New update InDesign 2019 seems to be buggy

[casinclaire]

I updated my InDesign a few days ago, and I've had nothing but trouble ever since.  When it works, it works. But all too often, it simply freezes.

I had to End Task and restart it four times yesterday to finish a rush job. Today it has started doing this again, and I've just made the decision to reinstall the last available version (which seems to be 2017; I thought we were up to 2018 but maybe not). I have too much work to do to put up with this craziness.

Has anyone else run into this problem?  Is it fixable by the user or is it something Adobe will have to tackle?

I'm using Windows 10, btw.  No idea if this is happening for Mac users.  Anyone?

P.S.  Oh, yay!  It appears that 2018 is still installed and wasn't removed when I installed 2019.  Happy days!  But I'd love to use some of the new 2019 features, so I hope this gets fixed!

[Mike Witherell]

My Mac and Windows version have been working well so far. Maybe you can explore some troubleshooting?

InDesign CC 2018 Troubleshooting How-to Guide

[casinclaire]

Thanks for the suggestion.  I'll give it a try, but if you're saying I should troubleshoot the 2018 version (since you do mention the 2018 troubleshooting guide), then I just wanted to mention again that the version I'm having problems with is the new update of the last couple days, the 2019 version.  Still, maybe some of the 2018 troubleshooting steps might be of benefit.

The first time the program began to freeze, I thought maybe my document was corrupt, and indeed, after I finally got the program to unfreeze and stay unfrozen (four restarts), the document WAS corrupted, and I had to stay up all night till 5:30 a.m. to fix all the things that had gone wrong. This was a book design of several hundred pages, and nearly every page had to be repaired.  Who has that kind of time?!

Today, when the 2019 version froze again, it was while I was working on a whole different document, so I don't think the corruption(s) originated with the specific document(s). I quickly closed, not saving, and reopened the 2018 version. No problems since with EITHER of the docs (although 2018 did convert the one 2019-saved doc from yesterday back to 2018 version, but it didn't hurt anything).

I suppose I can try applying 2018 troubleshooting methods to the new 2019 version to see if they help, but won't be able to try it until I get a few more deadlines out of the way. I can't afford to be working in the program and get stuck like that again.

[jaym85408297]

I've got better things to do than play troubleshooter or debugger right now.

I uninstalled 2019. Maybe later, once Adobe gets it a lot more solid I'll consider the update.

[casinclaire]

So you were having problems, too? Or are you just uninstalling so as to prempt running into what I did?

[jaym85408297]

The main problem I saw was the huge hang when activating the text tool. Also, I had not noticed the versioning difference before, and having it ask to convert when opening from 2018 really put me off.

Otherwise, I can't put my finger on specific issues. It just seemed like a real good idea to bail out.

[Laubender]

Hi jaym85408297 ,

as ds94589750 found out the bug lies in the presence of the Control panel.

If it is disabled there is no hang with the Text tool. Enable it again gives one an immediate hang for some seconds.

Just tested this with my German InDesign CC 2019 on Windows 10.

See post:

Re: InDesign CC 2019 performance issues / crashes

Regards,
Uwe

[TheMinkx]

Well, I'm still hanging even with the control panel closed and the suggested changes to Preferences. So that's not the answer for me.

InDesign 2019 CC

Windows 10 US

[casinclaire]

Can't remember if I (or anyone else) has said this before now, so I'll err on the side of hopefully being helpful.

My text tool hangs for about 30 seconds the first time I select it right after starting a new session in InD 2019.  If I wait for it, it will become available.  After that, for the rest of the session, it works fine. I haven't had any other hangups, but I have read mention (in another thread about the bugs in the new release) of other problems, such as multiple undo not working beyond the first undo, etc. Seems there are a variety of problems and they are spreading themselves around, sometimes being or acting a little different from one user to another.

The change to pref re the Control Panel must have helped the hangup of text tool for me, but I miss having the last recently used fonts available at the top of the typeface list, and they go away along with the font previews when this pref is disabled. I'm going to stick with 2018 for a while longer.

