Indesign 16.4 breaks workspace

[davecourtemanche]

Since updating to 16.4, my workspace keeps resetting to Essentials. Every time I open a file, I have to reset to my preferred workspace. This is a return of a bug that happened when they first introduced the Properties panel. Resetting preferences did not solve the issue.

[Eugene Tyson]

Can you please try the suggestions in this thread

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/indesign-2020-keeps-resetting-my-workspace-and-p...

[davecourtemanche]

Yup. Did all the resets already. Haven't deleted and reinstalled yet. 

[Eugene Tyson]

If you're going delete and reinstall you'll need the Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool

https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/cc-cleaner-tool-installation-problems.html

[davecourtemanche]

I've uninstalled via the cleaner (the entire suite) and re-installed. Still broken. Every time I open a new file, it defaults to [Essentials] workspace. Super frustrating. No idea how to fix.

[Ashutosh_Mishra]

Hi there,

Sorry to hear about your experience. I see you've tried troubleshooting including the Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool as suggested earlier.

Please try creating a new user account on your machine(please follow steps here: Windows & macOS) & see how app performs there. If it shows similar behavior, please connect with Adobe technical support for further troubleshooting.

Regards,

Ashutosh

[Eugene Tyson]

I agree @Ashutosh_Mishra - a new user account would be a good troubleshooting step to understand what is going on.

[LaurenSol]

I'm having the same issue too.  I've just got a brand new laptop (literally built at the end of August), installed a fresh version of InDesign on it (version 16.4) and I'm having this issue.  I wasn't having it on my old laptop which had an older version of Indesign on it (I believe approx 16.1?) 

These troubleshooting tips from Adobe have not been helping and I genuinely think this is a big with the version.  I'm tired of updating to the latest release only to be an unwilling beta-tester for all of their bugs. 

[davecourtemanche]

Lauren,

I think I've been able to solve the issue by going into my User Library / Preferences / Indesign / Workspaces and deleting the "Essentials" workspace. Since doing that, my saved workspace is loading all the time. (the Essentials workspace gets recreated). Perhaps the workspace had become corrupted. Even though I ran all the cleaners some things seems to get left behind.

[LaurenSol]

Unfortunately this didn't work for me either.  I thought I was onto something too.

I went into my user files and deleted them all, yet when opening indesign again it still did the same thing, however I noticed that it recreated the file named "Start_CurrentWorkspace"  So I had an Idea.  I made a copy of my workspace file, and renamed it to "Start_CurrentWorkspace".  It worked... except only once!  

When I opened indesign after copying and renaming my workstation, it worked the first time I opened inDesign and my workspace displayed perfectly.  When I closed InDesign however, I noticed that InDesign saved over the "Start_CurrentWorkspace" file (judging by the Date Modified time).  The next time I opened indesign, it was broken again and the workspace didn't appear properly.

I repeated the step again and same result.  So there's something that InDesign does after you open it, where it is resetting the "Start_CurrentWorkspace" file to a really basic version.  

I feel like this type of bug just should not be happening with a completely FRESH install of InDesign on a new laptop.

[davecourtemanche]

Lauren,

Is the "properties" panel part of your workspace? When they first introduced it I had this same issue (on a different computer). When I created a workspace without that panel, it loaded fine. Just a thought to try.

[LaurenSol]

Unfortunately not 😞  I appreciate the tip though! 

[davecourtemanche]

Had this issue re-occur after updating Suitcase Fusion and installing the auto-activation plugins. De-installed the plugins and was able to fix. Months later, updated Fusion and installed the plugins again (DOH!). Broke the workspace again and this time I'm unable to fix. Removed Indesign & Suitcase and reinstalled both. Still broken. I've created a shortcut to load my workspace, which I have to do everytime I open a file. If one document is open, the workspace will be retained, otherwise I have to load my workspace. Super annoying.

[davecourtemanche]

Lauren

Figured out another workaround that seems to be holding:

In this directory:

/Applications/Adobe InDesign 2021/Presets/InDesign_Workspaces/en_US

copied my custom workspace twice and renamed:

Start.xml

Start_CurrentWorkspace.xml

Won't save changes over it, but if you've got it dialed the way you like, you can hack it that way.

[Mike Witherell]

Here is a lot of ideas:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/reset-indesign-preferences-and-other-troubleshoo...