What causes damaged InDesign Files (Error code: 5)?

I've seen this happening at two different locations now. One user works on her own off of her local hard drive and is running Yosemite and the other has files stored on a Mac 10.9 server and is running 10.9.5 herself. Both have had files randomly get corrupted since moving to CC 2015.

Plenty of error codes 5 over here, too. “Introduced” with the first CC version under MacOS 10.7.x (AFAIR), this error occurs almost regularly when I try to reopen an INDD file that had been open while InDesign (CCx) crashed or froze, which happens in average at least once a day. Crashes or freezes often (but not exclusively) occur after waking the Mac from sleep. No recovery mechanism saving even a tiny slice of bacon here, just error 5.

As a solution I use a customized startup script by Gerald Singelmann that automatically creates a new IDML file with every Save and Save As.

I only work on my internal hard drive, but I keep and edit most (but not all) of my InDesign files in the Dropbox folder. My current MacOS version is 10.10.5 on a mid-2012 MacBook Pro with 16 GB RAM and a 1 TB hard drive. I use InDesign 8.1, 10.2 and 11.1 on the same machine, often simultaneously.

Im having the exact same problem—and it's just begun recently. The only solution I have found is to go to my Apple Time Machine and find an earlier version of the file and open it. Of course, all of my recent edits are lost. Its happening to both simple files and elaborate ones.

Just to update. We've moved over to Windows Server 2012 R2 for the server running a SSD RAID, a much faster switch, and Yosemite for all the Macs. Not sure which did the trick - maybe a combination of all of them, but no more Error Code: 5 - not for three months.

IMO, you can run Stellar Phoenix InDesign repair software to check if the repair of your damaged INDD file is possible. You can try out this for free.

I work between my work office and home often. This has happened to me 3 times in the past couple weeks but always happens at home with the files I bring from work via a drive. Am I saving too often? Something to do with the photos I have in the file? Is is my external drive? It always happens right after I hit command+s, which I do often out of habit. So frustrating. I've contacted Adobe support on two different occasions regarding 2 different files and they couldn't do anything to get them back. Luckily this time I only had about 2 hours into my file. The first one I had about 40 hours in and lost it completely. Really hope I can prevent this from being a reoccurring thing.

I have just started having the same issue in my studio, we are running 12 macs and the problem is only happening on our newest mac even though the others are running the same operating system (Mavericks 10.9.4). It seems to be very random which files are affected but the set up seems similar, with the mac connected to a windows server via SMB and it always seems to be the next day after a back up has run when the file is corrupted. We have updated to CC(2014) and the problem as persisted so I don't think it is specific to a version of InDesign.

I'm having the same problems.

I have the same setup and the same or simular problem.

A designer works in Indesign saves her file, a few minutes later

an other designer opens it and it gives an error code 5.

We tested it with a indesign file purely with text and

then there is no corrupion, with a random immage it gets

dammaged.

Files reside on a windows server 2008 R2 via smb.

I've been having the same issue lately and it seems that I'm using almost identical setup to the OP's: Mac Pro on Mac OS X Mavericks 10.9.1-10.9.2, ID CC 9.1-9.2.1, Windows Server with files being opened directly via SMB. Can't be a coincidence?

Additionally, there haven't been any bad fonts used, power outages, connection interruptions or any other intereferences I'm aware of during the file edit.