Inspiring

Answered

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

Forum|Forum|2 months ago
May 1, 2026
4 replies
206 views

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.

Correct answer Abhishek Rao

Hi everyone,

Thank you for your patience and for sharing all the detailed observations and troubleshooting steps. I’ve now logged this as a bug with the product team, and the issue is currently being investigated. I’ll continue to keep this thread posted as soon as I receive further updates from the team.

In the meantime, the current workaround is the one already mentioned earlier in the thread: please try disabling the Generative AI options in InDesign Preferences via the Edit menu and then test the workflow again to see if that helps prevent the freeze while placing or updating files.

Please let me know if disabling those options improves the behavior on your system, as that information will also help with the investigation.

Thanks again for your support and patience while we work through this.

Abhishek

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.

leo.r

Community Expert

Version 2025 works fine by the way.

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

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!

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

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

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?

N

namenamenumbersAuthor

Inspiring

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

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded