afterOpen Event listener in Indesign throws up error of cannot handle request because a modal dialog

Question

This is driving me nuts now!What I'm trying to achieve is from a start up script that has an afterOpen eventListener then adds a afterSelectionAttributeChanged eventListener (I'm not sure if this is the best thing to use?) to each document that is opened. This would then check any images that are placed for their itemLink. However I'm getting an error message come up saying cannot handle request because a model dialog or alert is active. I don't have anything active. Strange thing is if I put an alert after the 'var doc = app.activeDocument;' line that breaks the script the script then works. Can anyone please explain what's happening? I have put a simplified version of where I am#targetengine 'cantoImageCheck'

main();

function main() {
    remove_listeners('afterOpen');
    app.eventListeners.add('afterOpen', myfunc);
}

function myfunc(event) {
    if (event.parent.constructor.name !== 'LayoutWindow') return; 
    var doc = app.activeDocument;

//alert("Here1")
    if (!doc.eventListeners.itemByName("changeAtt").isValid) {
        var afterImportItem = doc.eventListeners.add("afterSelectionAttributeChanged", hasBeenFired)
        
        afterImportItem.name = "changeAtt"
        
    }
}

function remove_listeners(eventType) {
    var listeners = app.eventListeners;
    var i = listeners.length;
    while (i--) if (listeners[i].eventType == eventType) listeners[i].remove();
}

function hasBeenFired(e) {
    alert("Fired")
}

Dirk Becker · Accepted Answer

Thank you so much for your help on this. I put in a test for the app.modalState before adding the listener and that was reporting true only I don't know what to do about it? Is there anyway to clear it rather than just break the script with a return?

When you said use $.writeln() instead of the alert how would I use that? Can I use it to, as you say, flush the queue like the alert was doing but not require putting an alert up?

I tried adding the listener to the app but it seemed to give the same result.

Thank you once again for all your trouble

Alex

app.modalState just confirms that your handler is triggered when it is limited in its actions. You have to rewrite your code, avoiding what causes the problem. Find the exact statement, then think of alternative ways. E.g. if it is that itemByName, do you really need it?

Using debug output via $.writeln, or writing to a log file are means to get closer, as you found that alert() was interfering with the problem. It does not solve the problem itself. If you don't know how to use a debugger please open a separate thread or ask any AI .

Your main problem as of now appears to be the new New Document dialog, where the event listener is triggered too early - comparing to the legacy New Document dialog. If you insist on using that approach, file a bug at uservoice and wait until it is hopefully fixed.

> I tried adding the listener to the app but it seemed to give the same result.

As we're talking about multiple listeners here, which one was added to the app? Did you remove the others? Following my suggestion using a single event handler (your hasBeenFired) at the application that takes advantage of bubbling, rather than one at each document, you should have eliminated the need of a handler for AFTER_OPEN whose only purpose is to install those individual document event handlers.

Manan Joshi · Answer

When do you get this error? I tested the script on 2022 and 2025 versions on a MAC and I did get alert fired on creation of a text frame after creating a document. I did get a crash on trying to close the document though, maybe you need to remove the listener on onclose event to fix the crash. Another thing that I noticied in your code is that you are removing all the afterOpen eventlisteners, this would remove even the ones registered by other scripts. Do you really wanna do that?

-Manan

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