Files turn into alias. Original file vanished

Report · May 30, 2011

We are experiencing a scary problem on some of our machines. We are using intel macs with 10.6.7.

They were using InDesign CS5 (7.0.3) at the time of the problem. Both machines have been updated to 7.0.4 and have not had the problem since.

However this has been a periodic error the whole time, so its not easy to replicate it...

This problem is as follows.

During working in InDesign it quits unexpectedly and we need to open it again.

When we locate the file (on a windows server connected with smb) it has turned into a shortcut or alias witch points to nothing.

The original file is nowhere to be found. Also, the file has been labeled with the red label from OSX...

We managed to get the log from one of these incidents:

27.05.11 13.00.11 [0x0-0x1f01f].com.adobe.InDesign[198] Fri May 27 13:00:11 MACHINENAME Adobe InDesign CS5[198] <Error>: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: _CGSFindSharedWindow: WID 7023

27.05.11 13.00.11 [0x0-0x1f01f].com.adobe.InDesign[198] Fri May 27 13:00:11 MACHINENAME Adobe InDesign CS5[198] <Error>: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSGetWindowTags: Invalid window 0x1b6f

27.05.11 13.04.09 [0x0-0x1f01f].com.adobe.InDesign[198] Fri May 27 13:04:09 MACHINENAME Adobe InDesign CS5[198] <Error>: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: _CGSFindSharedWindow: WID 7078

27.05.11 13.04.09 [0x0-0x1f01f].com.adobe.InDesign[198] Fri May 27 13:04:09 MACHINENAME Adobe InDesign CS5[198] <Error>: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSGetWindowTags: Invalid window 0x1ba6

27.05.11 13.04.36 [0x0-0x1f01f].com.adobe.InDesign[198] Fri May 27 13:04:36 MACHINENAME Adobe InDesign CS5[198] <Error>: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: _CGSFindSharedWindow: WID 7088

27.05.11 13.04.36 [0x0-0x1f01f].com.adobe.InDesign[198] Fri May 27 13:04:36 MACHINENAME Adobe InDesign CS5[198] <Error>: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSGetWindowTags: Invalid window 0x1bb0

27.05.11 13.12.12 [0x0-0x1f01f].com.adobe.InDesign[198] Fri May 27 13:12:12 MACHINENAME Adobe InDesign CS5[198] <Error>: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: _CGSFindSharedWindow: WID 7168

27.05.11 13.12.12 [0x0-0x1f01f].com.adobe.InDesign[198] Fri May 27 13:12:12 MACHINENAME Adobe InDesign CS5[198] <Error>: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSGetWindowTags: Invalid window 0x1c00

The machinename has been altered. The error occurred 13:04:09.

So far I have not been able to find anyone else with the same error. And in was not mentioned as a fix in the 7.0.4 update we ran.

At this point we do not know when we will loose the next file, and thats not a fun situation...

Has anyone else heard of this error?

At this point even someone else with the problem but no solution would be a comfort..

Thanks

Report · May 30, 2011

I'm not an expert (since I never use servers to store files), but it sounds like a server problem. Move the files to your local drive before editing them to be safe.

Report · May 30, 2011

During working in InDesign it quits unexpectedly and we need to open it again.

Do you have the Adobe crashreporter enabled? It should be unless you have turned it off. What does the Crash Data button produce?

That is the data that would be useful. [It will also be long. Upload it to pastebin.com and post a link here.]

We managed to get the log from one of these incidents:
27.05.11 13.00.11 [0x0-0x1f01f].com.adobe.InDesign[198] Fri May 27 13:00:11 MACHINENAME Adobe InDesign CS5[198] <Error>: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: _CGSFindSharedWindow: WID 7023
27.05.11 13.00.11 [0x0-0x1f01f].com.adobe.InDesign[198] Fri May 27 13:00:11 MACHINENAME Adobe InDesign CS5[198] <Error>: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSGetWindowTags: Invalid window 0x1b6f

This is almost certainly unrelated. It's an error from the Macintosh Core Graphics API about an invalid window. But it's not a fatal error and it happens many times before your crash. And it is unlikely to have anything to do with the filesystem.

