Participant

Answered

Indesign CS6 hand tool gets stuck and can't use selection tool

Forum|Forum|13 years ago
September 7, 2012
37 replies
119824 views

In Indesign CS6 using Mountain Lion, the hand tool appears and I can't select or work with any other tool. All I can do is move the document around. After trying the space bar and other key commands I restarted and it worked for a while. Then it happened again. I work on a Macbook pro, so when I removed the mouse and worked only with the trackpad there was no change. When I quit and reopened, no change. I then deleted prefs and restarted and it worked, but it's been happening from time to time. Anyone know any other fix without restarting or deleting prefs.

How to

Correct answer Birmingham Mike

Sometimes it's the simplest things!
Thanks.

alexanderv27980879

Participant

I've resolved this by right clicking on Indesign in the taskbar and "opening" the file from the 'recent' tab. Indesign will wake up from its freeze (it won't open the previous save because its already open!)

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Mello CMG

Participating Frequently

it didnt work for me.. the opening recent. sometimes it resolves it self when i pause/sync adobe cc.

dannyr25803278

Participant

I have the same issue on rare occasion in Adobe CC 2019! I finally found the fix by clicking on another application, such as Safari, then clicking back on the CC program. Hand goes back into the pointer or other tools. Works for me.

macOS Sierra 10.12.6

Adobe CC 2019

D

denisec50803421

Participant

I started tapping the space bar, and when that didn't work I hit the escape key, could be a coincidence but it fixed it for me!

richardg99768203

Participant

I get this a lot - I fix it by opening up another Adobe app (photoshop for instance) and clicking anything... a tool, layer, brush, anything... go back to InDesign and it works fine again.

GOD KNOWS WHY - but there ya go! I hope thats useful to someone

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lisakristel

Participating Frequently

MacAir/High Sierra/InDesign and Illustrator CC Hand tool is sticking. Never happened before and won't stop happening until i quit, shut down and restart. I reported the issue. Any other advice?

Steve Werner

Community Expert

You may have conflicting third party software and extensions. If quitting and restarting works for you, then watch carefully as you launch other software—for example, your web browser. Some web browser extensions (and other software) can interfere with keyboard modifiers like the Hand tool (space bar) or the Shift key when using them.

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lisakristel

Participating Frequently

Thank you, Steve,

I did try to close all other software including Chrome, when I restarted (many times), and the problem persisted. However, the last time I restarted, Chrome had crashed (which had never happened before. I suspect a digital battle between CC and Chrome that Chrome lost that time). Now it's working fine... Let's see what goes on, though, now that I've launched Chrome and found your email. (I needed the email, but is Chrome going to start messing with CC again? A conundrum.)

I'll reserve clicking correct until I see if this actually is the problem. I'll also click correct if I don't see the problem again, with or without Chrome. Good karma, maybe.

thanks for your time.

LennyLarsen

Participant

I'm having the same issue! I open any INDD file and I'm trapped with the hand tool… Unable to select anything, edit anything, etc. Is there a fix for this issue yet? With the vast volume of individuals reporting the same issue, it would seem that a solution should have been found by now. "Banging on the keyboard" doesn't seem like an effective solution, nor does "restarting the computer and hoping for the best."

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maloryanne

Participant

Did you ever figure out a solution? I'm dealing with the same crap and am losing my mind!

LennyLarsen

Participant

Unfortunately, no. Adobe has not gotten back to me and I'm finding this problem popping up all over the forums. It appears that Adobe is forcing all of us to switch to the subscription versions of their software by refusing to fix problems in the previous versions. On my last project, I was forced to download the seven day free trial of the current version of IN DESIGN 2017 and complete the project before my free trial ran out. It's absolutely shameful how Adobe is currently handling their business, but since we all need to use this software, we are stuck with it. If I didn't have to use it, I would certainly abandon Adobe altogether. Simply shameful.

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CraigMFA

Inspiring

This was dogging me too this morning. Yosemite/CS6/Mac Pro. Mashing the keys didn't work, multiple restarts didn't work. replacing the keyboard didn't work. Trashing prefs didn't work.

What worked for me was to shut down the Mac, unplug the power cable from my Thunderbolt hub, walking away for a few minutes, coming back and powering everything back up again. When ID came back up it was working normally again. It's just a hunch, but I think the problem was localized to my Thunderbolt hub, which is where my keyboard is plugged into. Power-cycling that is the only thing I can think of that I did, other than shut down the machine—as opposed to restarting it—and letting it sit for a spell.

I really hope the current version of CC has this crap fixed.

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bambinatori

Participant

I have the same problem! It happens to me twice a day or something, but all I have to do to fix it, is to go to Google Chrome.. Pretty weird, but it works every time :-)

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lamontee

Participant

Thanks so much! I opened Google Chrome and the problem went away.

T

teachbit

Participating Frequently

Some things apparently never change, I am stuck with the hand tool with the latest version of InDesign CC on a Macbook Air and El Capitain running. So maybe it is not a bug anymore, but a feature???

A

averyp14318216

Participant

This is happening to me, too, and it's driving me crazy. It stops my workflow, and I never know when it will work again. It has lasted as long as 30 minutes even when I turn photoshop cc off.

A

alinaalvarez00

Participating Frequently

So, I am hoping to not jinx my luck by writing this, but since my last post I have not experienced any more problems with any of my Adobe CS6 apps installed (photoshop, illustrator and indesign), I have even reinstalled IndesignCC to recover some files done with that version that I can't open on CS6 before saving it as an IMDL. This being said, I deleted EVERYTHING on my computer, all apps that were not crucial to my design work, including skype, spotify, and google drive. Reinstalled one by one and worked normally with each for a day before installing the next, and as it turned out (and I had this hypothesis before) my computer works so much better WITHOUT any Google apps on it, both Chrome and Drive are gone. I miss them every day so much, but I had to do it otherwise I would spend hours fixing issues of a super slow computer. Honestly I DON'T know why this is, I don't even know whether anyone else has come to this conclusion, but knowing that Google and Apple aren't the bestest of friends this doesn't surprise me. I redownloaded Drive for a day and tried working with it on, computer became extremely slow, Activity Monitor was showing Drive was taking up to 700% of my CPU% and it was gone within the hours of reinstalling it. I hope this is it, I am ok saving my stuff differently and then backing it up on Drive through a different computer on my network, but not sure if this is a long term solution. Either way, I have been able to actually work for over a week now and I am very happy. Good luck to all of you out there, trying to figure out the mysteries behind computers and software.

A

averyp14318216

Participant

The only new thing I have added to my computer is the plugin Exposure X. It's a photoshop app. I wouldn't think that would cause any problems.

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