In Design crashing when trying to open large file

[theresaw95383599]

Hello!

I am trying to open a rather large catalog file in InDesign (2.27 GB). Every time I attempt to open it, it fails and crashes InDesign with a message about a serious error being detected. I have tried uninstalling and re-installing InDesign and clearing my cache - neither have worked. I have tried opening the file from two different source (my hard drive and my external drive) with the same result. The first time I tried opening it after re-installing InDesign, there was a progress bar indicting that it was converting the file - thought the file is the same type (2017) as the version I'm running. Any ideas what could be the problem? Is my file corrupt? And if it is, is there an option for recovering it?

Many thanks in advance for any thoughts or help you have to offer!

[Monica Singh]

Hi Theresaw,

Thanks for writing to us about the issue you are facing while working with InDesign.

Since this issue is specific to file. It would be more helpful if you can share your file for investigation.

Please share the indd file with placed images, since it is heavy file, you may have to share via dropbox, weshare etc for sharing.

You may drop your file at monsingh@adobe.com    

Thanks

Monica Singh

[theresaw95383599]

Thanks! I'm going to share the file via DropBox.

[theresaw95383599]

I just found that I can get the file to open in InDesign 2015 - is there any reason this would be the case?

[Monica Singh]

Thanks for reverting really fast.

It's a great find dear that you are able to work fine in InDesign CC 2015, seems like something needs investigation at InDesign CC 2017 end.

Now I would recommend you to create the package of file using InDesign CC 2015 and share that with us,

To create a package, Open the file, Go to File-->Package.

Any help is appreciated.

Regards,

Monica Singh

InDesign Team

[theresaw95383599]

Would it be enough just to share the InDesign file? The package is too large to send this way.

[Monica Singh]

Hi theresaw,

It's Ok, Please share the InDesign file first. But, If that is sufficient for me to investigate the issue, I can only tell after trying it at my end.

Thanks,

Monica Singh

[Abambo]

You may try saving the file as an IDML (file->save as...) file and reading that file into 2017. If the file contains something "corrupt" then you could walk around this with the IDML file.

But I suppose it is anyhow interesting for Adobe looking into your (corrupt) file.

[theresaw95383599]

Thanks! I'm going to give that a try!

[BobLevine]

How in the world did you create a file that large? The only way I can think of would be to embed all of the graphics which is not at all recommended. The fact that you can get this thing open at all in any version is surprising.

Open it and then unembed the images. Afterward, do a file save as to shrink the file up.

That should go a long way to fixing this.

[theresaw95383599]

It does appear that some of my images were embedded and I am un-embedding them. Thanks!

[Abambo]

BobLevine  wrote

The fact that you can get this thing open at all in any version is surprising.

For sure, it doesn't help, but basically, InDesign should be able to handle it. But the probability, that a small bug in InDesign will cause a side effect is much higher with files of that size.And opening, saving, navigation inside the file should be slow up to unworkable.

I agree with your recipe: linking the graphics will be much more desirable to keep InDesign and the computer system happy.

[BobLevine]

A file that is more than 2GB is going to be very prone to corruption. Again, fix it while you still can.

[theresaw95383599]

Any idea why some images come in and embed while others do not? I didn't embed them knowingly...

[theresaw95383599]

And I also don't believe my file size was this large when I sent it to the printer, come to think of it. Could it have happened when they used it and sent it back to me? I believe the file was large - maybe 150-200MB - but not this large.

[BobLevine]

Why did you send a native file to the printer? PDF would be a preferred workflow.

[theresaw95383599]

That was what they requested. I agree - I normally send a pdf.

[Abambo]

When I request the InDesign file from a contractor, that means that I want to modify the file. Do you still have your original version?