Unresolved or out of date cross references in the document

[ebenpublishing]

hi, i was going to export my document into PDF for press and this massage "There are unresolved or out-of-date cross references in the document" showed up. I can't find out where the problem is, because ID signals no error in the document in the Preflight... i checked all the hyperlinks and converted them into text but it didn't solve the problem.  any hints? thanks a lot

[Steve Werner]

If you're creating a PDF for the press, you wouldn't need to worry about cross-references. Export as PDF/X and all the interactivity will be stripped out.

[Sandee Cohen]

I've got a file with the same problem.

There are no x-refs in the Hyperlinks panel and preflight reports no unresolved hyperlinks/x-refs.

I've exported the file as a IDML and then re-opened it but still have the same error message.

I understand that exporting will "strip" away any interactivity, but it concerns me that this message pops up. It feels like the file is damaged somehow.

In addition, I will be passing the project to my publisher and don't want them or the print shop to be concerned by the error message.

[peter_minneapolis]

Have you searched the IDML for the x-refs? 

Just wildly guessing - they might be embedded in placed items.

It might be possible to find the location of the bogus reference by breaking the file in half, testing each half, then repeating the process on whichever half has the problem, until you're down to a single page.

HTH

Regards,

Peter

_______________________

Peter Gold

KnowHow ProServices     

Sandee Cohen wrote:

I've got a file with the same problem.

There are no x-refs in the Hyperlinks panel and preflight reports no unresolved hyperlinks/x-refs.

I've exported the file as a IDML and then re-opened it but still have the same error message.

I understand that exporting will "strip" away any interactivity, but it concerns me that this message pops up. It feels like the file is damaged somehow.

In addition, I will be passing the project to my publisher and don't want them or the print shop to be concerned by the error message.

[Sandee Cohen]

Peter,

Thanks for the suggestions. But  how would I search the IDML file? I've create the IDML file and then reopened it as an ID file. Are you suggesting something else?

I'll try the half document system.

peter at knowhowpro wrote:
Have you searched the IDML for the x-refs?  
It might be possible to find the location of the bogus reference by breaking the file in half, testing each half, then repeating the process on whichever half has the problem, until you're down to a single page.

[peter_minneapolis]

Mea culpa, Sandee! I was thinking in my FrameMaker mindset; FM's interchange format, MIF, is plain text. InDesign tagged text, not IDML, is the counterpart. Open it in a text editor and look for stuff like:

<Hyperlink:=<HyperlinkName:2><HyperlinkDest:67762\:

In my document, "2" is the source text and "67762" is the reference number that InDesign automatically creates.

My guess is that at the very least, you could search for instances of "Hyperlink:", but perhaps there's a way to identify which cross-references are unresolved. I'd expect that it might not be in the tagged text, but rather somewhere that the validity checker stores the status. Perhaps a scripter can help with knowledge of ID's internally-accessible info, and perhaps even develop a script that can report differences between the reference status-es that ID displays in the panel, and the status that causes the error you've found. If there's any clue about what caused the problem it's a good candidate for reporting as a bug.

HTH

Regards,

Peter

_______________________

Peter Gold

KnowHow ProServices

Sandee Cohen wrote:

Peter,

Thanks for the suggestions. But  how would I search the IDML file? I've create the IDML file and then reopened it as an ID file. Are you suggesting something else?

I'll try the half document system.

peter at knowhowpro wrote:

Have you searched the IDML for the x-refs? 

It might be possible to find the location of the bogus reference by breaking the file in half, testing each half, then repeating the process on whichever half has the problem, until you're down to a single page.

[Sandee Cohen]

Yay!!!

I found the errant x-ref. Did the half page split. ID is much easier to do that with than what I used to do with XP years ago now that we've got the undo command.

I still don't know how an x-ref got into the file that the Hyperlinks panel nor the Preflight panel could find

[amyphifer]

Sandee

You indicated that you found the cross-reference by splitting the document. 

But how did you find it once you split the document?

I looked at hyperlinks and there are not any with errors.

I suspect that this is an imported Word document issue.

Thanks for any ideas for fixes you can share.

Cheers,

Amy

[philhart74 · Accepted solution]

Hi Amy,

You probably figured this out but now (I hope so in any case, seeing we are 6 months further now ) , but just in case...

I'm using Indesign CC and experienced the same problem.

Finally found the missing reference by going to: Window [menu] -> Type & Tables -> Cross References

There I finally found which reference I had overlooked.

