Background information:
- I routinely synchronize my InDesign files between my desktop and laptop computers. Although the laptop is pretty powerful the desktop is more powerful. This allows me to take my work with me and work on my laptop while away (like today waiting to get my Land Cruiser serviced) and then sync back to my desktop with the better keyboard and monitor and bigger CPU and more RAM. It also serves as a regular backup every time I leave the house.
- I just upgraded from InDesign 19.1 to 19.2 yesterday.
So, when at the car dealer, did a bunch of work on a file on my laptop, everything went swimmingly. (Or sucking diesel as the British might say.) I synced my files back to my desktop, and tried to open one of my files. I got a crash notice, saying the file was corrupted, and telling me to do something to send info to Adobe which I couldn't do because the error message popup box, as well as InDesign, were frozen.
There was no button to click, so I couldn't.
I opened the file on my laptop, and it opened fine. I then again copied that file from my laptop to my desktop and tried opening again: >crash< >boom< InDesign locked up the same way as shown above. On the laptop, just in case, I saved my work in an .idml file. I then rebooted my desktop PC, and desinstalled and reinstalled InDesign 19.2, though saving my preferences an' 'at. This time, since my file was part of a Book File (Book Panel), I decided to open the Book Panel and then open the file from there.
InDesign then locked up with this on the screen.
I didn't even know about Style Packs until InDesign crashed this way. I reviewed all of the messages on the forum about them, and thought it was a cool idea, but my projects are complex enough that they are a bit too limited for me to want to use. (If you check out my post https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/cascading-book-panels-multiple-book-panels-for-a... you can see why in detail.)
Why is InDesign populating my Style Packs (of which I have created none) and why is it locking up my PC?
I closed InDesign, without having to resort to using Task Manager, just right-clicking on the TaskBar and selecting close.
I restarted InDesign and tried to open the same file got this error message:
I then closed InDesign again, copied the .idml file from my laptop to my desktop PC, and tried opening that. It seemed to open properly, recreating the file that was locking up InDesign before. I saved it under a new name. I exited it and InDesign again asked me whether I wanted to save. Sure, I said yes.
I then opened the Book File (Book Panel) of which the original .indd file was an included document.
It posted a message on my screen as shown and locked up:
I just spent quite literally hundreds of hours over the past several months dividing my too-big, too-complex four textbook volumes each up into several chapters, and getting them formatted appropriately. (See https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/three-documents-freezing/m-p/14416194#M561484.) Just yesterday I got Volume I all reformatted into six chapters, with a Front Matter "chapter" at the beginning. I got all the cross-references fixed. (I really liked how helpful the cross-referenc panel was in getting me through this quickly, kudos for whoever worked on that panel.) I switched from working on formatting and fixing cross-references to editing content today.
I thought 19.2 was minor bug-release with maybe a few new features and it would be safe to update to it. Yes, maybe I need to roll back, but I would like to get the benefits of the latest version.
In case anyone would like to play with the file that seems to be clogging up InDesign 19.2's cerebral arteries, at least on my desktop PC, it's in http://www.conovers.org/ftp/AppSAR-Source-Files/ and it's named AppSAR-6-Wilderness-First-Aid-1.indd.
WHAT IS HAPPENING???!!!
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Replies
Thanks for the reocmmendations. I couldn't access the original Book Panel to remove files from it because it would crash before I could remove the documents from it.
I did create an entirely new Book Panel, and started adding the documents to it. I managed to add three, but when I added the fourth, this is what I saw:
(Actually, I was able to move the error message over so that you can better see the underlying Book Panel.) Again, as the error message did not display properly, and I couldn't click the "Report" button because it wasn't visible, I simply had to close InDesign. I was able to close it by a right-click on the Taskbar icon for InDesign rather than having to resport to Task Manager. At this point, I am going to call tech support and see what I can figure out.
