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 · Sep 24, 2024

This just happened to me. I use the MacOS Sunoma system. I decided to clean up my desktop. I dragged the hundreds of folders and files that were cluttering my desktop to a newly created folder.

After doing this, almost all of the files became Alias (shortcut) in the new folder. I returned the files to where they were, to the desktop, and they no longer opened. An error message appeared, saying the shortcut was not found. I noticed that these files and folders had lost their original size and were now just a few bytes.

I also noticed that my trash was full of files. That's when I found the files that had become shortcuts in the trash. They went to the trash and I wasn't the one who deleted them. Thank goodness I didn't empty the trash. I ran the command to Put back the files to the desktop, and asked it to replace all of the same names.

It worked! The shortcuts were replaced by the files that were in the trash. The files and folders are working normally now.

Report · Sep 24, 2024

is it possible you have iCloud sync turned on for your Desktop, which is responsible for this (although it's still strange your files ended up in the trash). or some other 3rd-party sync tool that does this?