Regards,

Philippe

[cherelynd]

Hi Philippe,

You are a lifesaver. In my case I had fixed the page reference using the hyperlinks panel but it was a single space that was doing my head in. I found it exactly where you said

"Finally found the missing reference by going to: Window [menu] -> Type & Tables -> Cross References."

My question to Adobe is why on earth don't these show up in the hyperlinks panel where you can deal with cross references?

Thank you Philippe, you are a wizz.

[Maria80386]

After pulling my hair out for hours, I finally discovered how to make the "missing/unresolved" hyperlinks show in Adobe InDesign CC 2015 latest edition.

1. Open the Hyperlinks Panel full length

2. Open the Cross-References Panel full length

3. Select your entire Table of Contents. Cut it, then paste it.

4. Select your entire Text/Story/Objects. Cut them, then paste.

5. ALL Hyperlinks and Cross References show, finalfreakingly!

6. Those with the attention sign are the misbehaving ones. Delete or resolve at your leisure.

It seems to be a feature(read: bug)  that these links do not show, especially when attempting to create a sample ePub to meet the Ibooks requirements.

[mikeAtJB]

Thanks philhart74. I was going to Hyperlinks and Cross References/Update Cross References but it was grayed out.

[sedesign]

Thanks philhart74 PERFECT. Just when you think you have a handle on all the available tools in ID someone shows you something new!

Thank you... this saved me so much grief!

[philhart74]

My pleasure!

Great to see that after almost 4 years, it is still helping people out

[Greg T Lockton]

This is the correct answer. I tried fixing all of my hyperlinks but I still got the error message. After fixing the cross-reference, it stopped!

[Mark Dukas · Accepted solution]

I had the same problem. After a bit of sleuthing I found the following easy solution:

Top Menu: drill down: Window > Interactive > Hyperlinks

this will open a panel, with the offending cross references shown in the list (it will have a little "red flag")

select it

then on the bottom / left of the panel you will find an icon (arrow pointing to a page), click that icon and it will take

you directly to the location of the offending un-resolved cross reference. And you can resolve it!

[RichardSwearinger]

Thank you for providing the answer and may the blessings from the Great Designer In the Sky pour down upon you and may you never be Greeked without your consent.

[Gerben Wierda]

I had the same problem an this helped. I found them in the hyperlink panel and most of not all (haven't checked all yet) were missing index items from the table of Index items.

[SmartGraphicArt]

I've been chasing phantom cross references in one document in a Book file that was imported from Word. I decided to export the document to InCopy to see if I could find them. Tada! There they all were in the InCopy Story view, showing up as random open Cross Reference tags. I deleted all of the unwanted tags in the Story window and exported the document back to InDesign, and POOF! no more unresolved cross references when I exported the Book to PDF.

YAY!!!

[typegirl]

I had 4 such errors and updating my TOC solved it for me.

[somehope4u]

hi every one

this problem from special character  like  ʃ you can see it from show hidden character

you can take the text to word and remove any style and format then take it again to indesign and the problem will resolve

[mazlans39801750 · Accepted solution]

I'm try to view the text in "edit in Story Editor" and search for this item. Delete it if possible, and my problem solved.

[Denis Senatsky]

This little script will solve the ‘Unresolved or out-of-date cross-references’ problem:

app.activeDocument.crossReferenceSources.everyItem().remove();

[Shanpub]

Thanks, @Denis Senatsky It worked for me.

[keithconover]

I have a multi-chapter book for which one of the chapters is giving me the dreaded:

However, if I check the cross-references panel (only one page shown below, but it's green lights all the way down):

I tried updating the Table of Contents: didn't fix the error message.

I tried opening the book file/Book Panel and selecting the "Update All Cross-References" and that didn't work.

As noted in a different post (https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/indesign-cc-2017-links-always-red-in-hyperlinks-...), I have some spurious red lights in my HYPERLINKS panel. I suspect it's a HYPERLINK issue and that the error message erroneously conflates Cross-References and Hyperlinks. I have resolved to simply ignore this message, recommending that, if I am right, (a) Adobe rename the error message to read "Cross-References or Hyperlinks" instead of just "Cross-References," (and "Links, TOC entries, Cross-References or Hyperlinks" if that is the case) and (b) Adobe address this issue of hyperlinks that show an error when it's not an error for readers of the document, allowing some way for users to override this somehow. And if I am wrong and there is a fix, I will be quite happy.