Publish Online | Extremely slow | InDesign 17.4

[StudioFerz]

Hi, since a couple of days loading of our published documents is extremely slow. Has anybody else experienced this and, if so, is this an Adobe server issue? Maintenance? Docs that were previously loading in a sec now take almost ten to half a minute to load... Fingers crossed this is temporarily and quickly resolved.

{Renamed By MOD}

[Nigey-LTA]

Thanks Manan, I’ve been told to push this issue over to user voice, so
looks like a daily post to get attention. Perhaps something like:

“DAY 91
Case no xxx….
Still not resolved”

Then so on every day, perhaps that may gain the attention this basic
functionality issue deserves.

Nigel

[Nigey-LTA]

Manan, please go to this link and vote for it, and anyone else you know
who's experiencing speed issues.

https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs/suggestions/45762505-day-41-slow-pu...

Thanks

Nigel

[Rishabh_Tiwari]

Hi @Nigey-LTA ,

We're so sorry to hear about the trouble. 

We have logged a bug to investigate this issue. Please stay tuned to this discussion for further updates. 

Regards

Rishabh

[qwfqwf]

Thank you Rishabh, 

As you will note, from many irate users this is a critical function in many people's ID workflow that has gone down - you will also note the amount of 'regulars' chiding users for using the services they are paying for. 

May I suggest that in future a route for reporting issues that bypasses community gaslighting and gets directly to the relevant Adobe employees would be invaluable.

However well-meaning, this support community has failed abysmally, has generally been instructing your users to simply avoid using this service. If that is the Adobe view then I would appreciate, as a paying customer, that it is elucidated clearly.

Thank you sincerely for your attention in dealing with this matter. 

[Nigey-LTA]

That’s great thankks Rishab, but I don’t understand how nothing has
happened since I first reported this issue over 40 days ago. This issue is
critical to my business - why has there been no progress, also why do Adobe
keep closing my case when it’s not been resolved?

[qwfqwf]

Nigey - the two options you (and I) have if you need to get something published without waiting to see if Adobe will decide to fix this.

1) IN5 - similar to PO but more steps and you'll need to host it. + Expensive solution for not all that much.

2) Export to Interactive PDF (excluding media!) > Open in Acrobat > Convert to PPT.

I have found the conversion fidelity to be extremely good, they are visually indistinguishable on screen except you'll need to remove any transparency effects you're using in indesign as these won't get processed well. The text placement (painstakingly done in indesign) seems to have been preserved pretty much perfectly. There's zero chance I could have built this in .ppt but it looks 100x better than I was expecting when converted. 

Similarly, you need to make sure all fonts you are using are recognised by PPT in the first place.

Then to add Video back you'll want to do that in powerpoint for web and then publish online using same.

Again not suggesting either of these is a good solution but will work as a stopgap.

[Nigey-LTA]

Hi there,
Thanks for your response, but don’t want to go through all the hassle you
mention. Adobe just needs to sort the issue, otherwise ultimately would
have to cease using adobe and change direction with my business.

Nigel

[jay_designuk]

To be fair Nigel the issue needs fixing. The functionality is there as part of the software, you don't buy a car and expect the windows not to go down!

We've created a document for a client on the basis that this service is available and works as it has been up to now. Adobe have a SLA they need to uphold.

[Nigey-LTA]

Thanks Jay,
You’re entirely right, they need to sort it. Previously the load speed was
incredible, now pathetic.
Also sick of ‘Adobe professionals’ going on about Ajar In5, think they’re
paid to promote it, but really doesn’t work how you’d want it to.
Regards

Nigel

[nickb41910191]

We tried IN5 and it was aweful. We are in the same boat.. had two big presentations turn into a disaster the last few days becuase of this.. Ended up using epub and emailing a download link. This should be fixed urgently, and shouldn't take this long for a professional response from Adobe being as this feature is being used industry wide for billions of pounds worth of work in our industry.

[jay_designuk]

We all need to keep on at them to be a massive PITA until it's sorted. We aren't running some poxy bedroom business here (neither are you I suspect). This document is a commercial piece of work and I've got one of the biggest organisations in the UK about to get a tad pissy!

[BobLevine]

If you found in5 awful you were doing something wrong. in5 is far more powerful and flexible than Publish Online.

