Working on large indesign files in OneDrive

[Madhatstand]

Since working from home, I've basically put all my work in the cloud so i can work from home, or the office on anything (once each PC has sync'd of course).

Now before anyone says use Adobe cloud, I'm not going to paying extra for another service when we already have a full 365 account as I currently have about 3tb on the OneDrive already.

I occasionaly design large brochures/catlogues for print, with many linked high-res images, the last big job i had i was on Windows 10 using at the time the latest 2021 Indesign. 

The drive i use for the cloud storage is a relatively recent and fast (for spinning disk) 5tb drive and all the files are on there - files open and are fast to work with, but when i save an large indesign file it can take 10 to 20 mins to save back to the onedrive, same with autosaves... i'll be doing work then indesign will autosave and im stuck waiting 10 mintues for it to finish before i can continue - yet if i do a "save as" and creat a new file back into the save folder... seconds!!!

As a work around i copied the file to the desktop whilst i was working, and then copied it back into onedrive as the end of the day...

Fast forward to now, i'm working on another big project... this time on the same hardware, but now with a fresh copy of windows 11 (yup, i upgraded and did a fresh install), and now of course i'm using the latest 2022 indesign... and the exact same problem with saving projects in progress to my onedrive taking many minutes, so it's not my system, its definatly an issue with indesign and onedrive...

So, is anyone aware of a fix for this issue? I'm sick of saving out of the cloud and swaping files back and forth risks issues of overwriting the wrong files etc.... 

My hds/ssds all fine and run and benchmark fine and my PC is a recent ryzen 5600x build with 32gb ram, a 2070super gpu, x570 mobo, fast 1tb nvme c: drive etc... Every thing else runs fine, except when i save a large file i'm in the middle of working on to my onedrive! 

[BobLevine]

Have you disabled the smart sync feature where files are stored in the cloud with only a marker to it on your desktop? If not, disable it now!

[Madhatstand]

Everything in my OneDrive is properly stored on each PC - all files/folders have "Always keep on this device" enabled and they all show the proper green tick in explorer.

I've no issues with anything else in onedrive, and as everything is set so they're kept on this device (on both my home and work PC) every other file on their opens, saves, copies, runs etc as they should.

As mentioned, i can do a "save as" to a different file name or "save a copy" into the same onedrive folder and those new files save instantly... yet open that new file up, do a quick edit and do a regular save.... minutes... with indesign unusuable till the save completes...

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Have you saved the file as IDML, opened the IDML, then saved it back to INDD?

[Madhatstand]

yup that saves quickly, then i open that new file, save it back to an .indd in onedrive save it (fast)...

then open up that new indd file, edit, save, looong wait

[Abambo]

How large is a large file?

Normally, I would expect InDesign to slow down on larger projects during the open phase, when linked files are not cached. I wouldn't expect it to slow down on a save operation.

What other applications are you using with OneDrive, and who save huge files?

[Madhatstand]

FYI the current project i'm working on isnt that big yet, the .indd file is currently just 111mb (87 pages of A4), all images are linked, nothing is embedded.

It's just me at home, by myself on my desktop PC, with a dedicated hard drive for Onedrive (internally connected via SATA at full speed).

Basically when i new i would be working from home back in 2020, i set my self up a massive onedrive (which only i have access to), dumped everything on my work PC into it. Then at home i added a new hard drive to my PC, pointed onedrive to that HD so all my work is in one place.

It's my personal PC, not one provided by work, so as to not mix work and play i've done it the way i've described above to keep the work files seperate.

I mostly use photoshop, indesign and illustrator for work- no other issues.

[Abambo]

So if I understand you well, your workaround works just fine, except that you need to shuffle the file around?

[Madhatstand]

yup - but it's not ideal having to copy files to the desktop and back again into onedrive. 

It's 2022 and simple things like this should work, and having to resort to silly work arounds on software we pay through the teeth for is simply not on really.

Plus in the back of my mind, i'm concerned that one day i'll do something stupid like overwrite a new copy with an old copy or something stupid like that when i'm half alseep on a monday morning losing hours of work 😂 - fortunatly this hasn't happened yet though!

[Abambo]

yup - but it's not ideal having to copy files to the desktop and back again into onedrive. 

By @Madhatstand

I know.