Thank you, Leo. Background before I answer your question: I have been having problems with too-big .indd files ("volumes") locking up InDesign for several months. However, this never caused file corruption, just lockups. I was able to reopen the files, save them, divide them into smaller "chapters," organize them, and continue working on them. However, ever since I upgraded to 19.2, and it tried to start "Processing documents" by "Populating Style Packs" is when I started getting corruption. I think I made the mistake of saving such files. However, I suspect I may be able to recover files from my Infrascale backups before February 14 when I upgraded from 19.1 to 19.2. So, if others want to take a lesson from this: maybe don't upgrade t9.2 if you are using Book Panels. I was just now, in 19.2, able to open one of the "too big, locks up InDesign" files from the Taskbar Jumplist and save it under two different filenames, and start deleting stuff from each of them to make it into two chapters. No problems. But when I tried to open InDesign by itself from the Taskbar, without picking anything from the Jumplist? It tried to open the new Book Panel I had started creating, as well as one of the corrupted files, and locked up. I closed it from the Taskbar, then opened it again, and it gave that corrupted error message and I had to close it from the Taskbar. I tried opening it again and it showed this dialog box:
I told it "No" as recovery efforts always have failed since upgrading to 19.2. I was then able to open one of those two chapter files I created and start editing it.
You are a bit inconsistent with your "boxes"?
Odd pages:
Even pages:
Everything is sorted by "Pos X" and "Width" - so you can quickly separate ones that are on the left side of the page or on the right:
There is also Page Name and Page Index - in case you would like to locate those inconsistencies.
All your "boxes" like this:
You have a Group + TextFrame - then in this Group a Rectangle + an empty TextFrame.
You can get the same "fading edge" effect with just Rectangle (Inner Shadow) and TextFrame on top:
Oh, thank you, thank you! I wished I had known this 5-10 years ago when I embarked on this project. I just copied down those settings in a Word file called "Keith Style Guide" which documents all of the various settings I use for this textbook. I would suspect that changing them all by deleting one component of the group and modifying the other would make the files smaller and less likely to make InDesign choke. I wonder if there is any way to help automate this change? I was able to open an InDesign file (one of the new smaller chapters) and create a sidebar box this way. However, when I tried to check that I do have all of those box components labeled with a Group Style, I reopened InDesign and this is what I saw before it locked up:
It keeps trying to open some of those corrupted files and then locks up. Sigh. I think I'll give up for the night and start working on this more on my next day off. Thanks again!
Robert, thanks for all your thoughtful replies. I will definitely follow up on all of your suggestions as far as the text boxes and ID-Tasker
However… I thought I had gotten this fixed. I ended up talking twice over several days with Shreya, one of the senior Adobe support techs. Unlike the chatbot or the entry-level tech, she was amazing. She "read the room" and quickly adapted to my level of expertise. She was very thoughtful and ended up contacting the development team and then calling me back. I was suspecting this had something to do with .idlk "lock" files that are zero byte files that indicate a file is locked, and them being synced between my laptop and desktop PCs. I ended up simply transferring all of my files to a new folder and then I was able to edit them on my desktop PC with no problems after doing that. Strange.
Then, today, I spent 20 minutes or so working on my laptop on a file while sitting and waiting in a classrooom for the students to arrive for the class I was teaching. I closed the file and synced the files, no problems detected. And then when I tried to open it on my desktop, I got a message that said [file may be corrupted, do you want to try to fix it on our servers? Yes? Sorry, we can't fix it.] I tried copying it over from my laptop again, and this time when I opened it, I got this nonspecific error:
I then looked in Directory Opus (a replacement for File Explorer that I have had for decades and love) and saw this:
I was going to move those .idlk files out and see what happened, but I needed to close InDesign first. Clicking the rop-right X in InDesign would not close it – ? if from the error popup blocking it – and I was unable to close the error dialog box from that dialog box, but when I hovered my mouse over the InDesign taskbar icon, there was a separate popup miniature of the error message that I was able to right-click and exit it. This then closed InDesign as well. I moved those .idlk files out of the folder, Then, I tried simply opening InDesign again, without opening a file. I again got the error message and had to close InDesign. I moved the .idlk files back into the folder and tried opening InDesign again. It then gave me this message:
I said No. I then went to my laptop, saved the file on the laptop but in .idml format, copied it over to my desktop and opened it. Opened fine.
Again: WHAT IS GOING ON? I had been using this workflow, syncing files sometimes 3-4 times a day between laptop and desktop, without any problems. As soon as I upgraded to 19.2, things are a total disaster. Well, I'm going on a trip tomorrow for about a week and will only be working on my laptop, so I'll monitor this space in case anyone has any bright ideas!
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