InDesign constantly freezing for no reason + lagging/stuttering mouse cursor

[Sculptor Design]

Hi guys,

I am sitting here with boiling veins in front of a Ryzen 5950X + RTX 3080 + 32GB 3600 MHz RAM + 2TB Viper NVMe SSD. Here comes InDesign 17.0.1, lagging, freezing, stuttering and being all-round pathetic as all hell like it's running on a Pentium from the 90's.

I'm getting real sick and tired of this @Adobe. The software is consistently getting worse and now optimization has reached the point where it can run like absolute crap on the most powerful consumer rigs in the world. I'm losing immense amounts of time trying to punch through this crap because absolutely nothing else helps. Nothing I found in these forums or through Google helps. I tried uninstalling the program and removing every last trace of its existence from my PC multiple times, but it just doesn't matter. As soon as it's reinstalled it will perform just as pathetically as it did before.

Right now, I'm constantly suffering from a lagging mouse cursor, which has a few seconds delay and stutters/flies across the screen all the time. This is basically 100% of the time now, it never works normally, not even when just hovering around not clicking anything. In addition, ID will constantly freeze for a few seconds before responding to anything but when it does, it works fine except for the hugely frustrating mouse lag. When I click on any element it will freeze for up to 15 seconds before allowing me to do anything with it like dragging it around. The bigger files get, the worse these issues become. But meanwhile much larger and way more demanding files are working absolutely smoothly and fine in Illustrator or Photoshop.

When I open the exact same lagging and freezing project in InDesign on an 8 year old stone age laptop, it works smoothly and without issue. WTF? Something is absolutely and inherently wrong with this crappy program. Problems started at some point this year on Windows 10, still persisting on Windows 11 several ID versions later. Any ideas from anyone? Any workarounds other than using some old version of ID?

And please @Adobe just for once fix your bugs and optimization man. I'm paying you over 60 bucks a month for this crap! Totally inexcusable. Absolute shame on you!

SHAME!

[Sculptor Design]

Also no idea who ever thought this was a good idea, but maybe it has something to do with it?

[Derek Cross]

Have you tried resetting the InDesign preferences?

[Sculptor Design]

Thanks for your response.

The answer is yes - removing every last trace of it from my PC included removing preferences. I just uninstalled and reinstalled again and unfortunately the problem persists. In fact, it got even worse this time. ID opens, but instantly freezes. It doesn't actually crash or close or anything. Just remains frozen and it has my CPU fan spinning at 100% despite barely making use of the CPU according to the task manager.

It does still remember my recent projects after reinstalling. It even opens them on the pages I was sitting on before closing it the last time. Is this because of cloud saves? Or is there still some ID related stuff lingering around on my PC that I don't know about?

[Derek Cross]

Are you using a third-party app such as a font manager?

[Sculptor Design]

No third party apps or addons are installed - just a clean, 'empty' version of ID v17.0.1.

[BobLevine]

There were some early issues with Windows 11 and AMD processors so if you're there, make sure you're fully updated.

I'm running a similar set up with an 11th gen i7 w/64GB RAM and 17.0.1 is quite fast so perhaps you have something else running in the background? Anti-virus? Firewall? Do you have admin rights?

[Sculptor Design]

Hi there and thanks for responding.

Yeah I have admin rights and I am using the stock Windows Defender. W11 is updated to the last version. These issues first appeared in W10 though, but they have gotten worse and worse recently.

Perhaps it's AMD related then. I have no idea what to try now though...

[Sculptor Design]

Actually, I already mentioned this above but my (AMD) CPU fan keeps spinning at 100% when ID is opened & frozen, despite the program barely making use of my CPU according to task manager. That is fishy...

[BobLevine]

Something's up and it sounds more system related than anything else. Sorry, but I'm stumped.

[Derek Cross]

Just to double check the resetting of prefrences:

1) Close InDesign
2) Double click on Adobe InDesign's icon to launch it
3) QUICKLY hold down Ctrl+Alt+Shift. (for Windows) or CTL+OPT+CMD+Shift (for Mac OS X)
4) When a dialogue appears, asking you “Delete InDesign Preference Files?” Click Yes.

(If you don't see the question do it again.)

[Sculptor Design]

Hmm, I deleted the preferences together with the program when I reinstalled an hour ago, but doing it this old way the 'Recent Projects' section is also cleaned up. Unfortunately, I am sorry to say that the performance issues remain the same...

[BobLevine]

Just for troubleshooting purposes...try creating a new user account on the machine and run InDesign from there to see if that fixes thing. 

[Sculptor Design]

Well that was interesting to try, sorry it took some time.

In the end it made no difference though, program just sits there completely broken on the new test user account as well. After 30 seconds it stutters around a bit depending on where I clicked while it was frozen and then it freezes again. The CPU fan didn't spin this time though, but still.

I'll be finishing my project on some older computer right now because I'm at the risk of missing an important deadline due to this mess, if any additional potential solutions are posted I'll get back to them tonight.

Thanks for your time!

[Derek Cross]

You could try using the Adobe Cleaner Tool to remove copies of the application before reinstalling InDesign again: https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/cc-cleaner-tool-installation-problems.html

[Sculptor Design]

Hi there,

This is the tool I used to remove ID before, but this time I've decided to go ahead and just delete literally everything Adobe related from the computer.

I'll let things reinstall in the background and come back to this thread with the results.

[Sculptor Design · Accepted solution]

Well guys, reinstalling partly fixed my problem. I'll explain.

InDesign is much better now, it no longer freezes at the start and I can actually scroll through a 50+ pages book I'm working on again. I am actually not experiencing the mouse lag/stutter anymore. This has allowed me to go through the whole document again and now I've identified the root of my problems. This is going to sound insane because it is.

While scrolling through the book, everything is absolutely fine at first - I can smoothly scroll and move objects around again etc. But the instant I reach pages 23-24 the program slows to a halt and the lag/freezing kicks in. Pages 23-24 barely even have any content on them yet. They contain two text boxes and a simple graphic.
I can scroll and move objects around to my liking on any page prior to or after 23-24 but as soon as I'm on spread 23-24 performance is butchered to a halt. Even if I remove every last bit of content from the entire document, this will keep on happening. Seriously WTF.

I didn't scroll that far on the laptop, hence I thought ID was performing much better on there, but now I'm noticing the exact same thing happens on there as well. ID will freeze on spread 23-24 to the point where it's hardly possible to get back out of it. So, ID goes completely insane on a single empty spread within a single document, and it does so on multiple computers, while all the other pages are working fine.

I have created a new document, moved everything over to there and now the problem is gone. At least I can finally keep working without a spread-specific bug freezing the entire program every time I happen to scroll past pages 23-24. Mental.

This is easily and by far the strangest issue I've ever seen. No wonder we were at a loss because god knows what the cause could be. In any case I find this to be absolutely ridiculous - the mouse lag started last week (basically when I started this document) and gradually got worse, the freezing also gradually got worse until it simply started freezing on startup this morning and in the end it all seemed to come down to one spread being corrupt for no reason. 
Considering what it costs, it's cruelly pathetic that we have to deal with all of this unstable, workflow disrupting nonsense within InDesign after so many years of its existence. I've lost half a working day troubleshooting this nonsense and will be working well into my evening to still make a deadline. Thanks Adobe. What a value for your money.

Anyways, thank you guys for all of your help and your time - at least my problem is gone I'm finally rid of the horrifying mouse stuttering. Have a nice day!

[BobLevine]

I know this one will sound totally crazy, but in the past, there were issues with the Bing slideshow wallpaper.

If by some chance you have that enabled, change it to a default static wallpaper.