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marko442561
Participant
September 25, 2018
Question

InDesign - Spinning wheel when launching

  • September 25, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 514 views

Whenever I try to launch Indesign (CC2018) it opens but immediately my cursor turns to a spinning pinwheel and Indesign stops responding.

I have restarted, uninstalled, reinstalled, shutdown, removed fonts...but it always ends up with a spinning wheel.

I have spent hours on the phone with Adobe but we can't figure out how to make this stop.

If anyone has any ideas please let me know! I need InDesign to do work!

Help

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    2 replies

    Bill Silbert
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    September 26, 2018

    When you uninstall and reinstall make sure that you do it in the following manner:

    In the app section of your Creative Cloud desktop app click on the “V” next to the app’s (InDesign) name and choose the “Uninstall” option from the pull-down menu that appears. After you’ve run the uninstall then use the Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool Use the Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool to solve installation problems . Then reinstall the program through the Desktop app. Before you reinstall, trash all preference files (see below) to make sure that your install is completely clean. Then launch InDesign and see if the problem persists.

    To trash preferences:

    For Macintosh Users: The User Library folder in which InDesign’s preferences are stored is hidden by default on most Macintoshes. To access it make sure that InDesign is closed and click on the desktop to launch a Finder Window (Command-N). With this window in column view follow the path User>Home folder (it’s the folder with an icon that looks like a house—it may have the user’s name rather than “Home”) and click on the Home folder. With the Option Key pressed choose Library from the Finder Go Menu. “Library” will now appear within the Home folder. Within the Library folder find the folder called Preferences and within it find the folder called “Adobe InDesign” and the file called “com.adobe.InDesign.plist” and delete both that folder and that file. When InDesign is next launched it will create new preference files and the program will be restored to its defaults.

    For Windows Users: You can try the quick way of resetting on a PC which is to hold down Ctrl + Alt + Shift when launching InDesign and respond affirmatively when asked if you want to reset. There have been some recent reports that the window asking if you want to reset is not popping up but that the prefs are being reset anyway. If this works great but if it doesn’t you may have to manually delete them.

    To do so:

    On Windows 7 and above the preference files are hidden. To find them go to the Control Panel and open Folder Options and then click the View tab. Then select “Show hidden files and folders” or “Show hidden files, folders or drive options” in Advanced Settings. Then delete (or rename) the folder at the end of this path: C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\InDesign\<Version #>\<Language>. Make sure that InDesign is closed when you do this. When you relaunch the program it will create  new preference files and the program will be at its default settings.

    The advantage of manually deleting preference files is that after you’ve reset up the program (make sure that no document window is open) to your liking, you can create copies of your personalized “mint” preference files (make sure that you quit the program before copying them—that finalizes your customization) and use them in the future to replace any corrupt versions you may need to delete.

    BobLevine
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    September 25, 2018

    What operating system? What are you system specs? RAM? Free harddrive space?