You should really try to look at the crash log itself. Also, Steve's reasoning is definitely sound!

Report · Jul 29, 2011

Is there any solution yet for this problem?

We also have this problem.

It seems as if it happens more frequenty the last week.

We work on Indesign 7.0.4 on new MAC's - and also on a Window server - like you.

Indesign files just dissapear into an alias that leads to nowhere.

My collegue wanted to open an Indesign file this morning, which he did not work on for a while, and saw it had been changed into an alias, which was not leading to a file.

Yesterday I worked on a file and saw the file change into an alias. Because I did not close it, I could name it differently, and safe my file!!!

We are desperately looking for a solution here. And asked Adobe for help also.

Report · Jul 29, 2011

Hello, Liesbeth:

It seemed to me that the person asking the original question didn't come back and provide the details I asked for that would enable us to understand what was going on. But perhaps you can!!

Are you seeing the crashing problem? Or just the bizarre transmogrification into aliaes?

Can you tell us more about your Windows fileserver? What software and version is it running? For that matter, what MacOS version are your clients running? Presumably you are connecting with SMB not AFP?

Where do the aliases point? Does Get Info in the Finder (or ls -l in Terminal) give you any more information?

This sounds just plain weird. I would tend to pin the blame on the fileserver, though. It's not as if InDesign ever creates an alias under normal operation, so it's not as if it should be easy for it do so inadvertantly during some sort of fault condition. But it's tough to say.

How reproducible is this problem? How often does it occur? How many clients do you have? Do you have an automated backup system?

Report · Aug 02, 2011

Sorry for my late response. Its been very hectic and then a long vacation

The problem i still around.

There are 3 different machines with this issue now. All of them have been updated to InDesign 7.0.4, so that did not help.

All the machines are using 10.6.

I do not have access to the crash data at this point.

We are connecting to the windows server via SMB.

The files are on a 2008 Storage Server with all the latest updates.

Report · Aug 02, 2011

Dear,

i send your mail through to our IT.

This problem is very serious - but nog yet solved.

Thanks for your mail.

Met vriendelijke groeten / Kind regards,

Liesbeth

Report · Aug 02, 2011

Liesbeth,

Please remove the autoquote and your personal information when replying by email. Your response is posted to the web.

Report · Aug 02, 2011

So, rereading this thread,I see two different flavors of problems.

wiitho sees crashes and after the crashes the file turns into a null-pointing alias.

Liesbeth sees files turning into aliases, without crashes.

Can you confirm? Wiitho, do you always see crashes, or just sometimes? Liesbeth, do you never see crashes.

In any case, wiitho said:

I do not have access to the crash data at this point.

Well, it's pretty clear. With the crash data, we can tell you what is going on. Without it, we cannot. So please go get it.

It should not be difficult. Fire up Console.app and look in ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter.

Report · Aug 08, 2011

On Friday I went to get the crashlog but did not find any.

When I didnt find it I rechecked with the user and it turns out I was not remembering correctly. Im sorry about that..

InDesign does not crash during this error.

The files just "magically" turns into aliases witch dont lead anywhere.

The red label on the alias seems to be consistent.

Its a periodic error, so I have no means of producing the error for research.

So with no crashlog I guess we are back at square one...

But at least the error seems more identical now

Thomas

Report · Aug 08, 2011

Thanks for looking.

It sounds like this will remain a mystery for some time.

If you can achieve a reproducible test case, there are some tools we can use to see what InDesign is doing to the files it writes to and manipulates, and that might be instructive. But they'll produce an extraordinary amount of output if left running, so it's really necessary that you have a test case before we go that route.

You could also ask Adobe Support if they have seen your problem.

Report · Jan 17, 2012

Hello again!

The issue is still unresolved, and yesterday it happened again.

