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Jul3ie
Participant
April 27, 2018
Question

InDesign Constantly Crashing and freezing on MAC

  • April 27, 2018
  • 9 replies
  • 11157 views

The past month my indesign keeps freezing or beach balling in the middle of working. I am not working in large file, or in any other programs while working in indesign. But it keeps doing it, Im currently in a file and just trying to move a content box is frustrating, every time I move one it freezes and beach balls... help..

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      9 replies

      J
      Jake Sterling
      Participant
      April 23, 2021

      Me too. For the past couple of months InDesign has bee constantly freezing while manipulating objects, even when there is nothing but a couple of text boxes and some empty image boxes in the file. It's extremely frustrating.

       

      I am using a new (about 6 months old) MacBook Pro running Big Sur (OS 11.1). What happens is that I will be in the middle of some operation that involves moving an image or an image box (even an empty one) and everything freezes up. This lasts for around half a minute and then it unfreezes. For some reason, when it unfreezes, the light level from the monitor dims and the colors become a little milky. This effect goes away gradually. This freezing up happens very frequently, like every couple of minutes.

       

      I am seriously looking around for some other desktop publishing app. Since Creative Cloud, Adobe products have tripled in price and don't do anything useful that they didn't do 15 years ago.

        F
        FiMac17377294
        Participant
        April 12, 2020

        I am using Adobe InDesign to design a book on an iMac Retina 5K, late 2015 with Memory 24 GB 1867 MHz DDR3 and running OS Catalina 10.15.3. Every time I try and do anything on this 128 page book the toolbar freezes up so I can't progress. I then uninstall InDesign and reinstall. Sometimes it works for a few minutes but mostly it just freezes again. I have a deadline to publish this book and wonder what I can do to fix this issue. 

        J
        jferry07
        Participant
        August 19, 2019

        I am having the same issue and have been for a few weeks now. I am on a Mac mini with 32GB of ram running adobe indesign v 14.0.2 and on Mac Mojave 10.14.6. I too have tried everything to speed up the application with no luck. I’ve tried safe mode and still no luck. This is getting old and it makes a one hour project at work become a whole day affair which is a waste of time. There has to be a fix to this or a new update by now?

        Derek Cross
        Community Expert
        Derek CrossCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        August 19, 2019

        I assume you’ve reset your InDesign preferences.

        S
        ScotmidRichard
        Participant
        August 20, 2019

        Hi Derek, I rebuilt my prefs yesterday (had been off on hols when you originally suggested it!) not sure if its made a difference yet - I suspect what may be causing the hangs is that the display performance was set to high by default for all documents so I've changed to typical as default, will see how that goes.

        S
        ScotmidRichard
        Participant
        August 14, 2019

        Hi All, we're a small team that have just updated our iMacs (2019 27" i9, 40GB RAM, 1TB SSD Mojave 10.14.6 using inDesign 14.0.2.324) and inDesign hangs almost every day for all three of us  - I've  just created a simple one page document and started placing text boxes and graphics frames and the beachball has started and I will need to force quit - even when it doesn't hang it feels so sluggish - our older iMacs (2013 models) were a lot faster than this!

        Derek Cross
        Community Expert
        Derek CrossCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        August 14, 2019

        Have you tried trashing the InDesign preferences?

        D
        Diana_NC
        Participant
        July 13, 2019

        I'm now having the same issue using a new 2019 MacBook Pro, 2.4 GHz Intel Core i9 with 32 GB 2400 MHz DDR4, running Mac OS Mojave 10.14.5. I'm on deadline with a magazine and have been able to get through only a few pages because of all the hangs, crashes and delays. I've tried trashing prefs and all the other recommended fixes without any luck. I have 32GB of memory, so this BS with InDesign shouldn't be happening. I've tried reverting to the 2018 version of InDesign, but it isn't performing much better.