I've created now a 128-page file; however, there is not a lot of image variation. But the image is a 4.6gb image (still synching)  and a 1.2gb image and several other smaller files. My InDesign file has 18Mb and saves like a flash. My OneDrive is, however, on a SSD drive. The CPU is a Ryzen 5800x, memory is 64Gb, Windows is version 10.

Saving is … instantly. I even can't stop the time.

[BobLevine]

It shouldn't be happening but if it was systemic there would be a whole lot complaints here. Whatever is causing it seems to be unique to your system.

You haven't answered the rest of my questions.

[Madhatstand]

Yup, if i make a new file, quickly throw in a load of images, pages, random text, etc, then save to the one drive...seconds!

But then i close the file, open it up again... make an edit, save... ages...

open that same file, "save as" or "save a copy" to the same folder (with a different file name) seconds.

This happend on my previous windows 10 install... and now i'm on a fresh windows 11 with a everything installed again from scratch.

PC is fresh install of windows 11 ryzen 5600x, 32gb ram, 2 fast nvmes, 1 ssd, 2 hds (i have a lot of storage!!), 2070super gpu, aurus elite x570 mobo - basically the hardware is more than capabable! Everything is fully patched, upto date, latest drivers, bios etc etc... 

The harddrive i'm using for onedrive benchmarks fast, no smart errors and i can copy files to and from at full speed no issues - internet runs at full speed and the home network is 1gb with a decent switch - hence why i'm totally stumped! 

For everything else my PC runs as fast as it should!

FYI I've been using the creative suite since CS1 and building my own PCs since the late 90s - I built this PC Dec 2020 after the ryzen 5600x came out (i bought the 5600x on launch day and waited a month for it to arrive! 🤣)

The only other thing i can think of try is moving the onedrive folder to another drive? But it's friday and i've had enough for now! so i'll leave it till monday.... it's the weekend afterall!!!

[Abambo]

It could be interesting to save on the same disk, outside of the OneDrive space. 

[Madhatstand]

It shouldn't be happening but if it was systemic there would be a whole lot complaints here. Whatever is causing it seems to be unique to your system.

You haven't answered the rest of my questions.

By @BobLevine

Sorry, i'm not seeing any other questions from you?

[BobLevine]

Sorry, I had this confused with another thread.

Have you tried a new user account? Do you have any 3rd party plugins for InDesign or 3rd party anti virus?

[Madhatstand]

I unlinked my ondrive account from my PC, went back and loaded the same file i was testing with previoustly to try again - no issues at all this time! I could open the file, do a qucik edit and resave in milliseconds.

I then relinked the onedrive again and pointed it back to the previous location and the issue came back (took almost an hour to save!!!) - so this probably narrows it down to a onedrive issue that survived a fresh install...

FYI when i performed a fresh install of windows 11 - when it came to setting up one drive again i just repointed the file location back to my "H" drive where all my ondrive files were before - so basically nothing on my Onedrive hd was changed during the fresh install as onedrive found the existing files and nothing was changed.

I think the next logical (albeit time consuming) step is to unlink the onedrive account again, format my "H" drive, sign back into onedrive and point it back to the empty "H" drive and just leave the PC on for a a couple of days to download everything all again from scratch to see if this fixes things...

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Have you tried simply pausing the cloud sync for a period of time?

OneDrive:

[Abambo]

A last test you could try: exiting OneDrive, saving, restarting one drive. If that works, OneDrive is interacting in an unknown manner with your Indesign and that seems to be unique to your instalation. I connot reproduce your findings and my internet connection is not really mind blowing. And I'm not persuaded that the internet is involved. 

I would now look to set-up a synching mechanism between a sour outside your OneDrive and your OneDrive and to work at that location, automatically (periodically) synching source to destination.

Not a solution, but a better workaround to manually syncing.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

It could be your Internet. Remember, unless you are using a fiber connection or a dedicated premium line, your upload speeds are a fraction of your download speeds, so a large file can very likely take many minutes to sync/reupload back to OneDrive. Check your upload/download speeds!

[Madhatstand]

my internet is fine (on a 80/20 connection), the files are saving to the hardrive which is then sync'd to the cloud.

As mentioned, if i do a "save as" of the exact same file, to the same folder, seconds... but open the file, do an edit and then save... hours....

[BobLevine]

Shouldn't matter. Sync takes place in the background. You should be able to work in a Onedrive folder even is you're off line.