InDesign won't open - Windows 11

[Westy8165]

Hi everyone, i am having masssive problems with Indesign. Im on Windows 11  and am running the latest version of InDesign. I was having some issues with InDesign and read that resetting the preference might be the answer. So i used the ctrl+shiftr+alt method and reset them. Since then it wont open at all. The splash screen appears for a millisecond then dissapears. I then found another article that suggested renaming the Indesign folder to Indesign.old but that hasnt worked either. All other programs (Photoshop, Illustrator, Bridge, Acrtobat etc are all working fine) Its really frustrating and i need InDesign for my day to day work. Can anyone helpo me with other possiuble solutions.

Thanks. David

[Doc Maik]

Alternative 1: move the preferences file somewhere else. ID will create a new one.

Alternative 2: install an older version in parallel, just to see if that one starts.

[BobLevine]

What does "latest version" mean? The current version is 17.2.

What are the rest of your system specs? RAM and processor as well as free harddrive space.

When you held down CTRL+ALT+Shift did you get a prompt to delete your preferences? If not, it didn't work. If it did, try uninstalling and re-installing InDesign from the CC Desktop app.

[Westy8165]

Hi there, 

Thanks for your reply. Yes, latest version means 17.2. My system is:
Windows 11
Intel i5 2600k

B660m Motherboard

32GB 3200mhz Ram

1tb Windows drive with 750gb free space.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled and that hasnt worked. 

When i did the ctrl alt shift, the prompt came up asking to delete my preferences to which i clicked yes. Then nothing happened and it still wont open. I have also tried both the suggestions above. I have moved the preferences elsewhere and Abobe created new ones and that didnt work. I also installed older versions and they didnt work as well. 

I have created a new user in windows to test under a fresh envirenment and that didnt work either. It waill also not load in Wiindows safe mode either. 

[BobLevine]

Do you have an third party InDesign plugins? Do you have any third party antivirus?

If so, deactivate them.

[Westy8165]

Hi Bob, 

No anti-virus installed, just using the default one that windows comes with. Also no InDesign plug-ins installed whatsoever. Thanks

[BobLevine]

Have you checked the firewall settings?

Anything else running in the background that might be considered "rare?" What you're experiencing is quite uncommon. I'm running Win 11 here on two machines and I've seen very few complaints about anything InDesign-related on Win 11.

[Westy8165]

Nothing odd in the background as far as i can tell. Yeah i know, its very odd. Ive just come off 8 years of using a Mac and have built a PC with all the ram, power etc i couldnt afford in Macland. Everything is working great apart from InDesign, even all the other Adobe software is fine. Its just InDesign, but unfortunatley as I spend about 80% of my working life in InDesign its a bit of an issue 😛 I really appreciate all your help though and hopefully soon ill be up and running again! Totally understand im an isolated issue, just trying to figure out why! 

[BobLevine]

It would be an oddball case, but a corrupt font could cause this.

[emilg43871659]

Mine won't open either. Just see the intro splash screen for a second or two and then it disapears. 

Later versions can open.

I need this to do my job. What the heck.

[PacosMother]

How do you do control-alt-shift to delete preferences when the program doesn't open? Splash screen opens then disappears. I'm having the same problem on my laptop (Windows 11, Indesign18.3 and 17.4.1). Splash screen opens then disappears. Yesterday, it worked fine on the desktop (Windows 10, InDesign 18.3).

[Peter Spier]

How do you do control-alt-shift to delete preferences when the program doesn't open?

By @PacosMother

Press the keys immediately as you launch the program. You have to be really quick. If you are fast enought you will see a message asking if you want to delete the prefs.

You can also manually delete the preference files. see Troubleshooting 101: Replace, or "trash" your preferences 

[Christopher Shelton]

Just a long shot, but could be hardware related?

What harddrive specs do you have? Specifically M.2? You could try installing it on a different drive?

You could try swapping out RAM sticks one at time?

[BobLevine]

One hell of a longshot given that this is an InDesign on Windows 11 issue.

[Melinda30488708qpwz]

Did any answer come from this? I'm having the same problem. Windows 11, latest versions of CCloud and InDesign, have renamed my preference files. Photoshop will start, but InDesign shows startup screen and then disappears.

[Peter Spier]

Might be corrupt recovery data left over from a crash. The recovery folder is in your user profile at C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Adobe\InDesign\Version 18.0\[language]\Caches

[PacosMother]

Thanks for all the input, but none of the ideas worked. I just kept rebooting the computer until it gave up and let me open it. So who knows?

[Rishabh_Tiwari]

Hi @PacosMother ,

Glad to hear that it's working now. For future reference, if it happens again, you can also try the steps suggested here, and feel free to post here if you need further assistance.

Thanks

Rishabh

[Melinda30488708qpwz]

My IT support guy suggested I Open as Administrator. That works, but I wonder for how long and if it will cause any other repercussions. For now, I'm just happy I can get on with my work, but would love to understand why this is happening.

[Melinda30488708qpwz]

And do you suggest we delete/rename something here? I did have several crashes before ID refused to open, this could potentially solve the issue if I knew what to do. Thanks.

[Melinda30488708qpwz]

Sorry, my above question is related to Peter Spier suggesting we check for corrupt recovery data. When we navigate to the path shown, what do we look for? What do we do?

[Peter Spier]

Empty the recovery folder in that path and your original user will probably function again.

[Melinda30488708qpwz]

Thanks Peter. That didn't work either. No worries. I'm just opening as Administrator and getting on with it.

[Peter Spier · Accepted solution]

If it opens as admin, but not in your old profile, the problem is almost certainly in your old user profile folders.

See Troubleshooting 101: Replace, or "trash" your preferences for the two paths to the user files and with InDesign closed rename both of the Version folders (something like OldVersion is fine) so you can copy over the old shortcut sets, saved queries and other stuff you might want. Launch InDesign and it should create new Version folders.

If it still fails to launch, there's something really weird about your user profile.

[Melinda30488708qpwz]

Thank you so much for continuing to help. I had already renamed my preferences folder (and therefore made a new one). I've now deleted InDesignDefaults and InDesignSavedData as per your link and it's still not working.