[Laubender]

Hi casinclaire ,

add your voice here:

Problem with changing the cursor to text – Adobe InDesign Feedback

And vote for a fix.

Thanks,
Uwe

[JohnXYZ99_UK]

The hang up when selecting the text tool on a new instance of the program seems to be a MAJOR bug with InDesign CC 2019. I had a search on this forum and found several posts about it. On my machine it was 15 seconds, but I have now disabled 'Enable in-menu font preview' as someone suggested, along with a couple of other things, and it seems to have reduced to 9 seconds. The only other problem I have encountered is that inserting a new bookmark within a large document takes a few minutes (the program hangs up but eventually the dialog box appears). Needless to say I have reverted to using CC 2018 version.

[Steve Werner]

A bug fix for InDesign is due shortly. It's being tested in InDesign Prerelease at the moment.

[casinclaire]

jaym85408297 and  Laubender,

Thanks for confirming this problem. I have been having a few small issues with my computer lately, and it'll be going into computer hospital for a checkup just as soon as I find a break in my deadline schedule. I had feared the problem I was having with InD 2019 might boil down to something on my system only, and I dreaded trying to explain it to my computer tech. It's too bad the new InD release has this bug -- and I hope someone at Adobe has realized it by now and is doing something about it -- but I'm so glad to know it is Adobe and not my computer! It's just too hard to try to explain this kind of off-beat stuff to my computer tech (if it HAD been my computer's problem, I mean). Glad to know I don't have to.

My first hangup came when I made some changes to a paragraph and then clicked "Redefine style."  Kablooey.  That, of course, involved the text tool, so it fits with what Laubender has reported.  I have not tried doing anything without the Control panel -- vital piece of the work flow, so I wouldn't have thought to. Kudos to the person who figured that out. But that inconvenience is enough for me to stick with 2018 for now.

Thanks, all, for this discussion. This bug is a big old headache and I'm glad to know that others have noticed it, too.

[Finecomm]

It's not the whole Control Panel.

I also had issues with a significant slowdown, the beachball, and crashes. Turned out to be the new font previews on the Control Panel, not the whole Control Panel (which I use religiously). Go to your Preferences, go to Type, turn off "Enable in-menu font preview" and the 3 below it. That fixed it for me. Hopefully Adobe will fix this glitch with a patch of some sort.

[casinclaire]

Thanks for that info. I haven't had a chance to explore Preferences yet in the new version (having uninstalled it!), but after I'm past this deadline crunch, maybe I'll reinstall and adjust that pref and see what happens for me.  Too bad that seems to be the problem because I was looking forward to using the font preview.

[TheMinkx]

Thanks, I won't have to revert to 2018. This bug was going to send me over the edge. I too hope this is resolved quickly. I wonder what's unique about our systems that this was not quashed before release.

[dvdhll100]

hi. this workaround didn't work for me. i'm on windows 10.

just disabling the charcter section on the control panel helps

[Laubender]

Finecomm  wrote

It's not the whole Control Panel.

I also had issues with a significant slowdown, the beachball, and crashes. Turned out to be the new font previews on the Control Panel, not the whole Control Panel (which I use religiously). Go to your Preferences, go to Type, turn off "Enable in-menu font preview" and the 3 below it. That fixed it for me. Hopefully Adobe will fix this glitch with a patch of some sort.

Hi Finecomm ,

I am trying to change the preferences. I'm using the German version of InDesign CC 2019. Could you do a screenshot of the said prefs you did turn off? I cannot find them under "Satz" ( I suppose that's "Type" in my German version ).

Below is what I found instead. Do you suggest to disable the preference:

I exactly did this, but it had no effect on the lag ( once per session ) I experience with the type tool when Control panel is open.

I'm on Windows 10 German.

Regards,
Uwe

[casinclaire]

I am still experiencing the lag, but at least the whole program doesn't freeze and have to be forced to End Task to exit it. That was happening before I disabled the preference in question.

