InDesign Spinning Pinwheel of Death

Report · Nov 13, 2024

This is the most annoying thing I have ever dealt with. I work in InDesign regularly designing magazines. Lately, I have been getting the spinning pinwheel of death everytime I toggle back and forth between InDesign and Chrome. My clients mark up files in Dropbox so I need to toggle back and forth a lot.

Everytime I toggle back to InDesign, I get the pinwheel of death. It was getting so bad I actually bought a new Mac Mini. I thought it was my 7 year old MacBook Pro. But...its STILL happening.

I have done the following.

1. Exported as IDML and reopened and resaved.

2. Deleted InDesign preferences (numerous times)

3. Turned off GPU

4. I have Typical Display on for viewing images.

5. Deactivated tons of fonts in FontBook (I primarily use Creative Cloud fonts)

I have to quite InDesign and restart my machine at least 3 times a day.

Can someone PLEASE tell me what is wrong? I just spent $2000 to fix this problem and its still happening.

Is it because all of my files are saved and synced in Dropbox?

PS this happens with multiple files from mutliple clients. Its pervasive.

Report · Nov 13, 2024

Please let us know your OS and InDesign versions.

If you've recently upgraded to 2025 - downgrade to 2024.

Also, what are your synchronisation option in DropBox?

Report · Nov 13, 2024

BRAND new Mac Mini

OS Sequioa 15.1

Upgraded all CC apps

All files are saved in the Dropbox folder in my finder and the working files are all set to Make Available Offline

Report · Nov 13, 2024

Try hiding / turning off "contextual tasks bar".

Report · Nov 13, 2024

They are turned off.

I just deleted my preferences, again. Uninstalled and reinstalled InDesign. Restarted my computer. Opened a file.

and

Spinning pinwheel of death.

Report · Nov 13, 2024

Then you've only one option - downgrade to 2024.

Report · Nov 13, 2024

It happened in 2024 as well. I upgraded hoping it would fix the problem.

Report · Nov 14, 2024

Hi @michaelw72224322,

I can completely understand how frustrating this issue must be, especially after investing in a new Mac Mini and trying multiple troubleshooting steps. Thank you for sharing the details so far.

Could you please confirm the version of InDesign you're using, along with the specific OS version? I also recommend trying one more thing: disabling the contextual taskbar in InDesign to see if that helps with the spinning pinwheel issue. Here's a helpful guide on how to do that: [Contextual Taskbar settings](https://adobe.ly/40PS2zx).

Please let us know if that makes a difference, and we'll continue to assist you further.

Thanks,
Abhishek Rao

Report · Nov 14, 2024

Indesign - 2025

OS - Sequoia 15.1

I turned off Contextural Tastkbar

Still not working.

Someone PLEASE help me solve this problem. PLEASE. This is the most frustrating glitch in the history of Adobe.

Report · Nov 14, 2024

Hi @michaelw72224322,

Thank you for confirming the details. Given that you're on macOS Sequoia 15.1, I wanted to let you know that our product team is aware of a known bug affecting InDesign 2025 on this OS, and they're actively investigating it. To assist them further, they need some additional information:

1. Does this issue occur with InDesign 19.5.0, or is it specific to version 20.0?
2. Are you experiencing this on a Mac Mini only, or does it affect other Mac devices like a MacBook Pro or iMac?
3. Does this issue occur on macOS Sequoia only, or does it also affect users on macOS Sonoma or Ventura?
4. To help diagnose the freezing issue, could you generate a "spindump" when the spinning pinwheel appears?

Steps to Collect a Spindump on macOS:
1. Open Activity Monitor (Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor).
2. Find Adobe InDesign in the list.
3. While the pinwheel is active, select InDesign, click on the gear icon at the top, and choose Spindump.
4. Save the generated spindump file.

This information will greatly help the team in diagnosing and addressing the issue. If you need any further assistance with these steps, let us know!

Best,
Abhishek Rao

Report · Nov 13, 2024

I rereated a blank templated. Imported Parent pages and Paragraph and Character styles.

and its STILL happening. I have a hunch this is a font issue. My brand new template that I just created has no images placed on parent or normal pages.