Help: Either the file does not exist, you do not have permission, or the file may be in use

[NjuJorka]

I really need some serious help -- can't open my Indesign file. It says "Either the file does not exist, you do not have permission, or the file may be in use by another application." Been working all weekend to finish this project and I just don't know what to do now.

Here's the chronology of events:

1. I saved my document last night, but left the document open in Indesign and the computer on when I went to take a nap. When I Indesign crashed.

2. At reboot, when I tried to open the file (which is in an external drive), it prompted me with the recovery dialog box, with choices of recovering the data or document now, later or discarding the recovery. I chose none and just "x" the dialog box. I thought if I did that, it will open the file anyway. But no, it didn't.

3. I shut down that computer (I was working with CS4 in Windows 7 where this all happened. That Windows 7 is in Macbook with dual boot - OSX and bootcamp with Windows 7. )

4. I tried to open the file this time from my other Windows computer, but all it says is "Either the file does not exist, you do not have permission, or the file may be in use by another application."

I'm thinking the problem has got to do with my not dealing with the document recovery right after the software crashed. I'd like to know if there's any way for me to get that recovery or at least use/open the file that I have?

Please help and thanks in advance.

[Daniel Flavin]

Look in the folder where the file is saved. there will be an InDesign "Lock File", .indl, which tells other users the file is open by another station.

Delete the lock file.

[NjuJorka]

Thanks Daniel, I did just that yesterday and it didn't help. Still couldn't open the file. I remember reading yesterday somewhere that you have to do the recovery as soon as you reopen the program and the file. Ignoring that step or accessing your file from another computer makes the recovery impossible. Has anyone experienced this?

I'm thinking this is what happened in my case, thus no amount of recovery effort will bring back the lost recovered data.

It's not easy. I gave up hope last night and decided to just recreate the magazine, the deadline of which is today. The InDesign Lock file has advanatges, but it also has its drawbacks. Perhaps it would serve designers well if Indesign will have an option to turn that feature off.

[Peter Spier]

Sometimes choosing Open as a Copy will solve the problem, at which point you should immediately Save As with another name.

[NjuJorka]

Thank you, Peter. I hope this works.I'll try that and let you know.

[sigi.mara]

Hi, I had the same problem. My solution is renema file and open as a copy. Than you can save it.

Hope it helps you!

[l_fekete]

Hi guys!

I have some problem...

• earlyer a worked with mac.
• i have copied all files (eg. psd, jpg, tiff) whats i use for the print from mac to a win NTFS formatted harddisk.
• if i open an old indesign doc for edit or create a NEW indesign document in some case a can not place pictures because i get this error message like in topic adress (Either the file does not exist, you do not have permission, or the file may be in use)

Perhaps in win-mac file rights the error?

Thanks for the help!

[l_fekete]

My solution for Win8-users:

In original harddisk was a EFI partition what can't seeing in win-explorer. And can't erase normally. Firts backup the files to an another disk. Then yuo need delete this EFI partition on harddisk (find the help: Delete an EFI partition in Windows 7 | HowTo)

Then must format the whool harddisk. Copy back the original files and it works ok!

[boskoff]

My solution was to remove all special characters from the name of the file (it was a Polish Word file I could not import to InDesign CC, and there were Polish characters in the file name).

Hope it works for some of you at least!

[Marypop]

Thank you boskoff That helped me

[ziele1985]

I have similar problem. One person is downloading images (psg, tiff, jpg) to shared folder and other people working on them in ID. When this files have polish characters the error appears when we want insert them to ID. When changed to normal character everything is ok. But when person who is working in ID will download himself this file to same shared location everything is ok (even with polish characters). Do you have any ideas what could be changed in system?

[Willi Adelberger]

Avoid extended characters as they are causing always problems in file names. Same is with German Umlaute (ÄÖÜäöü)  and sz (ß) and other symbols.

[ziele1985]

But everything is good when someone who is working in ID is downloading this files (with polish characters). I think there is something with user privileges on storage.

[susanneh50650640]

Thank you boskoff!!

[emmat54177953]

Thank you so much for this! I had a very important file that corrupted and this was the key to saving it! I just took away all of the "_" and "-" and it opened right away!

[Alves_claudia]

I had the same problem, rename the file and copy to a different location. Should work!

[Sir-GEE-O]

When opening InDesign, hold Shift+CTRL+ Alt and clear your preferences with the dialogue window that comes up. Then, when the file opens, relink the media. That fixed it for me.

[captainjman2]

File could not be linked within InDesign, the solution was to open InDesign and cancel the recovery of files and then close InDesign. Repeat this proccess until InDesign doesn't want to recover any more files. Open the file, link the files and the link should work correctly.

[SDSAutomation]

In my case, and I'm on a Mac running El Cap 10.11.3, it had to do with the file path. I had used a forward slash in the folder name and once I changed that to a dash, the problem resolved. This seems odd, as I'm sure I've done this before, so it may have something to do with the way El Cap reads directories. Hope this helps.

[davids65]

I also found this to be true. In my case, a folder used for filing had a forward slash in the name. As soon as I removed it, and resaved the file, it works now.

[annettemarieprice]

Thanks, pony67890, that helped me.

[Chad Smalley]

Thanks pony67890! I'm also on a Mac and you nailed it. This had been driving me crazy for weeks. Whole time it was just a slash in the parent folder for all my design files.

[Durojaiyes]

If you are using a Mac, I found a simple solution. Check to see if your images are in "Photos" (it's a preset folder). First create a new library folder by clicking the drop down arrow, select all of your images, right click and select move to "new folder". Your images should automatically relink. Hope it works for you.

[jeromevadon]

Good evening folks.

Oh I know that problem very well

Lucky you, I found the solution (99% of the cases)

Simply rename your document, including the ".doc/docx" extension and... Magic (encoding pb btw differents OS / Languages)

You are welcome

[kjkjlk]

how do you rename it when you can't open it