Another thing that happened with me was that InD 2019 corrupted my file the first time I used it. I'm designing a book, and all through the whole 250-page document, it threw in random italic and bold, plus changed some of the correct italic to regular face. I'm having to watch for all THAT to fix as well, as I continue trying to work in this manuscript. I have a couple other less complicated documents that I went ahead and opened again in 2018 and let the program convert them back (I didn't have to save to IDML first; the program just converted, and I saved to a new version; that surprised me). But I was too nervous to do that with this other book to try to convert it back, so that's what I've been dealing with.

[Laubender]

My advice on this: Do not change InDesign versions during a specific project.

End the project with the version you began with.

Test a new InDesign version extensively before converting old documents to new ones.

Wait with critical work until at least the first bug fix release is out.

Regards,
Uwe

[casinclaire]

You're absolutely right.  That is my usual practice, but I think I got stars in my eyes at the prospect of some of the new features and moved to fast this one time.  Won't do it again!

C.S.

[casinclaire]

If anyone is interested -- just as an example of what has been happening in my document, in case anyone else runs into it and also on the chance that it really is a bug and not just my doc blowing up (which, actually, would STILL implicate InD 2019) ...

Here's how the text SHOULD read (author's choice of italics, not mine):

•       "Jones also teaches this philosophy, using the phrase "It's all invented."

Here's what InD 2019 did to it -- note the arbitrarily switched italics (how'd it even choose to do that??!!) and the random bold.

•       "Jones also teaches this philosophy, using the phrase, "It's all invented."

This is just one of dozens of instances like this.  The majority of these instances occurred near other instances of italics; I don't why it decided it should flip the italics to words before where they were actually applied, nor what triggered the random bold.

I am not saying there are solutions to these problems at this time; clearly, InD 2019 is as buggy as a PB&J sandwich left under the bed.  We'll just have to wait, I guess.  But just curious if anyone else has had THIS particular issue. It seems, at first glance, to be arbitrary -- until one starts to look closely and realizes the pattern of when it happens (basically, near other italics). It is just a little too uniform a "corruption" to be blamed on my one isolated, corrupted document. I still think it stems from something in CC 2019.

[Laubender]

Hi casinclaire ,

did you open a legacy document with InDesign CC 2019 and seeing some text changed formatting to Italics and Bold?

What version of InDesign is the legacy one?

Or did you open an IDML file? If IDML, what version of InDesign did export this?

Regards,
Uwe

[casinclaire]

I didn't open an IDML at all.  I initially opened an InD 2018 file.  I worked in it for a short time, and then, when I made changes to a para style and tried to redefine that style, the program hung.  I forced an End Task, and when I reopened, I was given a message that the document might be corrupted and asked if I wanted to continue opening.  I chose to open. When I did so, the doc was blank. I closed without saving and reopened, and it was no longer blank.  All text was there, but that's when I began seeing the switched around italic/bold.  I have been assuming the doc was corrupted because that was the message I got.  But I've had to end task in 2018 and 2017 and probably even earlier, plenty of times, and never had this kind of problem occur.  I know that InD 2019 is picking up character styling from "here" and applying it "there," sometimes maintaining the original bit and sometimes flipping it with other text.  It's just very weird.

I've been on deadline, 20-hr days, for a week now, so it's all starting to get fuzzy in my brain. I hope this makes sense.

[casinclaire]

Postscript to my last:

I figured out that the bold is showing up similarly to the italic in that there is a bit of something bolded nearby.  I didn't make the connection at first because the bolded characters were also elevated above the baseline, which just looked weird. But I have realized that I am using a "::" (double colon -- per the author's request) as a separator between some items, and it is semibold and elevated 1 pt off the baseline.  THIS is what InD has been picking up.

This MUST be a bug -- that InD 2019 would see character attributes applied elsewhere and then either switch them in place with other plain text or apply that same attribute arbitrarily elsewhere.

Hey, Adobe??