Reflowable ePub export not working

[sarahholroyd]

Windows 10 system. This is the first time I've had an issue exporting an ePub from InDesign CC. I've done this many times, but now I have two InDesign files that won't export. InDesign just seems to freeze. I complete the export dialog settings and click OK to export. Normally I would get another dialog or a progress bar, but now I get nothing. And if I switch to another application, I can't switch back to ID. I've let it go for some time, but it never finishes. When I look at the Task Manager, there are quite a few ID processes running, most of them labeled Adobe CEP HTML Engine. Any thoughts on how to fix this? I have two client books I need to export to ePub and this has me dead in the water. Neither file indicates any preflight issues and they both export perfectly to PDF. Other InDesign files still export fine to reflowable ePub. It seems it's just these two that have some unknown issue.

[sarahholroyd]

After further investigation, it seems the end notes are the problem. Any suggestions of why, or how to correct?

[sarahholroyd · Accepted solution]

Solved it. It was hyperlinks that imported from the MS Word source file. Retyping those bits of text to remove the hyperlinks worked.

[ktomes]

This was super helpful! I had the same exact problem and was trying all sorts of things to resolve over 5 days. Your hyperlink deletion fix absolutely worked!

[brookej91957730]

The same thing happened to me. I unlinked the hyperlinks so it was just text and it fixed the problem. I'll try relinking them later. I wouldn't have known where to look without this post, so thank you! 

[markc43669837]

I ran into this same issue and thought I would add to the discussion to help others who find this in the future. My issue was related to the hyperlinks and endnotes imported from a Word doc, but specifically because I was splitting the ePub using styles so each chapter began on a new page. ePub exporter did not like that at all. To correct I needed to do two things: 1. Converted all URLs to hyperlinks (and then manually confirmed that each was formatted correctly) and 2. Converted endnotes to footnotes. Finally solved the issue! Kudos to sarahholroyd for finding the problem and pointing me in the right direction! A little dialog with error in InDesign would certainly have been helpful.

[Nedlaw]

Hi. I'm having the exact same problem with 17.0.1 -- "freezing" ID. I have about 1000 endnotes in the book I'm converting for a client. I too imported docs from Word to make the book. However, I'm unclear how a "URL" is different from a "hyperlink" in your explanation. (I plan to go through the book and convert all those http://something.html things to text. (let the user type them in). 

I have countless cross-references that were NOT imported from Word. