Multiple Users Can Now Open the Same Document in InDesign 2021

[popcorn83]

My company just upgraded to Adobe InDesign 2021 and we are finding that more than one user can now open a document on our file server. In previous versions of the program if a file was already open by another user and someone else tried to open it, there would be an error message and the file would not open on the server. This is not happening anymore and we are worried of the problems this could cause.

When a document is opened by a second person it will say "read only" but will give no dialog box that this is happening so when work is complete and the user goes to save, it will not let them.

I'm wondering if there is a way to change this so that someone cannot open a file that is already opened by another user.

[AaronGraphicDesigner]

We are having the same issue at my agency, with multiple users being able to open the same INDD file on the server with no warning or prompts. We are an all Mac environment running the latest version of Catalina and Adobe Creative Cloud on all machines, if that helps. I'm hoping that Adobe sees and responds to this bug as quickly as they did the File Save location issue.

[Vegan Fanatic]

Big Sur just was released, try using that and see if the file locking is working properly

[AaronGraphicDesigner]

I appreciate your suggestion, however we never update our operating systems immediately after a new release due to both the risk of bugs and in this particular case the risk of legacy software that isn't compatible with Big Sur yet. In addition, I've seen this same issue reported multiple times on the InDesign bug report website from users on both Mac and Windows environments, so MacOS shouldn't be the issue here. Still, thanks again for the suggestion! 

[BobLevine]

I do feel like I need to point out the irony of that statement since you upgraded to InDesign 2021. I can't confirm or eliminate this as a bug in either but if it's working okay in InDesign 2020, you might consider rolling back if this is a dealbreaker.

[AaronGraphicDesigner]

No I completely agree with you Bob. For context, we had several machines auto update to the new versions after those updates had been sitting in our Adobe Creative Cloud app for over a week. I've never seen that happen before on a major update, but for at least 5-6 of our 50+ users it did and it was the morning of the same day. That could have had something to do with our system management software but not sure. So our new manager just told the whole team to update and see how it went. Well after just 1 day we quickly found 2 bugs that were causing major problems, this being one of them along with files saving into a previous job folder, not the one you're working from. So the whole team did roll back to 2020 until this issue is resolved. I've found that Adobe has resolved the File Save issue and it will be rolled out in the first update, however I haven't seen confirmation of this issue being resolved yet. There's plenty of reports on the bug website though, so hopefully it's already on their radar.

[BobLevine]

Yeah, I know about the file > save thing, but this one could be a little harder to pin down with all of the server possibilities out there.

[AaronGraphicDesigner]

Agreed! We had this issue with a previous version of InDesign on a previous server and thought it was a permissions issue. Turns out after countless late hours redoing the server file permissions over and over again, an InDesign update came through and the problem was resolved. Hopefully they can resolve this one as well, but as you said there are so many server config possibilities out there and it's unclear if those server setups play a role in this bug. Until they figure it out we're stuck in 2020 (a dreadful year). lol 

[Vegan Fanatic]

I agree that 2020 has turned into a year from hell. 

I work from remote in my job so I am fairly lucky to have a low heath risk position.

I use Apple, PC, Linux servers and more so I need to stay on top of a lot of disparate setups.

[Vegan Fanatic]

I read on the Apple community of a few older machines becoming bricked with Big Sur. The machines had to be sent back to Apple to be fixed which means a pile of spending. I heard of one bricked machine, Apple wanted $600/

[popcorn83]

UPDATE: Spoke with Adobe over the phone and they said they are aware of this issue and their developers are working on it. I have no idea what this means as they did not give us a time frame, but we are not holding on to hope that this will be resolved any time soon. We have downgraded to InDesign 2020 per Adobe's suggestion. Our department is running MacOS Mojave and we are a little concerned about updating to the latest OS since their are forums full of people who have a ton of problems with Adobe because of the updates.

[Vegan Fanatic]

I keep all my operating system up to the current version. I am always assuming that bug fixes are in every update.

[Srishti Bali · Accepted solution]

Hi there, 

We're so sorry to hear about this issue. You may track updates related to this issue by upvoting this UserVoice page (https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs/suggestions/41715013-indesign-2021-...).

This issue is currently Under Review status, which means that although we don't have an exact ETA, our product team is working hard to test & finalize the changes as soon as we can. Please stay tuned for updates, and thanks in advance for your patience. 

Regards,

Srishti

[Rainer Klute]

Sad to say the issue is not solved at all. It also happens within InDesign 18.1 working on Dropbox or Google Drive. 

[popcorn83]

My colleagues noticed this too. We had to go back to working in version 17.4.

[BobLevine]

Cloud services are different than local networks. Lock files have never synced via Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, etc.

[kelli_89]

It is not just cloud services, our drive is also causing this issue.