InDesign 2020 (15.0.2) keeps crashing/ Slow performance

[LindaFazili]

After the latest update yesterday, InDesign is crashing all the time. When i want to copy something or change text or import PDF remarks. I get 3 crash messages per time and i cannot fill in the reason because the messages dissapear before i can send them.

InDesign won’t even start now. Please help me. I need to work!

{Renamed by MOD}

[Srishti Bali]

Where the files are saved (Network Drive/ System HDD/ Shared Folder on System /External HDD)? 

[ThatsShively]

Well originally they were on a partition of my local drive in my synced dropbox folder. Then I moved to an external, but always active, SSD drive. Then I moved back to my local drive.

Nothing worked.

I can tell you that opening more than one file at a time is a disaster and causes a 90% slowdown in performance. Things start to hang up, crashes happen. In the past, let's say about the beginning of the year, I could have 3-5 files open at a time with no issue, now even one is scary. Two files, well I am just asking for trouble. We can't work like this.

[DKingDesigner]

I came here wondering if anyone else as seeing performance issues with InDesign. It is extremely frustrating. I'm on Windows 10 and ever since the last ID update, I've been struggling to work. I tend to work with a lot of files open and the performance issues seem to escalate the more files you open. I've discovered that if I force quit and reopen ID, it tends to behave better on the recovered files. However, every file I open behaves as if I'm trying to edit text in a spanned/split multi-page story environment. You click on something, and it can take minutes for the cursor to quit spinning and give you the selection. Trying to click into a text box is a nightmare. Copying and pasting from one document into another is nearly impossible. Add to this that I'm being forced to work from home, so I'm having to work over VPN to a server. I could understand those files being slow, but even the ones I copy to my computer before opening act as if I'm accessing a server in China through dial up. This is maddening. 

[Srishti Bali]

Hi there,

I completely understand your frustration. We are trying our best to address these issues as soon as possible. Did you try the steps I shared above for Windows machines? If yes, please share your observations and preferences folders. Also, please try installing previous version 15.0.1 and let us know how it goes.

Regards,

Srishti

[Hello Amsterdam]

Hello Srishti, 

I had already mentioned that installing an earlier version of InDesign doesn't stop the app from freezing. The earliest available on CC for Mac is 14.0. Or is Adobe offering an earlier version somewhere else? 

I spoke with a techie friend and he told me that if the problem started a couple of months ago, try to return to the settings I had then, when things were working well. At the beginning of the year, I updated the Mac OS to 10.15.3 Catalina and InDesign to 15.0. Maybe the conflict is between the latest version of Mac OS and InDesign. Who knows. The advice was to reboot my system, reinstall an earlier version of OS (say, 10.14), and reinstall InDesign. See if it works.

It's a desperate thing to do, and one that takes time and lots of adjustments. I can't understand how Adobe launches new versions of its software without sufficient compatibility and bugs checks. For many of us, InDesign is a working tool. If the app doesn't work, you stop working. But you have to continue paying for the software. It's very annoying.