Indesign document refuses to open ...

[nyn2112]

Hello,

I have an indesign document nearly finished. I wanted to open it yesterday to do the last Work but it didn’t open!

Everytime I try, indesign gets stuck, and shuts down after a while..

The document is on an external hard disk so I tried to open it on another computer, but same problem.

Also tried to copy the file to my computer , but not possable 😞

It says error -36 when I tried to copy.

File is very important (44 pages) and should have gone to print yesterday 😞

If anyone knows what to do ??  thank You !!

[BobLevine]

Were you saving to an external disk? That is not recommended and could cause a file to become corrupt? Do you have a backup? If not, I'm afraid you've just learned a valuable lesson on why you should.

You can avoid this in the future by keeping backups. I wrote this a long time ago but it's still valid. Work in a Dropbox or OneDrive folder:

https://www.boblevine.us/why-i-always-save-files-in-dropbox-and-why-you-should-too/

All that out of the way, You can try using the open > as a copy command. That can sometimes work, but beyond that, I have no other suggestions. Perhaps someone might be able to help with file recovery but it will help to know your operating system and version of InDesign.

[Barb Binder · Accepted solution]

Hi NYN:

The only Error -36 I can find is a Mac OS error, and not an InDesign error. Are you on a Mac? Based on these links, it looks fixable.

Mac Error Code 36 when transferring files

Getting rid of Error-36 in Mac OSX - YouTube

If it ends up being an InDesign issue, you can work through the steps in this document.

Troubleshoot damaged InDesign documents

If all else fails, Markzware has a paid service to recover corrupt files.

https://markzware.com/products/file-recovery-service/

~Barb