Files and folders disappearing Indesign Win10

[smaunune]

After updating Indesign to CC 2018 I've encountered a very alarming behavior. When working on a document on Indesign, files and even folders suddenly disappear from HDD. These seem to be files that are linked to document or subfolders that are in the same folder as opened .indd file.

- Running Windows 10 with latest updates.

- HDD where the files disappeared is local (same as OS).

- Today a folder disappeared from a Google Cloud synced folder (if it makes a difference?)
- Happened too many times for me to just zone off and delete them by accident

Folders are simply gone. They are not replaced or renamed - I have run search, checked trash and even tried Recuva to find them. I can see the files in recent files shortcuts, but they link to missing media. I've run diagnostics and HDD and OS should be just fine. Virus and malware scans are green. This problem does not affect any other files - just jpg, .indd, .pdf and other files made or associated with Indesign (or maybe some other CC program).

I've lost tens of hours of work to this weird issue. I have started to mirror all folders containing .indd files to cloud so that I can restore them, but I have to do this at least once a day. And it is pretty tedious thing even with back ups.

Anyone else having issues of missing files?  Is this OS or CC? Bug or by design?

There seems to been few similar issues, but I couldn't find a definitive solution/cause.

Disappearing Files - Adobe Indesign Window
.indd file gone minutes after saving?!

InDesign File Missing - Graphic Design Stack Exchange

[BobLevine]

That sounds like malware of some sort. No way I can think of for InDesign to just delete folder and files from your harddrive.

Windows 10 is now at version 1803.

[Laubender]

Hi Bob,

there is Google Drive into play here. Don't know, but maybe someone removed shared content? Or moved it to a different place?

Regards,
Uwe

[smaunune]

Google Drive wasn't it as I am only user and the folders disappear from HDD but not from drive, but there might've been a malware. 

I had run Malwarebytes and Norton suite deepscan, but they had missed it. Today I purchased Bitdefender Total Security 2018 and it spotted a suspected trojan in Creative Cloud folder and disinfected it.

\Adobe\Adobe Creative Cloud\Experience\js\node_modules\ffi\build\Release\ffi_bindings.node_modules\ffi\build\Release\ffi_bindings.node

Gen:Trojan.Heur.LP.jy5@aSQO4Lci

Google has very little hits on this, this 2014 thread pinpoints it to Adobe Reader.
Virus - Gen:Trojan:Heur.LP.Ev5@auW5fMI

[dannygarber]

Get rid of Norton. Causes more problems than solutions. Try Avast Antivirus. www.avast.com

[AaronWinters]

Im having this identical problem.  This is becoming chronic and ongoing. NLocally saved files. Win10.

Most recent instance, saved and closed INDD on Friday. Opened next on Tuesday morning. Between the 2 sessions, I exported to v3, v4, v5 PDFs as client proofs. When going to re-open maybe 30 minutes later to update, and export what would be v6 PDF: INDD file is gone. 

It is not in trash.

It is not returned in search, either locally or by my IT department on any redundant servers.

The shortcut appears in the File > Open Recent list, but file is not found.

The visual thumbnail screen seems to be very selective as to what files it sees as Recent.

Fortunately, for this particular file, I caught it quickly and IT was able to restore backup from Friday night. But I recently hit a 'dead zone' in which NO INDD files were found between 12/19 and 1/11. Its not remotely possible I didnt touch INDD for 3 weeks... first of year I'm updating annual forms like crazy.

I'm beginning to think it might be possible Creative Cloud is trying to sync against our agency's ISO policies and returning null results for certain file types. Essentially overriding files with an empty cloud version. We dont use the CC cloud storage for ISO reasons, so we save everything to local C and H drives. That explanation of phantom sync doesnt make a lot of sense butu no one on our end has any idea what's going on.