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InDesign semi-freezes with background task spinning when placing or replacing images

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InDesign is doing this semi freeze thing when I place or replace images. Random images and random formats. The background task hoop turns on and I can do somethings sometimes but not always. If I close everything then close the program there is a message but it's up for a half a second, disappears and then a new start window opens then refuses to do anything else. I have to "End Task" to get it to close. I've deleted tempfiles, uninstalled and reinstalled, turned off GPU, and did that Ctrl + Alt + Shift thing.

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

S

SRD-AL

Participant

Yes this only started happening for me in the last 2 weeks, I am running InDesign 21.6. I have disabled the Generative AI options yesterday and so far so good...will post if I encounter any other issues.

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Esty37442594vsdb

Participant

once it’s frozen, is there any way to unfreeze besides for ending task in task manager? i cant click around in menu and save, and I dont want to lose my work.

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S

SRD-AL

Participant

I also have this issue and am currently trying to troubleshoot it. I update a link or place an image and InDesign gets a spinning wheel and won’t let me do much like edit text, but I can click around in the menu and save. I exit my document and then InDesign will not let me close, I have to go in to the Task Manager and end the task.

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chrish97114385

Participant

I’ve had this issue for months and tried A LOT to fix it. So far (early days), turning off Gen AI has solved the issue.
Version 2025 works fine by the way.

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leo.r

Community Expert

Version 2025 works fine by the way.

That’s because it doesn’t have the Generative AI options.

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theresaj2017

Participant

I’ve been having this issue as well on Windows. Disabling the Generative AI seems to have helped. But I am bookmarking this page!

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Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi @namenamenumbers,

Thanks for reaching out, and sorry you’re running into this issue.

Adding to the suggestion already shared, could you please try resetting InDesign preferences manually by following the video at the bottom of this article: https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/setting-preferences.html and see if that helps.

It would also help to test this in a new document and confirm whether the issue occurs there as well or only with specific files. Also, please let me know if you’re working with files stored on a cloud service, network location, or external drive. If so, try placing files from your local drive and check if the behavior changes.

Additionally, please try running your system in Safe Mode to rule out any third party interference. You can follow the steps here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/start-your-pc-in-safe-mode-in-windows-92c27cff-db89-8644-1ce4-b3e5e56fe234

If the issue still persists after this, I’d like to take it further with the product team. It would really help if you could share a short screen recording showing the issue in action, including the steps leading up to the freeze.

Looking forward to your update.
Abhishek

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Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hi @namenamenumbers,

Thank you for your patience while we checked this with the product team. To continue the investigation, we’ll need a bit more diagnostic data from systems where the issue is occurring.

Could you please share the following:

A short screen recording showing the exact steps leading to the freeze (while placing or updating files)
A sample file/package (File > Package) where the issue can be reproduced
A stack dump or crash dump captured at the time of the freeze. You can follow the steps in this article: Submit a crash report for InDesign

Once we have this information from a few affected users, it will help the team better understand the root cause and move toward a fix.

Thanks again for your support. I’ll keep you posted as soon as we have more updates.

Abhishek

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leo.r

Community Expert

Some other users reported a similar issue. If the new Generative AI options are enabled in Preferences, try to disable them — will it make a difference?

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namenamenumbersAuthor

Participating Frequently

So far this has worked. I’ll come back if it starts up again Thanks.

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