InDesign crashes when updating InCopy ICML files

[sectiond007]

I created an assignment file with around 20 different stories. The next time I opened InDesign the writer had input text to most of the story files. One story file was a couple of pages of text, the rest were just a few lines of copy, nothing huge. Every time I tried to update the ICML files InDesign crashed. I didn't matter if I only tried updating one story or all of them, it always crashed. I was working on a PC when this happened. I moved over to my Mac to try and updated the ICML files and it crashed there too.

The actual InCopy ICML files on the server were fine. The writer never realized there was a problem. All of the copy was sitting there, so I was able to go back and re-import all the copy.

I did all the basic stuff to resolve the issue like restart, trash the prefs, convert to INX, and try on different computer. Nothing worked, crashed InDesign every time.

I'm currently using CS5, but this same issue came up last year on another project in CS4 as well.

Has anyone had this happen and/or know of a fix other than re-importing all the story files?

[E_Diane_King]

I have not experienced the crashing on the Dropbox files, but these files are a different project entirely than the project where I was having all the crashing. I suspect that there are things I'm doing in the style sheets of the "crashing" project files that I'm not doing in the non-crashing files on Dropbox. There are some similarities between the two, but the ones on Dropbox are not nearly as complex. I've suspected the network may have something to do with the problem, but it can't be the entire problem, I'm thinking. It has to be some complex combination that is resulting in the crash (which I think involves the network, legacy style sheets, cross references, inline objects, and spanning/splitting columns).

[gwiebe]

We are also using indesign cs 6 and incopy workflow - our crash had stemmed from a suitcase fusion plugin (auto activation) - by default a plugin was installed to automatically turn on the needed fonts for our documents.  Since our indesign machines had this plugin and our incopy machines did not it created a mis alignment of software so when our editors finished with the incopy files and gave it back to us it would crash our indesign cs 6.  As a test we turned off the Suitcase fusion auto activation - restarted indesign - wrotye new assignments and whola back in business.  Adobe does not support any type of plugin so it got us to thinking that this was the only plugin that we use in our workflow so it had to be the issue - and it was. Now not sure if you have the same set up but it is worth a look into wheather you are running any plug-in in your indesign app.

[BobLevine]

Have you contacted Extensis about that? Their support is very good IME. You should also make sure you're fully updated with InDesign, InCopy and SF.

BTW, AFAIK, only SF 4 and 5 have plugins for CS6 and for CC you'll need SF5.

[BobLevine]

FabianoGO, your replies are blank. Do not use whatever it is you're using

for email. Come back to the forum is you wish to post or switch email

clients.

[CRoueche]

Hi Folks,

I know this is a pretty old thread, but in case anyone is still watching or happens upon it...

We ran into crashing when importing ICML (the file format that backs InDesign-InCopy communications) with our suite of connectivity plug-ins (DocsFlow, for Google Docs, and WordsFlow, for Word/Excel/text files). We discovered that the crash is related to having Text Threads visible (View > Extras > Show Text Threads) when importing ICML containing "custom" anchored frames. Preventing this particular crash is as simple as hiding Text Threads (View > Extras > Hide Text Threads) in InDesign before updating any InCopy stories.

In case it's at all interesting, we beefed up our WordsFlow product

(http://emsoftware.com/products/wordsflow/) with a general (programmatic) workaround so that any ICML import will be protected and "just work" when WordsFlow is installed. Feel free to contact Em Software for more information at support (at) emsoftware.com.

Hope this helps!

Cheers!

Chris Roueche / Em Software, Inc.

[CRoueche]

[Edit] Whoops, somehow I missed a year's worth (or more) of responses. My post is directed at the initial page of woes that involve InDesign, InCopy, and custom-anchored frames. I should note, too, that our testing found that the Text Threads crash occurs in InDesign CS5, CS5.5, CS6, and CC.

[John Hawkinson]

FabianaGO: As previously noted, you appear to be generating blank replies. If you are intending to reply via email, please come to http://forums.adobe.com/message/5690259#5690259  and enter your reply there. Otherwise, I'll assume that you have an autoresponder running and I'll ask a forum administrator to unsubscribe you from this thread.

[afriedm]

Well, a year and a half or so later and it looks like these issues are still ongoing in the CC 2014 programs. We're having similar issues with the InDesign/InCopy workflow.

As we package InDesign files for InCopy edits we seem to be OK. The outside editors can open and modify our files. However, when we get the .icap files and assignments back here and try to open them in InDesign, it crashes.

Our issues seem to be linked to the use of anchored objects as we can un-anchor them and place them individually as a workaround fix. Then the files seem to work. The thing is, those objects are now a potential problem of their own as edits are made and they no longer move with the surrounding type.

I've talked to Adobe support several times, but they keep closing my cases after a few days, as it takes some time to get our files back and forth from our vendors and customers.

[Gusgsm]

Hello, again

A feedback for this annoying issue. After a long time, again, without trouble, we have started to have this crashing issue in an increasing way. The trouble seemed to start 'somehow' in a pair of machines (user profiles?) and then they spreaded slowly and quite unpredictably.

Thanks to some readings in the Web, we took the option of exporting all the ICML articles starting with an ASCII 26 letters chain of characters to avoid any Unicode non-ASCII character (like ñ, á, ?, white spaces and the like). I have saved a TXT file containing "abcdgfhikmabcdgfhikm123456" (no quotes) and I copy-paste it every time I have to expor a new set of ICML files. That forces the system to name the files:

abcdgfhikmabcdgfhikm123456-1

abcdgfhikmabcdgfhikm123456-2

abcdgfhikmabcdgfhikm123456-3

....

Whenever needed, I just substitute some random characters here and there, like: 123dgfhikmabcdgfhikm123456-1 and the like.

Up to now this seems to work and the bug has not shown again....

.....For the time being 😕

Best regards

Gustavo (Posting from Madrid)

[krhalverson]

johnp28450439: thank you SO MUCH for adding this comment! I'm glad I skipped to the end of this thread... I was hoping there was a recent post! This is still super old, but it worked perfectly for me! ID would crash every time I tried to update the one text thread with custom anchored objects. I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out what was causing it. Who would have thought simply hiding text threads would resolve it? Wow. Life.Saver.

[annav403564]

Hi all!
My indd crashed when I was trying to apdate the assigned icml files. It was a nightmare until I found out it was trying to update an assignment in a hidden layer. When I deleted the hidden layers everything worked OK