My CHARACTER Palette is not showing anything in it. Not sure why? Please help!!!

[Beverly Hodsdon]

All of the suddent, my CHARACTER window is not showing anything, the font, size, all of that is an empty window. I am working in WOndows. Any suggestions????

[BobLevine · Accepted solution]

Empty panels are indicative of corrupt preferences. Resetting them is the way to fix it.

Adobe InDesign: Rebuilding Preferences and Cache Files – Rocky Mountain Training

[Beverly Hodsdon]

Hi Bob - Thank you for responding - I am going to try and do this, always super nervous about deleting stuff, praying InDesign works afterwards! Which way do you suggest workes better, trying the keyboard shortcut or doing it manually?

[BobLevine]

Two roads to the same destination.

[Beverly Hodsdon]

IT WORKED!! THANK YOU SO MUCH BOB LEVINE!!

[Steeve Beach]

This has happened to me for YEARS, across multiple machines... All due respect, I can't understand how corrupt prefs can affect only this. I have No other symptoms besides empty character and paragraph palettes, also the table palette. I dislike/resist resetting my preferences for only this reason, and losing all of my precious settings and behaviors*. Besides I would like to know why /how is this happening? Is it not fixable? Am I doing something wrong?

*I am aware I can save most of my settings in a workspace. I could be better at saving those settings and stop complaining.

[leo.r]

I dislike/resist resetting my preferences for only this reason, and losing all of my precious settings

By @Steeve Beach

I agree it's quite annoying and counterproductive. Ideally, there should be a better way. As a partial improvement, you can now first export your settings via the File > User Settings > Export… menu, then import them, which should preserve at least some of the settings.

[Steeve Beach]

The better way is to fix it. It's Indicative of preferences corrupted by bad programming. @AdobeDevs @adobedev 

[Steeve Beach]

We appreciate the temporary reset Bob, but this should not be considered a 'fix', 'solved', or the Correct answer. 

The correct answer will be more difficult to track down. I think it has something to do with the introduction of CC Libraries. Possibly permissions. Interesting (maybe?) to note, the problem occurs in Windows and Mac.

Instead of brushing this off, I would love to have this reopened/unsolved, escalated to a bug and, if desired, participate in testing, and get a real fix. @adobedev @AdobeDevs 

[BobLevine]

I'm sorry but corrupt prefs are just a way of life with this software. If you want to report it as a bug or feature request, do it here: Adobe InDesign.

And I don't work for Adobe; I'm just a lowly volunteer. And finally, I've been using InDesign since 1999 (well before cc libraries) and I have not once had to reset my preferences due to any kind of corruption. You're free to disagree but I'm telling you based on my experience that the chances of every single user avoiding preference corruption is zero.

If you're running into these issues constantly, I suggest looking deeper into your system configurations.

[Steeve Beach]

Thank you Bob, I know you are not Adobe. I have reported it as a bug. 

https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs/suggestions/48497651-paragraph-and-...

Who decides an answer solves an issue?

And finally, I also have been a user since v1, and doing this work since before Indesign was a thing... Quark, Pagemaker. Illustrator88... linotronic and amberlith!... I worked in Photoshop before it had layers. I have never had to reset my preferences for any other reason. This software is fantastic. This particular problem has occured to me though across multiple machines, completely new systems, not migrated, fresh installs.

What/where in my system configuration would you suggest I look? Please elaborate. 

[BobLevine]

Trashing prefs has been the accepted answer for 25 years. A post can be marked as correct by a moderator or the original poster.

As for your issues, too many variables from fonts, 3rd party plugins, drivers, etc. Honestly, I get the frustration but I doubt you're going to see anything change.

[BobLevine]

BTW, version 19.0.1 is a very early build and should be updated to 19.5.5. Will it help? I don't know but it's the first step.

[Barb Binder]

My suggestion is to work through the post in order. Try the keyboard shortcut. Did it work? If so, great! Back to work.

If not, continue with deleting/renaming the files and folders outlined in the bottom half of the post. 

~Barb