Gremlins have moved into my Indesign

[Ruu2]

Hello!
I am working on a book project--near completion. Suddenly this morning, the spinning wheel of death appeared. I have tried several ways to get back to work:
I restarted my computer.
I updated my InDesign application
I uninstalled and whent through all the motions again.

I am now unable to open any of my indd documents because a window pops up asking if I want to recover that original book file. No matter which option I choose (Cancel, No, Recover0, the application crashes.
Briefly I was able to open the document with an older version of InDesign. Worked for an hour--but now the same thing is happening with this version of Indesign too!!!
Help!!
I am working on iMac Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020. Running macOS Catalina version 10.15.6
Until around 9am this morning InDesign 2023 was working fine.
Thank you for reading...
~Eva

[Derek Cross]

Sounds like a document corruption, that's why it's always important to save incrementally name copies so you can revert to an earlier version should this occur.

Try and save a copy as an IDML version to clear out the crud that builds up and open it again as a new InDesign document to see if that resolves the issue.

[Ruu2]

Thank you for your response. I had luck by changing the file name and opening it with Indesign 2021. Fingers crossed that this continues to work since the deadline is looming.

My concern now is that neither of my 2022 and 2023 versions of Indesign are working. When I try to open either one of them, they both search for that original corrupted file—then they crash. I am not able to open any other file as it goes through the same steps of trying to find the book file.
I have tried to uninstall, update, then restart. But those steps haven't helped. Can you offer any advice on how to get rid of the ghosts?

[Peter Spier]

Just so you understand, the conversion you did from version 18 to version 16 was, in fact, a conversion through the use of .idml, but on Adobe's servers instead of local.

To get the other versions working again go to your user library (hidden by default on Mac) and open the Caches folder in the two version of the InDesign folder you will find at Hard Drive/Users/<USER>/Library/Caches/Adobe InDesign/<Version #>/<Language>/ In ththose folders you will find a folder named InDesign Recovery. Delete the recovery data in that folder and InDesign should work again.

[Bill Silbert]

In your account of the troubleshooting steps you took you never mentioned trashing your InDesign preferences. This process resets the program to its defaults and along with Peter's suggestion will, hopefully, get all of your InDesign versions working correctly.

To do so on a Mac:

The User Library folder in which InDesign’s preferences are stored is hidden by default on most Macintoshes. To access it make sure that InDesign is closed and click on the desktop to launch a Finder Window (Command-N). With this window in column view follow the path User>Home folder (it’s the folder with an icon that looks like a house—it may have the user’s name rather than “Home”) and click on the Home folder. With the Option Key pressed choose Library from the Finder Go Menu. “Library” will now appear within the Home folder. Within the Library folder find the folder called Preferences and within it find the folder called “Adobe InDesign” and the file called “com.adobe.InDesign.plist” and delete both that folder and that file. When InDesign is next launched it will create new preference files and the program will be restored to its defaults.

The advantage of manually deleting preference files in this manner is that after you’ve reset up the program (make sure that no document window is open) to your liking, you can create copies of your personalized “mint” preference files (make sure that you quit the program before copying them—that finalizes your customization) and use them in the future to replace any corrupt versions you may need to delete.

[Ruu2]

Thank you for the detailed instructions.
I have worked my way to the Home folder, but there is no Library folder to be found there. See screenshot attached.
I am not sure what is the Finder Go Menu?
I also did not find the Cache as suggested by Peter.

I very rarely do anything behind the curtain so I need to ask for more instructions.

[Ruu2]

Correction. I found a Library folder but not in the User folder.
I found some preferences but none specifically for inDesign.

[Peter Spier]

see https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/global/access-hidden-user-library-files.html

[Bill Silbert]

As I said in my first post: "The User Library folder in which InDesign’s preferences are stored is hidden by default on most Macintoshes. To access it make sure that InDesign is closed and click on the desktop to launch a Finder Window (Command-N). With this window in column view follow the path User>Home folder (it’s the folder with an icon that looks like a house—it may have the user’s name rather than “Home”) and click on the Home folder. With the Option Key pressed choose Library from the Finder Go Menu. “Library” will now appear within the Home folder." The InDesign preference file is in the Library folder that is within the Home folder. 

[Grundoon Groundhog]

Unfortuantely these instructions don't work for me. Command-N opens "Recents" folder; no icon of a house anywhere. I managed to get to a Library, but can't find the InDesign preference folder. When I have uninstalled InDesign and reinstalled without saving the preferences my problems continued.

[Derek Cross]

To reset the InDesign preferences back to the factory defaults, do this:
1) Close InDesign
2) Double click on Adobe InDesign's icon to launch it
3) QUICKLY hold down Ctrl+Alt+Shift. (for Windows) or CTL+OPT+CMD+Shift (for Mac OS X)
4) When a dialogue appears, asking you “Delete InDesign Preference Files?” Click Yes.
If you don't see the question repeat the procedure again.