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InDesign CS6 crashes during PDF export

Community Beginner ,
May 31, 2012 May 31, 2012

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I have been attempting to export a magazine design to PDF using the dialogue in InDesign CS6 (for Mac). The PDF gets to around 90% in the background tasks panel and crashes every time. I have removed preferences, reinstalled InDesign, upgraded to Suitcase Fusion 4 and am still having problems. I have even tried printing as a .ps file and it crashes during that as well. A few weeks ago I had a similar problem but found that I was opening CS5 .indd files and not resaving them as CS6 .indd files before exporting. Once I resaved/renamed them in CS6 it appeared to fix the problem. Now I can't seem to fix this one. I have exported other files and it works fine. I even packaged the .idml file and a colleague of mine opened it up in CS5.5 and was able to export it. I thought it might have something to do with corrupt fonts but I disabled all fonts and still couldn't get it to export. Any help or advice would be much appreciated as I am on a deadline. Here is the code from my latest crash report: http://pastebin.com/mRCLsYti

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Community Beginner ,
Jun 01, 2012 Jun 01, 2012

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Just got off the phone with Adobe. Had supurb customer service by the way. Anyhow, while on the phone with them I made individual PDFs of each page, trying to see which one was causing the crash. Turned out to be on page 41 of a 46 page magazine. An ad had become corrupted. I looked in Adobe Bridge and it appears that ad was created in Quark. Go figure. Anyhow, it's all solved now. Thanks for everyone's help.

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LEGEND ,
Jun 01, 2012 Jun 01, 2012

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Well, hopefully you won't let them off the hook. I mean, a corrupt PDF shouldn't crash ID, it should detect it and tell you what happened.

Anyhow, glad you got there. I feel dumb for not suggesting you create PDFs of subsets of your document (go by halves), though it should have been equivalent to deleting half the pages (though a bit faster).

Have a great weekend.

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Community Beginner ,
Jun 01, 2012 Jun 01, 2012

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Haha yea probably shouldn't have let them off that easy but after the stress I've been the under the last 48 hours having it export flawlessly made me happy . By the way I noticed here that someone was having similar problems with InDesign (CS4) crashing due to a placed PDF originally created in Quark. When I open the previous issues of this particular magazine, that same company's ad (sometimes it's a full page and sometimes a half page) has been causing it to crash as well (although it did not do this in CS5). Weird. Might need to have that guy send me his ads as high-res TIF files from now on. Have a good weekend as well.

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New Here ,
Jun 17, 2012 Jun 17, 2012

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I'm having the exact same problems in CS6, it dies every time trying to export a magazine at 97%.  Guess I'll try one page at a time to see where it's dying.

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New Here ,
Jun 17, 2012 Jun 17, 2012

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Turned out my issue was also a bad PDF ad.

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Community Beginner ,
Jun 17, 2012 Jun 17, 2012

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Glad you got your issue resolved. Did you happen to see in Bridge if that PDF was created with Quark? Just curious as I feel like that might have been the issue as another issue of the magazine I was working on had the same issue and it was a different ad but made by the same company in Quark.

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Guest
Jun 21, 2012 Jun 21, 2012

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I'm having crashes, multiple, and can't see to get a PDF no matter what I do. Adobe Presets crash, export crashes, Printing crashes, etc.
It appears that when a "warning" windows tries to open, like when you're packaging and it says "warning, something something something is kinda wrong", it crashed.

EVERY FREAKIN TIME!

I'm on Lion, but this doesn't seem like an easy work around.

Discuss...

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LEGEND ,
Jun 21, 2012 Jun 21, 2012

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Encryptics-Graphcs wrote:

I'm having crashes, multiple, and can't see to get a PDF no matter what I do. Adobe Presets crash, export crashes, Printing crashes, etc.

Post a crash report to http://pastebin.com/ and post a link here.

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Guest
Jun 21, 2012 Jun 21, 2012

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LEGEND ,
Jun 21, 2012 Jun 21, 2012

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Unfortunately the stack in the crash report is corrupt and useless:

Thread 0 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

0   ???                                0xac494630 _XHNDL_trapback_instruction + 0

1   ???                                0xffffffff 0 + 4294967295

Has this ever worked? I would try a reinstall.

