

    Randy

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