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jimena_20101
jimena_20101
Participant
March 31, 2026
Question

InDesign Unresponsive Due to "Modal Dialog or Alert Is Active" Error

  • March 31, 2026
  • 3 replies
  • 114 views

I opend Indesign and can get into my work but ones inside I am unable to edit anything. I can not add or subtract any work. I have tried to quite the app, but when I do, a message window pops up saying “cannot handle the request because a modal dialog or alert is active.” I can't uninstall InDesign to reinstall it.

      3 replies

      Erin Cannon
      Erin Cannon
      Inspiring
      April 8, 2026

      This has been happening to me since upgrading to 2026.  It’s when I am updating links - I get the “failed to find’ dialog and the “okay” button does not close it.  There are no other dialogs open in the background.  I have to go to task manager and close the program - often losing some work.  It’s a BUG of some sort that needs to be addressed by Adobe as it’s happening consistently for me.

      Abhishek Rao
      Community Manager
      Abhishek RaoCommunity Manager
      Community Manager
      April 13, 2026

      Hi ​@Erin Cannon,

       

      Sorry to hear that you're still facing this issue, I understand how frustrating it can be.

      To help us investigate this further, could you please confirm the exact version of Adobe InDesign 2026 you're using (for example, 21.3 or another version), along with your OS details?

      In the meantime, I’d request you to try the following steps:

      First, please manually reset InDesign preferences by following the video at the bottom of this article:
      https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/setting-preferences.html

      If the issue persists, please try launching your system in Safe Mode to check if any third-party services, fonts, or plugins might be causing the conflict:

      If you're still experiencing the issue after trying these steps, it would be very helpful if you could share a screen recording demonstrating the issue in action so we can take this forward for deeper investigation.

       

      Looking forward to your update.

      Abhishek

      Erin Cannon
      Erin Cannon
      Inspiring
      April 13, 2026

      I have actually tried all versions of 26 and get the same or simliar issues.  It’s definatley buggy.  Preferences have been removed and it did not resolve the issue.  I have two users on my team using 26 and we both experience this.  We are both on the latest version of  Windows.  This issue was new to 2026 - so services, fonts or plugins should not be an issue as those have not changed on our end. 

      Peter Kahrel
      Community Expert
      Peter KahrelCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      March 31, 2026

      As ​@Abhishek Rao  mentioned, there’s some dialog open. If the discussions in the link he shared don’t work out for you, then try the following.

      Often it’s a script that displays a dialog (which for whatever reason you can’t see). Check whether there’s a start-up script running (that’s a script that starts automatically when you fire up InDesign). These can be in two locations:

      C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe InDesign 2026\Scripts\startup scripts

      C:\Users\[User]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\InDesign\Version 21.0\en_GB\Scripts\Startup Scripts

      (or their Mac OS equivalents).

      If you see any scripts there, move them away to another folder and restart InDesign. If you now don’t see the problem, it was a script. You should get in touch with the script’s author to fix the problem.

        Abhishek Rao
        Community Manager
        Abhishek RaoCommunity Manager
        Community Manager
        March 31, 2026

        Hi @jimena_20101,


        Thanks for reaching out and sorry you're running into this issue. This usually happens when a dialog or alert is active in the background and InDesign is waiting for it to be addressed, which prevents any interaction with the app. Could you try pressing Enter or Esc a couple of times and also check if there's any hidden dialog behind the main window or on another screen? Sometimes resizing or moving the InDesign window helps reveal it.

        If that doesn't help, please try restarting your system once and relaunching InDesign. You can also refer to this similar discussion for additional context: https://adobe.ly/4sLko9n


        Let me know how it goes or if you notice anything specific when the issue occurs, and I'll take it forward with you.

        Abhishek

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