Corrupt file: Unable to Open File in InDesign

[Tubbsdad]

Created a file in InDesign (latest version Creative Cloud used file created in December 2020 ) Packaged to a folder on a NAS storage drive - went to open this morning and nothing happens (both from File Explorer and from InDesign)

Copied it to my desktop - still will not open. Any ideas?

{Renamed by MOD}

[Srishti Bali]

Hi there,

Sorry to hear about this trouble. Please please email your file to idfile@adobe.com & we will take a look at the file.  There are multiple factors that can lead to file corruption, however, we can take a look and see if the file can be repaired.   

If the file is larger than 10 Mb, you can upload to Creative Cloud account ( https://helpx.adobe.com/in/creative-cloud/help/share.html ) and send us the document link. 

I must also inform you that file recovery can't be guaranteed with a 100% success. We'll surely try our best. 

Regards,

Srishti

[Tubbsdad]

Sadly the offer to get the files looked at by the professionals could not happen because the Adobe link would not accept them and neither would my Dropbox account... they had beccome.TMP files It was quicker to start again from scratch which I did

(it was only a compliment slip design). At the time of packaging nothing untoward was noticed ( I do this for a living and package five magazines every month)

Just one of those unsolved mysteries, but thanks to Adobe for reaching out/

[Peter Spier]

I notice in your screen shot the files all have a zize of 0kb. I suspect that's the problem, though WHY they have no data is a mystery.

You say you package five magazines per month. Do you "recycle" previous issues by editing, then doing a Save As to a new name, or do you start fresh each time from a template file? InDesign has a pretty good file stability track record, but recycling is still a poor practice. Minor doducment corruptions tend to accumulate to the point where something fatal occurs.

[Tubbsdad]

Yes, that's the weird bit and why Adobe link and Dropbox would not accept  them, even weirder.

This particular file was a new "create File" from scratch and it was one page  with two .tiff file logos in - I only packaged it to keep track of the logos in Links.

In 7 years of using INDD (from the launch of Creative Cloud) for my magazines I have never had a problem like this with them, and  my magzines are far from single page - ranging from 48 - 100 pages every month. I do recycle, but after a long spell where crashes happened after an initial export to hi-res PDF I was educated by an Adobe enginer to recycle from the Packaged IDML version file. Recycling is the only practical method as 60% of the advertisers book each month and prefer the same page positions... I just go through and delete all editorial content and  non repeat adverts. Once a year I do start afresh from a blank template but the crashes on finalisation are now very few and far between... so if it ain't broke....

[Peter Spier]

As I said, recycling is asking for trouble. I suspect we all do it from time to time, but we can't be surprised when something goes wrong. Perhaps it would make sense to add the repeat ads to a template.

That said, recycling doesn't seem to tbe the issue here. I suspect some sort of network glitch. Are you saving directly to the NAS? That also can be problematic and I think a safer method is to work on the local machine and copy to the NAS.