At the same time as it happened I found this again in the log:

16.01.12 11.24.14 Adobe InDesign CS5[214] kCGErrorIllegalArgument: _CGSFindSharedWindow: WID 923
16.01.12 11.24.14 Adobe InDesign CS5[214] kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSGetWindowTags: Invalid window 0x39b
16.01.12 11.24.14 [0x0-0x1f01f].com.adobe.InDesign[214] Mon Jan 16 11:24:14 Svein-Bremerthuns-Mac-Pro-5.local Adobe InDesign CS5[214] <Error>: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: _CGSFindSharedWindow: WID 923
16.01.12 11.24.14 [0x0-0x1f01f].com.adobe.InDesign[214] Mon Jan 16 11:24:14 Svein-Bremerthuns-Mac-Pro-5.local Adobe InDesign CS5[214] <Error>: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSGetWindowTags: Invalid window 0x39b
16.01.12 11.29.18 /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder[104] getattrscore: EINVAL from getattrlist() getting {27c60a, 0, 4, 3600, 0} at /Volumes/Hovedpolet/W/Wilson/2012/28615 Årsrapport 2011/Dummy omslag2011.indd
16.01.12 11.31.49 Adobe InDesign CS5[214] kCGErrorIllegalArgument: _CGSFindSharedWindow: WID 975
16.01.12 11.31.49 Adobe InDesign CS5[214] kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSGetWindowTags: Invalid window 0x3cf
16.01.12 11.31.49 [0x0-0x1f01f].com.adobe.InDesign[214] Mon Jan 16 11:31:49 Svein-Bremerthuns-Mac-Pro-5.local Adobe InDesign CS5[214] <Error>: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: _CGSFindSharedWindow: WID 975
16.01.12 11.31.49 [0x0-0x1f01f].com.adobe.InDesign[214] Mon Jan 16 11:31:49 Svein-Bremerthuns-Mac-Pro-5.local Adobe InDesign CS5[214] <Error>: kCGErrorIllegalArgument: CGSGetWindowTags: Invalid window 0x3cf
16.01.12 11.34.20 PubSubAgent[1103] EntryCore: Multiple authors not supported yet (ignoring subsequent ones)

This is the same error as last time.

This time the customer tried to click on the document in the "Open recent window" and he was able to open it.

Other than that it was the same as the previous times.

We have contacted adobe a few months ago. They had not heard about the problem and seemed to take it serious.

We have however not heard anything after the case was opened..

Report · Jan 17, 2012

I contacted Adobe again, and they have now concluded that the customer need to work locally.

They claim to "not support servers".

At this point I guess we will have to work on how to make that work in the workflow in the office..

Report · Jan 17, 2012

I think I remember a bug, which may have nothing to do with this and should have been patched before 7.0.4, that allowed multiple users to access a file at the same time over the network. That line about Multiple authors not supported yet brought it to mind.

What is the language locaization for this installation?

Report · Jan 17, 2012

Its a norwegian version.

InDesign is 100% updated, so if it has been patched it cant be the same error.

Adobe explained the error as a failure to create lock files when working with a document on a server.

However, the problem is periodic and have just happened >10 times during a year.

Every file worked on for that period of time has been on a server.

Report · Jan 17, 2012

wiitho wrote:
Its a norwegian version.

I bet that has a lot to do with it. It's not all that uncommon, unfortunately, for non-US localizations to have their own bugs. There's a good chance this wouldn't have shown up in testing if it's as obscure as it seems. I don't think there are a lot of testers for Norwegian betas.

Report · Feb 14, 2012

We've just experienced the same alias creation issue as others have experienced here.

What has happened is that we work off a server (Windows based, using SMB) and the server went down. When my colleague went to re-open the file, it had converted to an alias.

We're not using any localisation version of InDesign and it's version 7.5 (CS5.5) running on Mac OS X 10.7.2.

Any thoughts? Apart from not working from the server?

- Alex

Report · Feb 14, 2012

Is it 7.5.2.318?

In any case, do you have a reproducible case? Is it the server going down that causes it, or the client getting disconnected? [can you unplug the client from the network?]

I think the thing to do is to enable debugging on the fileserver, but that's going to require help from an experienced server administrator.

Any thoughts? Apart from not working from the server?

Well, I tend to think Macs work more smoothly with AFP than with SMB...

Report · Jan 17, 2012

Hello, wiitho:

The issue is still unresolved, and yesterday it happened again.

Does this mean the problem has not occured for the past 4 months?

At the same time as it happened I found this again in the log:
This is the same error as last time.

