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Participant
Jul 21, 2025 4:29 PM UTC
Question

Unhide Spreads button crashes on opening a file

I have a file that's giving me the error "All spreads cannot be hidden" with an option to "unhide spreads" in the open dialog box. This button crashes InDesign everytime. I've tried to recover the file, which leads back to the same error.  

 

I'm on the latest version for Mac: 20.4.1.4

17 replies

Communication ESN
Participant
May 19, 2026 10:58 AM UTC

Hi, I am facing identitcal issue. I have submitted a feedback form via InDesign.

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Communication ESN
Participant
May 19, 2026 11:02 AM UTC

crash report file

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Abhishek Rao
Community Manager
Community Manager
May 19, 2026 1:40 PM UTC

Hi ​@Communication ESN  and everyone,

 

Thanks for reaching out, and I’m sorry to hear you’re experiencing this issue. Also, thanks for sharing the crash report details.

I wanted to let you know that the product team has already addressed this bug starting from InDesign 21.x builds. If you are still encountering the same behavior, could you please submit the crash report again through the Adobe Crash Reporter dialog and share the email address used with me via DM so I can help check the logs? You can refer to: https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/kb/submit-crash-reports.html

In the meantime, please test the issue in the latest InDesign Pre-release build (21.4.0.69) available through Creative Cloud Desktop > Apps > Pre-release. If you do not currently have access to the Pre-release program, you can join here:
https://www.adobeprerelease.com/beta/C6DFA254-C40C-4EEB-8F6D-F4AEDA2E6171

After updating, please test again after resetting InDesign preferences manually:
https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/setting-preferences.html

Also, please temporarily disable any third-party plugins or custom workspaces, or alternatively test the issue in Windows Safe Mode to help isolate possible environment interference:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/start-your-pc-in-safe-mode-in-windows-92c27cff-db89-8644-1ce4-b3e5e56fe234

 

Please let me know how it goes after testing.

Abhishek

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Abhishek Rao
Community Manager
Community Manager
Jul 31, 2025 11:53 AM UTC

Hi @dnelsen1360,

 

Thanks for confirming. I could see that both you and @Pluginvest-Marketing have submitted crash reports, and based on that, a bug has already been logged with the product team. I'll keep you posted on any updates from their end.

 

Feel free to reach out if anything else comes up in the meantime.

Abhishek

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Participant
Sep 25, 2025 7:09 PM UTC

Hello,

I am having the same issue that was listed above. Was there a sollution?

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Harshika Verma
Community Manager
Community Manager
Sep 26, 2025 11:04 AM UTC

Hi Ryan22139454d6ur


Thank you for reaching out, and I'm sorry for the trouble. The product team is still investigating the issue and looking for customer files to test it at their end. Would you mind sharing your packaged file with Abhishek Rao over a private message so that he can share it with the team?

 

We will keep you posted on the status of the issue. We really appreciate your collaboration in helping the team investigate it further.

 

Thanks,

Harshika

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Abhishek Rao
Community Manager
Community Manager
Jul 21, 2025 4:54 PM UTC

Hi @dnelsen1360,

 

Thanks for reaching out, and I'm sorry to hear about the trouble with your file. The 'All spreads cannot be hidden' message usually comes up when all the spreads in the document are hidden, which InDesign can't handle during open. Normally, clicking 'Unhide Spreads' should fix it, but since it's causing a crash, it seems like there may be some corruption in the file structure.

Do you see the Adobe crash reporter dialog when the app crashes? If so, please submit the report and share the email address you used via DM on the community, so I can locate the logs and investigate further. Reference: https://adobe.ly/3UbovvT

Also, let me know if this issue is happening only with this file or others too. If it's limited to just this one, and it's confidential, feel free to share it via DM, so I can take a closer look. If the file is saved on Creative Cloud, you can also try restoring an earlier version using version history: https://adobe.ly/3GT0x5p

 

Let me know what you find.

Abhishek

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Participant
Jul 23, 2025 12:46 PM UTC

I'm experiencing exacly the same issue. It's only occurring with one file, but the corruption of the file might be the root issue cause the only thing I tried to do was export my file as a PDF upon which I got an error message saying my file was corrupted, causing InDesign to crash. I haven't been able to open the file in question since then. I've attached the InDesign file to this message. 

I've also reported the error, mentioning the e-mail address used, as suggested here. 

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Willi Adelberger
Community Expert
Community Expert
Jul 23, 2025 2:54 PM UTC

Save the file as IDML, open that, save asnee file andwork with that. 

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