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Community Expert ,
Jun 21, 2012 Jun 21, 2012

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There's another thread about crashing and warning dialogs at http://forums.adobe.com/message/4510734 that seems to suggest there's a bug and offers a possible way to get your work done.

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Guest
Jun 21, 2012 Jun 21, 2012

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That helped with the page removal.

The crashes are still there on a reinstall. I downloaded the suite though, so I'm redownloading it to see if that is the issue.

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Advisor ,
Jun 21, 2012 Jun 21, 2012

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Have you tired disabling background export? Here is how to do it:

http://indesignsecrets.com/a-new-workaround-for-that-pesky-background-export-issue.php

Or download script from here:

http://tomaxxi.com/downloads/

and scroll down to "Control Background Export".

Hope that helps.

--

Marijan (tomaxxi)

http://tomaxxi.com

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Participant ,
Jun 22, 2012 Jun 22, 2012

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I'm also not able to create PDF files from the new CS6 InDesign. Also not able to create a package. Both cases crash InDesign.

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Guest
Jun 22, 2012 Jun 22, 2012

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HERE'S what I have figured out from talking to tech support:

(I'm on a Mac)

- First, close all apps, and REBOOT. I know, I'm just telling you what I did.

- From the "finder" menus at the top, choose "GO" and hold down the "Option" key to choose the "Library" folder.

- Next, go into the "Preferences" folder...

- Then into the "Adobe InDesign" folder.

- Copy the version (8) folder to your desktop.

- Now, open up InDesign, create a new doc., and see if it goes to PDF.

I figured out that if ANYTHING was RGB, or gives InDesign a reason to show you a "warning" window, it will crash. I had to alter some files, and even save them down to CS5 settings so they'd stop causing issues.

Eventually I got it to work.

Adobe REALLY needs to remedy this, I don't understand how they can release a brand new version where a program crashes like this. I'm disappointed, and wish my employer hadn't purchased this version. 5(.5) was fine.

Adobe, fix it.

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LEGEND ,
Jun 22, 2012 Jun 22, 2012

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- Copy the version (8) folder to your desktop.

Almost certainly they meant MOVE (not Copy) the Version 8.0 folder. Copying it isn't going to do anything. But moving it will cause InDesign to regenerate preference files there. Files that might (somehow) have gotten corrupt. Did you try moving or copying?

Adobe REALLY needs to remedy this, I don't understand how they can release a brand new version where a program crashes like this.

The glib but true answer is that it happens to you but it doesn't happen to most people, and didn't happen to Adobe in testing. That's how it can happen. And it's not going to get fixed until someone figures out why it's happening. Was Adobe Support able to reproduce your problem?

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Guest
Jun 22, 2012 Jun 22, 2012

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You're right, it is "move the folder", I obviously can't go back and edit but you are correct.

Alas, Adobe Support wasn't trying to reproduce the effect. I send them the crash report, every single time, so they should have something to work with. Regardless, I can't see how this wouldn't have been reproduced, or have happened when testing, when this was the first project I cretaed with this version. Oh well, doesn't matter. They still need to look into this as I'm not the only one, obviouslly.

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Community Expert ,
Jun 22, 2012 Jun 22, 2012

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Encryptics-Graphcs wrote:

I can't see how this wouldn't have been reproduced, or have happened when testing, when this was the first project I cretaed with this version. Oh well, doesn't matter. They still need to look into this as I'm not the only one, obviouslly.

Rest assured, if this had shown up in testing it would have been fixed.

What you did essentially was replace the preferences (though you only did half the job), the number 1 troubleshooting step for program oddities.

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New Here ,
Jun 28, 2012 Jun 28, 2012

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I'm having the exact same problem -- CS6 InDesign crashes when I try to print or make pdf. Instantly. I'm on a new Mac with new software. Fonts were managed by FontBook at first and then by Extensis Suitcase 4 -- no difference. There is no old baggage on my machine so it's unlikely that anything has corrupted. But the problem persists. Any inspirations? Did the moving the preference files work? How did that go again -- Peter Spier seems to think that was only half the solution...

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Community Expert ,
Jun 28, 2012 Jun 28, 2012

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@Catherine – did you try exporting to PDF in "foreground"? That means, did you try  the script Marijan Tompa was pointing to?

I don't know if this is still working for InDesign CS6.