Which one are we talking about here? Please be specific? This time your log has:

16.01.12 11.29.18 /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder[104] getattrscore: EINVAL from getattrlist() getting {27c60a, 0, 4, 3600, 0} at /Volumes/Hovedpolet/W/Wilson/2012/28615 Årsrapport 2011/Dummy omslag2011.indd

which seems like the only thing that could conceivably be pertinent. Is this the file that is being worked on? This is the Finder reporting that it was unable to access the file attributes assocaited with this file, presumably because it is no longer a file. As such, it is perhaps an indicator that this problem has occurred, but gives no information about the cause.

I suppose that the invalid window events could correlate with this problem, but that is not very convincing [and also, sadly, not very helpful even if they did].

I contacted Adobe again, and they have now concluded that the customer need to work locally.
They claim to "not support servers".

Well, that's trouble. I would ask them, very firmly, for a clear affirmative statement of what they do not support, and how it could possibly be the case that they do not support servers when they themselves recommend server-based workflows (e.g. for InCopy/InDesign interaction).

But that said, it may well be that the file server is part of the problem. It certainly adds to the complexity, and being able to determine whether it is or is not a required component of the failure is important.

Either way, I would try to get your file server administrator to debug this, perhaps with debugging logs on the server.

But that really brings us back to where we were in August...can you find any way to trigger this problem?

Because trying to debug things that happen only once every four months is a losing proposition...

Report · Mar 21, 2012

Hi,

We are having the same problem using Indesign 5.5 (version 7.5.2). We have had this happen to different people in our team working Mac OSX 10.7.3 (Lion) and Mac OX 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard. Before this we were using CS3 on Snow Leopard only with no problem.

We work off a server and it's not feasible for us to work locally.

It's only been happening for a week (4 times) and we have been using Indesign 5.5 for about a month. Nothing crashes it just turns into an alias. No crash report info generated.

If anyone has an alias at the moment could they please post the file size of the alias: is it still a large file – ie: the same size as the Indesign file that it was before? Or is it small file (which is typical of an alias).

We have been trying to replicate the problem, but no luck replicating it yet.

Thanks

Lisa

Report · Mar 22, 2012

Hi,

We also had this problem pop up this morning. Well actually since upgrading to Lion at the end of last month on two of our design stations running Indesign 5.5 and Lion we started seeing crashes. My machine would have this problem when it would go to sleep. When I woke it up the server connection was lost and Indesign crashed. I would also get error messages of possible file corruption. That never happend until this morning when the file showed up as an alias. The file still retained the 46.8Mb size. I tried copying it to my desktop and it retained the alias icon. So as a workaround I discoverd that if I sent it to myself through yousendit. it would remove the Alias icon and I was able to open the file. I don't know how to fix the main problem, but I hope this helps to not loose a file.

Report · Jan 21, 2013

I've had 2 different Indesign 6 files turn into an alias on a PC server in the last 2 days. The first one I had IT recover from backup. The second one I tried emailing to myself and then downloading to the desktop and it reverted back to its Indesign format so I could open.

Report · Jan 24, 2013

We have had this same problem occured also with Photoshop. We are using Windows Server 2008 and Samba shares with Mac 10.6.8 and 10.7.1 Our solution was to open the corrupted PSD file on PC and save it again with Photoshop to different name. Hopefully this gets resolved.

Report · Apr 16, 2012

We still have this error from time to time, however there is a new development that is making me think that this migth be an OS problem.

The OS in question is Mac OS 10.6.

The new variant of the problem is that a folder now have turned into an alias, and this can of course not have anything to do with InDesign.

Does anyone have any input?

As this seems to not nessecarily be related to InDesign anymore I will keep searching elsewhere as well.

Report · Apr 16, 2012

Hi Wiitho,

Which version of CS are you using? It seems strange that we never had this problem on the Mac we use operating OS 10.6 when using CS3 but when we upgraded to CS5.5 files randomly turned into alias. Technically they are not alias files as they are not small KB files, they retain the same amount of information as the original Indesign files, so I wonder if there is an easier way to change them back rather than emailing them (which is a great fix though when in need). Will ask my IT guy again and see if he has any other deductions. Thanks for the update!