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turner111
Inspiring
July 7, 2025
Question

ID "Quits Unexpectedly" when it's fine...

  • July 7, 2025
  • 6 replies
  • 771 views

Every time I quit ID (purposely) I get a popup saying it quit unexpectedly.

I mean, it may have not been anticipating that I was closing it, but still.... 😉

Any known reasons for this?

    6 replies

    Mike Witherell
    Community Expert
    Mike WitherellCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    July 15, 2025

    Doc, all I can see in the video is the Swatches panel changing a lot. You have the advantage of seeing all the context. So I really cannot guess any further. I agree with you about software apps sometimes having what strikes us as a strange logic. Really, getting to know a software also means getting to know its idiosyncrasies and bugs. That is why this user-to-user forum exists: to help uncover hard-to-understand things.

    Mike Witherell
    Mike Witherell
    Community Expert
    Mike WitherellCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    July 15, 2025

    Doc, I wish software never messed up, too, but that is not the case. InDesign (and many others) does need to be reset pretty frequently in order to solve problems. If you go back a patch or a whole version, you are avoiding the problem; not fixing it. 

     

    When you Ctrl-Tab among open InDesign documents, the Swatches panel will show you the current Stroke color or the current Fill color, according to the current state of each document. The swatches listed are according to what is in each separate document. What you are missing in your video is showing whether Stroke or Fill is active as you go thru each document; what Tool are you in as you go thru each document; whether you began at None or not in each document; whether you were sitting on an active Paragraph or Character Style for each document (which calls for a Swatch). I think you are misunderstanding what you see, but that is based on the limited info you are sharing with me. 

    Mike Witherell
    D
    Doc Maik
    Legend
    July 15, 2025

    "what Tool are you in as you go thru each document" - I wrote 'nothing selected (no object, no text edit mode)'. So, not really a tool active, unless you consider the object selector (black mouse pointer) a tool.

     

    "What you are missing in your video is showing whether Stroke or Fill is active " - With nothing selected, neither should be active. However, with the swatches panel open in the video you see what of both is active. 

     

    One thing I learned now: without anything being selected, you can select a swatch and ID seems to remember that and also considers it a change to the document, as the asterisk will show up in the tab header. In some other case, like when placing an multi-page PDF or INDD it wouldn't remember the option "Pages: All", so I have to set it every time. For me, this is weird software logic.

    leo.r
    Community Expert
    leo.rCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    July 15, 2025
    quote

    One thing I learned now: wihtout anything being selected, you can select a swatch and ID seems to remember that and also considers it a change to the document, as the asterisk will show up in the tab header. For me, this is weird software logic.


    By @Doc Maik

     

    It's a standard - and indispensable - behavior of most InDesign properties: when you choose a setting (a swatch, style etc.) while nothing is selected, it becomes the default choice for the document (or for the app, if no documents are open).

    Mike Witherell
    Community Expert
    Mike WitherellCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    July 9, 2025

    Hi Turner,

    Likely problem-solving usually means trying to reset preferences of InDesign. 

    Generally, there are 4 degrees of reset strategies. All of these various reset strategies and other experimentation (maybe the document is corrupted) are described in this compendium of troubleshooting. I hope this helps.

    Mike Witherell
      D
      Doc Maik
      Legend
      July 9, 2025

      This is something Adobe should troubleshoot in their software, not us. Yes, this "trash your prefs" action is often the last resort and does indeed help sometimes, but another solution - at least that's how I do it - may be to go back to a version where this didn't yet happen. Unfortunately, you a) gotta remember in what version this wasn't yet present and b) still have it available for installation, which isn't always the case. I just went back from 20.4.1 to 20.2 because of several new issues with the spelling checker and the composer, though knowing that 20.2 already has this crash issue. Going back also means to better have a backup of the workspace file, the keyboard shortcuts file, the ID preds and custom Find/Change queries, because the installer will delete everything. 

      Do you know, Mike, how weird Indesign can be? An example: I have three documents open, nothing selected (no object, no text edit mode). See the video. Flipping through the documents with Ctrl+Tab selects different swatches in the panel, but the indicator a) shows swatches that don't exist and b) cannot be, like the pale red on Black with a tint of 20. 

        Bill Silbert
        Community Expert
        Bill SilbertCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        July 9, 2025

        Since this problem is not happening universally I wonder if it has something to do with third party InDesign plug-ins. First, if you are using any plug-ins make sure that they have been updated to the latest version and are fully compatible with InDesign's latest version. Further try disabling any plug-ins and see if the strange InDesign "unexpected quitting" continues after doing so.

          T
          turner111Author
          Inspiring
          July 9, 2025

          Thanks - no plugins for me.

          D
          Doc Maik
          Legend
          July 9, 2025

          An old problem, still not solved by Adobe after months. Many have reported this, I also have it. See the "Related conversations" here on the right side.

          I once found a page where it's said to be solved in a beta version, which is also months since and doesn't yet seem to have made it into a final release. The worst is, that this crash might mess your workspace settings, so they're saved sometimes and sometimes don't. 

          What I noticed: it might depend on how much time passes after you closed the last document and until you close ID. At least for me, it doesn't always crash. ID does a lot of background stuff, way too much considering how many processes it opens, and crashes because closing it sort of terminates one or several background tasks before they're finished. Just an idea.

            Abhishek Rao
            Community Manager
            Abhishek RaoCommunity Manager
            Community Manager
            July 9, 2025

            Hi @Doc Maik,

             

            Thanks so much for sharing your detailed thoughts here. I really appreciate the time you took to explain what you've noticed, and I completely understand how frustrating this long-standing crash can be, especially when it messes with your workspace settings.

            I'd suggest trying the recommendation from the expert Bill as a first step. Please check if you have any third-party plug-ins installed, and make sure they're fully updated and compatible with the latest InDesign version. You can also try disabling them to see if that helps with the unexpected quit behavior.

            Additionally, it would be great if you could run the Creative Cloud Cleaner tool to remove any old traces of the application before reinstalling. Here's the link: https://adobe.ly/3GxsVtF

            Let me know how it goes after trying these steps.

             

            Looking forward to your update, so we can keep working on this together!

            Abhishek 

            Abhishek Rao
            Community Manager
            Abhishek RaoCommunity Manager
            Community Manager
            July 7, 2025

            Hi @turner111,

             

            Thank you for sharing this, and I have to say, your description definitely made me smile!

            Could you please confirm which version of InDesign you're using and also share the details of your operating system? I'd also like to know if this happens only with a particular file or even when you quit after working on a brand new document.

            It would be great if you could try the steps mentioned in this article to see if that helps: https://adobe.ly/4nA7zfN

            Additionally, if you see the Adobe crash reporter dialog box pop up, please make sure to send the report including your email(over DM on the community) and a brief description so we can investigate the logs. Reference: https://adobe.ly/3GxDexI

            If not, I suggest testing the issue in Safe Mode and also under a new local admin user profile to rule out any OS-level conflicts. You can follow these links for help:
            New user (Mac): https://adobe.ly/4lei4DQ
            New user (Windows): https://adobe.ly/462DY8F
            Safe Mode (Windows): https://adobe.ly/44kvWGM
            Safe Mode (macOS): https://adobe.ly/3TWAgG2

             

            Looking forward to your update so I can continue assisting you!

            Abhishek 

            T
            turner111Author
            Inspiring
            July 9, 2025

            Hi Abishek,

            System version is MacOS 15.5 (24F74), ID is 20.4.1. No plugins.
            IIt happens every time I quit.I'll send the crash report when it opens.

             

            I'll have to try the other steps a bit later.

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