You could also try my script "ExportPDF_in_Foreground.jsx" from 2010, that does not change any preferences of InDesign. Just invokes the PDF export menu you are used to in an older method like in InDesign CS4 or CS3.

Save the script to a pure text file in your Scripts Panel folder, you can access it now instantly in the Scripts panel of InDesign.

Double-click the script from the Scripts panel. A window will pop up and you will be asked where to save the PDF, after "ok" the next dialog will show up asking you how the PDF should be named. The edit field is pre-populated with the name of your InDesign file plus ".pdf".

After that it's all like you are used to with the "normal" pdf export menu. Except: you cannot work in InDesign as long as the pdf is exporting. Thus the "Foreground" in its name 😉

Here is the script:

//ExportPDF_in_Foreground.jsx

//Uwe Laubender

/**

* @@@BUILDINFO@@@ ExportPDF_in_Foreground.jsx !Version! Wed Jun 23 2010 17:08:10 GMT+0200

*/

//DESCRIPTION:PDF-Export in foreground (old school like in InDesign CS4)

if(app.documents.length>0){

    var d=app.activeDocument;

    };

else{

    alert("Please open a document to execute export to pdf. Script will be aborted.");

    exit();

    }

if(d.saved == false){

    alert("Save your document first before executing export to pdf. Script will be aborted.");

    exit();

    };

var pdfPath = Folder.selectDialog("Folder to save pdf:");

var pdfName = d.name+".pdf";

var userDefFileName = prompt("File name:",pdfName,undefined);

if(userDefFileName == null){

    exit();

    };

var pdfFullName = pdfPath+"/"+userDefFileName;

if(File(pdfFullName).exists){

    c=confirm("The PDF-file \""+userDefFileName+"\" is already existing. Do you want to overwrite it?",true,undefined);

    if (c==0){exit()}; 

    };

//Error-handling if PDF file override is on and PDF is already opened in an PDF reader app:

try{

d.exportFile(ExportFormat.PDF_TYPE,File(pdfFullName),true,undefined,undefined);

}catch(e){

    alert("Error:\r"+e.message+"\r\r(Line "+ e.line+" in script code.)");

    exit();

    };

I cannot say, if that will help you, 'cause I have no crashes by exporting to PDF with InDesign CS6. Never had those crashes in InDesign CS5 or CS5.5 as well.

But maybe it's a thing with your latest version of Mac OSX.
I'm still on OSX 10.6.8…

Uwe

Message was edited by: Laubender

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New Here ,
Jun 28, 2012 Jun 28, 2012

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Uwe, thanks very much. I will investigate those possibilities.

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Guest
Jun 28, 2012 Jun 28, 2012

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I'm sure Peter has a point, but I can only agree to disagree.

I ended up having to find which graphic(s) was causing the warning message to generate. I did, and once those images were removed it converted to PDF fine.

I did another project, had the warning pop up and it crashed again.

I can only hope there is a fix that's pushed soon.

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Community Expert ,
Jun 28, 2012 Jun 28, 2012

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Encryptics-Graphcs wrote:

I'm sure Peter has a point, but I can only agree to disagree.

Please feel free. My point about half the job was that probably more than 90% of the time when a user replaces only one of the two files that make up the preferences set in ID the problems persist. This doesn't necessarily mean that replacing prefs will solve all problems -- it won't, and clearly will not solve a bad graphic -- bu tif you are going to try a prefs repalcement there is essentially nothing to be gained, and a lot of potentially wasted effort, from only doing half the job. Either use the keyboard shorcut method during launch, or manually move, rename, or delete both the InDesign Defaults and InDesign SavedData files.

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New Here ,
Jun 28, 2012 Jun 28, 2012

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Thank you Peter for clarifying that.

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Participant ,
Jul 03, 2012 Jul 03, 2012

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FYI - I have an outstanding case with Adobe regarding InDesign crashing anytime an warning message is presented by the application. I've had it happen numerous way (PDF export, Packing, Page Deletion). In all cases a blank warning message pops up very briefly and then the application crashes. The solution I've found is to find a work around in each instance that would not trigger the warning message. If I can avoid the warning messages I've had no crashes.

My case has been elevated to the 2nd level of engineers and I spoke to one directly about this. They acknolwedge and know about the issue and say that they believe it is specifically realted to OS 10.7.4 and it only occurs when it's being run on new hardware that was recently released (I'm a new 2012 MacBook Air).

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