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I am using Adobe InDesign 2022 (vesion 17.0 x64) with Windows 10 Pro (version 21H1). The problem I am havings is that sometimes when I launch the software all the panels are missing. See the screen shot below for details.
It should look like this
If I lauch the software from the Windows Start menu and then open a file, the panels will show up. But if I use the shortcut of double-clicking on the file to both launch the software and open the file, the panels are missing.
Any thoughts on how to fix this?
Okay, now it's time to reset the preferences. See Reset InDesign Preferences and Other Troubleshooting and be sure you do the cache files as well.
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Looks like it might be in presentation mode. Press the Tab key and it should go back to normal.
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Just tried it, it didnt work. It will show the panels if I manually choose a workspace from the Window menu. Also, this only happens when I take the short-cut of launching InDesign by double-clicking on the file so that InDesign opens to the file.
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OK, try resetting the workspace from the Window menu
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I just tried. I does not give me the option to reset the workspace. See pic below
I have to manually choose a workspace before it will let me reset it. When I launch InDesign first, then use it to open a file, it automatically opens my workspace.
Also, this problem isnt tied to just one file; it happens on all my InDesign files. The problem began after the last InDesign update.
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Okay, now it's time to reset the preferences. See Reset InDesign Preferences and Other Troubleshooting and be sure you do the cache files as well.
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That took care of it.
Thanks!
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Glad to hear it.
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So I thought this problem was resolved, but the fix did not hold. About two weeks ago the problem resurfaced, which is: sometimes when I launch the software all the panels are missing. The screen shots from my original post are still valid, nothing has improved.
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If it recurs like that so soon it may be caused by a conflict with other software you are running.
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Ok, but I've had the same software on my machine forever and I haven't installed anything new. I never had this problem until about a month or so ago. The only software apps I run on a regular basis are Microsoft Office (Outlook, Word, Excel, and Teams), Creative Suite (InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop) and Google Chrome. I've had these software apps on my machine for more than a year and haven't had this issue. The only thing I can think of that would have changed is updates to Creative Suite or Windows.
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Utilities that run in the background, like Anti-virus and anti-malware count, too, as do browsers, and these things update regularly so longevity isn't necessarly pertinent. Browser helpers can cause problems, too. A few years back some browser banking plugin wreaked havoc with ID.
All of which means it's pretty hard to know where to look when it takes a long time to fail.
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So, how do I fix the problem?
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I'm not certain you ever will entirely fix it unless you stumble onto the cause accidentally. If it happened every time you ran the program you would have a shot at some trial and error program disabling to see if you could isolate the issue, but you can't really do that if you can't predict when the next failure is going to happen so that you know it didn't.
I'm afraid in your shoes I would just muddle along resetting prefs when necessary and hope that some update to something resolves the issue without other intervention. I describe how to make a backup set of prefs in the really old Troubleshooting 101: Replace, or "trash" your preferences thread which can take most of the pain away from having to do it.