File Recovery: Repair Service is Temporarily Unavailable

Report · Oct 15, 2021

Hi all

I have a damaged indesign file. Indesign shut down while I was working on another open file. That file is fine but the other is damaged. When I reopened indesign, I received a message preferences were deleted and another that the particular file was damaged and asking if I'd like to attempt file repair. Half way through loading bar it stops and I receive the message indesign could not repair 'filename' the repair service is temporarily unavailable please try again later

I've tried several times over 24hrs with same result. Other files open fine. I've tried renaming a copy as IDML in another location. Same result. All apps are up to date in CC.

Any help greatly appreciated. Is there a way to revert to an earlier version even?

Thanks! Helen

Report · Oct 15, 2021

Hi there,

Sorry to hear about your trouble. Could you please share the files with us? You can upload it to the Creative Cloud (https://helpx.adobe.com/in/creative-cloud/help/share.html) and share the download link here or via DM. We will try to recover the files. I must also inform you that file recovery can't be guaranteed with 100% success. But, we'll surely try our best.

Regards,

Anshul Saini

Report · Oct 15, 2021

Thank you so much Anshul,

Here is the link for the damaged file https://shared-assets.adobe.com/link/b233c197-2ebe-4860-71e2-3700774645ff

Warm regards, Helen

Report · Oct 15, 2021

Hi Anshul, have you received the file?

Report · Oct 21, 2021

Thank you for sharing the file. I'm afraid that we did our best but were unable to recover your file. File corruption can be caused by several factors, such as file content, converted from Adobe PageMaker, QuarkXPress, or a previous version of InDesign (if that is the case, you can share the original file from which you converted we will take a look at it), server permissions, or security settings.

To try and prevent this from happening in the future, here are some tips that should help:- It's best to save files locally to your computer
- Keep an IDML file saved as a backup (these can be opened in previous versions, which may help with file recovery)
- Always save to multiple locations if possible
- Avoid saving only on external hard drives, networks, or shared locations, Google Drive/Dropbox, etc.

Apologies again! I know how frustrating this can be.

Please feel free to reach out if you run into any other questions or issues in the future. We'd be happy to help.

Regards,

Anshul Saini

Report · Oct 23, 2021

Thanks for trying. I had recreated the file anyway as the wait between replies was too long. It's a shame nothing shows up to explain why the file corrupted. I feel it was a CC update that happened while I had the file open. I recreated the new file in exactly the same way as the original. All the same links and workflow... and no problems the next time around buit 10 hours of my time down the drain:(

Report · Oct 23, 2021

CC never updates any open application. If you try to update any application while this program is running, you will see a warning. Therefor I doubt that any CC update caused the crash or damage.

Report · Oct 24, 2021

Sorry I think my post was confusing. InDesign didn't update while I was working.... I agree that would be impossible as CC makes you close down an application to update. But Bridge most definitely did update at the same time I was working (I got the message inDesign experienced a problem and needed to close) so I wondered if that update forced the close of InDesign? Perhaps the times were coincidental.

Report · Oct 23, 2021

The size of that file is very huge. Did you embed images or did you linke them? I would strongly recommend to link files only, yt least in most cases. In my experience embedding files into InDesign is the primary cause for damaged file like this one.

I would also recomment to work on folders where you can recover a previous version. I work with dropbox. It helped me several times, when I had to recover deleted or overwritten versions of a file. It would be possible to recover a file which is damaged.

Report · Oct 23, 2021

Some more information I have found:
You used TIFF files from Canon EOS 5D2. If you do not use transparency, you can use JPG, with transparency PSD. They can remain in RGB! Don't convert them to CMYK before placing in InDesign!

I am not sure, but the broken code indicates the use of EPS files. Avoid them as they also cause damage.

Another reason for broken files are fonts. When you use some free fonts, they are often bad designed and can cause crashes, or damaged fonts or the use of T1-fonts.

If your file exceeds 12MB “Save a”…“ and not “Save“ only. It will compress the file.

If you had a crash before, “Export as IDML” Open the IDML, save as INDD and work with that file now on.
If your have so much content, make for each chapter a separate file and collect them together in an INDB Book file. It will help to get stabler files.

When you work with linked files it is important to package the project to keep all links in a single place together.

Report · Oct 24, 2021

Thank you Willi for all your suggestions. I really appreciate the time you took.

You are right that I had embedded most of my links. This job is a complex one where files come from many sources so in future I'll do as you suggest and placed them in a links folder as I go. I'm interested in why you say don't use .eps files .... should I save illustrations as .ai instead? Same with tiff... I don't purposely use this file type but clients supply in this format occasionally. Should I have to resave gthem as JPEG through photoshop?