InDesign 15.0.3 crashing/ freezing on macOS Catalina

[alexthegeekiest]

I upgraded my clients to 15.0.3 based on the recommedations and bug fixes.  We had hoped it would address their issues.  However, we are seeing more issues instead.  

Both computers are on the updated version of macOS Catalina

*InDesign stopped responding when creating and ad and after opening character window.

*Force Quit

*InDesign will not open and quites when trying to open file

*InDesign quits on startup

{Renamed by MOD}

[Sheena Kaul]

Oh no! That doesn't look great. 

When InDesign crashes, do you get any option to send crash report?

Also, have you tried to reset preferences and then try launching the app? 

Please see the document here: https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/using/setting-preferences.html to understand the details.

Regards,

Sheena

[alexthegeekiest]

Yes.  I sent over about 4 crash reports on Friday under my e-mail address and the clients e-mail address between 2p--4p CST.  On the macOS, I reset the preferences by removing the plist and rebuilding it.

The client indictes that it "randomly" corrupts files and she sends them to Adobe for repair.  They repair the file and reformat the fonts.  We validated the fonts and even removed the ones we thought might be causing the issue, however, that font does not cause the issue on the home machine.

[Sheena Kaul]

Thanks for this info. 

Let me check with the engineers and update you further. 

[Srishti Bali · Accepted solution]

Hi Alex,

Sorry top hear about the issues you are facing with the latest version of InDesign. Let me help you with that. I would request if you could try these steps one by one and share your observations with us:

• Change display’s colour profile to Apple RGB (https://support.apple.com/en-in/guide/mac-help/mchlf3ddc60d/mac).
• If that doesn't help, turn off GPU performance from InDesign Preferences and check how it works.
  
• If that doesn't help either, try booting the system into Safe Mode (https://helpx.adobe.com/in/x-productkb/global/start-safe-boot-mode-mac.html) and check how it works there. It starts your system so that it performs certain checks and prevents third party software/ services from automatically loading or opening. If it works fine in Safe mode, then there is some third party service or application like antivirus, plugins or web extensions which are conflicting with the InDesign. 
• If nothing helps, login to Root account (https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT204012). Check how application works there. If it works fine there, then it could be related to permission errors. Follow these steps to repair permission errors:

  Go to Terminal (Go > Utilities > Terminal.app)

  Execute the following command on terminal to provide permission:

  sudo chmod -R 777 /Users/<user>/Library/Preferences/Adobe InDesign

  sudo chmod -R 777 /Users/<user>/Library/Caches/Adobe InDesign

  sudo chmod -R 777 /Users/<user>/Library/Application Support

Regards,

Srishti

[alexthegeekiest]

I feel like the color profile assisted with the issue.  However, what I am seeing is that there are numerous links that breaking.  I am assuming that Adobe is crashing because it is trying to find all of those links and restore them.  Is it best practice to enbed graphics versus link them?

[Srishti Bali]

Glad to hear about the small improvement. It's not a good practice to Embed links if you work with large files, it will make your files heavy which increases the chances of corruption. I would suggest packaging links with files. Linked files and InDesign files should always stay in the same folder. For more details, please take a look at this help article: https://helpx.adobe.com/in/indesign/how-to/indesign-package-files-for-handoff.html For crash related issues, we are still investigating the problem with Color profile. Till the time it is fixed, please keep the color profile set to Apple RGB and stay tuned for updates. Regards!

[Anthony Levings]

I have a similar issue of frequent crashing and felt that I had reduced the instances by never letting my Mac go to sleep while InDesign was open but I still hadn't zeroed them entirely. Seeing your points about the GPU Performance (which I've found didn't change anything) and about the Apple RGB color profile (which I'm now trying), I wondered whether it was possible that using a scaled resolution on Catalina might be at the source of my problems. I am now testing this theory for myself and will report back if it is successful, but wondered whether it was already on the list of possible causes already.