Display Performance Issues with linked files showing up as grey boxes

[CristinaWM]

I'm having an issue with my Adobe Indesign where properly linked files are showing up as grey boxes. They even show up that way when I export them as transparent PNGs.

I've tried to make sure that the preferences and view display settings are set to "High Quality Display". Choosing "Typical Display" does the trick for them but they're showing up slightlypixelated. I've also tried uncecking CPU and GPU view modes.

I uninstalled InDesign and re-installed it, didn't work. I unintalled all Adobe apps (including creative cloud), and reinstalled CC and InDesign again, didn't work. 

I'm at a loss here.

Mac: Mac Mini (M1)

OS: 11.6.1 (20G224)

InDesign: 17.0

[CristinaWM]

Also, when trying to package my file, it showing this error message. 

And preflight is showing no erros with the links.

[BobLevine]

You're certainly not the first to report issues with M1 machines but are you sure the links are fully updated and there's none missing. What are the other system specs for that Mac especially RAM.

[CristinaWM]

Links are all present and I'm able to open them in their respective file type (PSD, Ai, etc).

My MacMini (2020) has 16GB of RAM and 2TB HD. I made sure nothing else was running on the machine and taking over the RAM while testing this.

[Peter Spier]

any really long file path names or special characters in the paths?

[CristinaWM]

Nothing out of the ordinary. These are files that have worked in the past and nothing has changed with the linked files.

I saved an IDML file and transfered it over to an Intel-based computer and it worked fine. No issues.

This is perplexing.

[Peter Spier]

Did you move the links as well? That would mean they have new paths...

[CristinaWM]

Nope, files have remained in place. If they were under a different file path then they would have shown up as not linked, correct?

[Peter Spier]

That depends... ID will automatically search for links in the same path where the file is located, so unless the links are on a network drive of some sort I would expect the path to have changed and if they were in a folder you moved with the document you would not have seen an error.

[CristinaWM]

Alright, this answer led me to try something I hadn't before and got it to work.

I right clicked on a missing object,  in the contextual menu selected Graphics and selected "Reveal in Finder"(InDesign knew exactly where this was on my computer—not a server). From the finder window, I simply dragged the file into the InDesign document where the grey box was displaying and viola, there it was displaying in High Quality.

The system knew where the file was and the file had not been updated. Why did this happen? 

Thank you Peter Spier for getting me to this point.

[Peter Spier]

I really have no idea what's happening there.