        Srishti Bali
        Community Manager
        Srishti BaliCommunity Manager
        Community Manager
        July 25, 2019

        Hi Diana,

        Sorry about the delay. I am hopeful that the issue was fixed. If not, I would request if you can share a few more details like:

        • Is the issue related to a specific document(s)/asset(s)? If yes, could you please share the document(s)/asset(s) with us? You can upload it to the creative cloud and share the download link.
        • Is it happening while using any specific Tool/Panel?
        • Where the files are saved (Network Drive/ System HDD/ Shared Folder on System /External HDD)?
        • When did this start happening? Are there any recent changes made to your system? For example, any antivirus, system updates or web extensions installed recently.

        Feel free to let us know if you still need assistance.

        Regards,

        Srishti

        VBCKERN
        VBCKERN
        Participant
        August 1, 2019

        This started happening about a week ago. I use Adobe Creative Cloud, thus, I have the most up-to-date version of Adobe InDesign. I am on Mac OS Mojave 10.14.5 on an iMac Late 2015. It is now happening with Adobe Illustrator as well. I can not open any files, I have tried from the - File - Open menu and it froze and I have to force quit, and when I double-click on the file. I have also uninstalled both apps, reinstalled and did not save previous settings. All of my files are stored on Dropbox, but sync'd locally.

        S
        Spikyjumper
        Participating Frequently
        April 5, 2019

        Hi, I have the same InDesign 14.0.2 on OS High Sierra, MacBook Pro 2.5GHz Intel Core i7, 16Gb RAM working off the SDD. 2pp document with two images and a load of text, just keeps beachballing for 10/20 seconds... really unproductive.

          SpockSpeaks
          SpockSpeaks
          Participating Frequently
          May 10, 2018

          I’m working on an IMAC (late 2014) running OS 10.13.4.

          INDESIGN KEEPS CRASHING!@#$#!!!!!

          I’m finding that this new version, as well as the one which preceded it, are very slow to process “saving” or “re-saving” files.

          I have a feeling that the newest software is getting quite bloated with code:  InDesign seems to get very confused if I work too quickly, ultimately resulting in my FORCE-QUITTING the program.  The mouse just freezes and sometimes different tools seem to appear, as well as tooltips.  This type of thing has never happened before, just with the NEWEST version.

          I have much worry about files becoming corrupted. Some of my files are very complicated and the prospect of having to re-create anything is daunting.

          It was never this bad!!!!

            Bill Silbert
            Community Expert
            Bill SilbertCommunity Expert
            Community Expert
            May 10, 2018

            If when you installed InDesign you checked "Keep previous settings and preferences" in the Advanced options that appear during the install then that could be the source of your problem. Please see CC 2018 InDesign—Don't Import previous settings and preferences for more information and how to deal with the problem.

            SpockSpeaks
            SpockSpeaks
            Participating Frequently
            May 10, 2018

            THANKS, Bill!!  I'll check it out.

            MaryGB2
            MaryGB2
            Participant
            April 30, 2018

            I have the same issues, on the same OS and software version. But even though my file might be considered big, InDesign shouldn't crash and burn when I move an image on the page.

            BobLevine
            Community Expert
            BobLevineCommunity Expert
            Community Expert
            April 30, 2018

            What might YOU consider big?

            MaryGB2
            MaryGB2
            Participant
            May 1, 2018

            Well, right now the file is at 78 MB and it's only a quarter of the way finished. Based on the book I did last year that was four pages smaller, that book was 239 MB. It's an awards book, with 35 categories and 455 placed pdf files.

            Do you think that's large or small? I don't remember having these problems last year with that book. I used an empty version of last year's book as a template, and deleted the image files before I began.

            Bill Silbert
            Community Expert
            Bill SilbertCommunity Expert
            Community Expert
            April 27, 2018

            What version of InDesign and what operating system are you working with?

            J
            Jul3ieAuthor
            Participant
            April 27, 2018

            MacOS High Sierra verson 10.13.4

            Adobe InDesign CC 18, 13.1

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