[Nick26404198lrxl]

What absolute nonsense "an example of the gaslighting mentioned by another user". In5 can't even export cropped gifs within layouts (google it if you are unfamiliar with the software) and being as my industry uses cropped and reframed gifs in indesign treatments every day to win huge budget productions this makes in5 of no use at all to us. Please don't question my reality/experience. Thanks

[Nigey-LTA]

Seems Adobe have us all bitchin at each other - be easier if Adobe could
just sort the problem

[Nick26404198lrxl]

Agreed.. if the people trying to promote third party plug-ins could stay out of the thread it would make it much better for those of us who just genuinely need this resolved and have no current viable alternatives. 

[jay_designuk]

It's not really about that Bob. From our business's perspective, the work was sold on and generated using the Adobe Indesign functionality specifically for Publish Online (after all it is a commercial product specifically designed for income generation). This includes the interactivity offered by Adobe for this purpose (buttons, media and transitions). There would be significant studio time involved in recreating the document from scratch in order for it to work with in5. Who's going to pay for that?

[Nigey-LTA]

What makes you think is that Adobe (from my recollection) promote the
embedding of PO in websites. I keep getting told by Adobe professionals
that I’d be a fool to rely on PO - why, are they all that brainwashed by
Adobe’s failings in the past . PO is something Adobe is pushing forwards -
why shouldn’t it just work

Nigel

[jay_designuk]

Is i've said before, if PO doesn't work to a commercial standard, then it shouldn't even be in the software. WTF am I paying for? I'm not QA testing for Adobe.

[BobLevine]

It should just work; that's why those of us with years/decades of experience with Adobe products and services have advised against it for important projects since the beginning!

[jay_designuk]

With respect, that's absolute trash Bob. Why on earth should I be paying for a commercial piece of software for my business to be used on 'unimportant projects'? Every piece of work that goes through my business is important as it pays the wages and generates income. Are you seriously telling me Adobe creates software to 'have a laugh with'? I'll say it again, Adobe software is marketed as a tool for 'professionals' to provide a service to their customers, exactly the same as a hammer or a chisel for a carpenter or a wrench for a mechanic. If the hammer or chisel doesn't work then they need fixing or removed from the shelves altogether. It's clearly not fit for purpose, it really is that simple.

[qwfqwf]

The other thing is, you can apply the same logic to any other area of ACS - what if the servers hosting software download fail, what if cloud hosting for files fails, what if you lose the ability to share / collaborate across multi gigabytes of critical project files. If that goes down one day the same people will be muttering 'we always said you should never use creative cloud for anything important'.

The reason PO is important is because, as we all know, the death of flash made media in pdf's a thing of the past. There literally is no seamless way to host presentations other than PO that doesn't involve extensive extra work and which brings, as far as I can see, no value, what's to stop any other hosting service going down? What's to stop IN5 from discontinuing their services? 

At some point you have to trust that the thing you pay for is going to work. 

[BobLevine]

What you don't seem to understand here is that I happen to agree with you, but I have a lot more experience with Adobe software and services and I'm way more realistic. Have you ever heard of Muse? Business Catalyst? Freehand? Pagemaker? and my all time favorite, Digital Publishing Suite?

Adobe is a big business, they move slowly. Maybe this is a simple fix at the server level. I hope it is, but if it's way more than that, you could be in for a very long wait. I'm trying to temper your expectations. I simply never trusted PO and I still don't use CC storage for anything. I far prefer Dropbox and OneDrive for file sharing.

I've learned through the years what is and isn't worth trusting. I got bit in the behind big time when they pulled the plug on DPS. It still stings. You can learn from your own experience or the experience of others. Your call of course, but one thing I can tell you for sure. There are far more productive ways to spend you time than complaining about it in these forums. It won't speed up a resolution.

I hope this gets fixed fast and you can get back to work.

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

With respect, that's absolute trash Bob.

By @jay_designuk

#1: Your response wasn't even close to be respectful.

#2: Read a software EULA (end user license agreement, the thing you must click and acknowledge in order to install the software). All software companies bury a "get out of jail free card" somewhere in the depths of the legal jibberish; they make no guarantee whether their software will work as advertised, they are exempt from any litigation about faulty software/bugs, and they can discontinue the software any time they want to.

When each of us clicks the EULA, we approve their get out of jail free card. The software industry is the only one I know of that has this exclusive right to not support and back up their products. No car maker or chisel manufacturer would be able to get away with this.

I'm grateful an Adobe employee monitor picked up on this thread and is investigating the problem.

[Nigey-LTA]

Bob’ll probably tell you you’re a fool for expecting Publish Online to
work. Also will probably tell you that you need In5 from his mates at Ajar!

Nigel

[BobLevine]

Well, I'm not the one with pissed-off clients, now, am I?