Issue Accessing Files on Desktop and Creative Cloud

[Alisia lane]

When I try to open my Indesign file on my desktop I get a error message and am unable to access the file. When I try to open the file from creative cloud it simply will not open. What should I do? 

Error:

Adobe InDesign is shutting down. A serious error was detected. Please restart InDesign to recover work in any unsaved InDesign documents.

[leo.r]

For starters, what are your InDesign and operating system versions?

[Alisia lane]

I'm using the 2026 version on my Mac

[leo.r]

on my Mac

By @Alisia lane

What's your macOS version? Also, were you ever able to open this file successfully? If so, at what point did the problem start?

In addition, try resetting your preferences and caches:

https://www.rockymountaintraining.com/adobe-indesign-rebuilding-preferences-cache/

Also, do you have any backup you can retrieve an earlier version of this file from? 

[Peter Spier]

And is this happening with ALL files, or just one? If it's only one it could be a damaged file...

[Alisia lane]

It appears to be just one file. But it's a file I had saved on both my desktop and on creative cloud.

[Peter Spier]

It appears to be just one file. But it's a file I had saved on both my desktop and on creative cloud.

By @Alisia lane

I don't save files to the cloud, so I'm no expert on that, but it sounds like it could be file corruption due to some sort of network lag while closing down. I doubt that that version of the file is recoverable.

[Alisia lane]

When I open the file on my old laptop running the 2024 version, it prompts me to recover the document, and I can briefly see it before the same error pops up and InDesign shuts down. I was worried this might happen, so I saved the file in three locations: the cloud, my computer, and an emergency flash drive.

[Peter Spier]

Try hitting Cancel (not No) and see if InDsign will launch. If it does, you may be able to either open  the last saved version or run the blind open and export to .idml script you'll find at http://kasyan.ho.ua/indesign/all/blind_open_and_idml-export.html

You can also try renaming the InDesign Recovery file located in the HIDDEN Caches folder in your user library.

[Alisia lane]

Thank you, I will give that a try. If that does not work I do have a exported interactive PDF and may try uploading that and finding out if that would work.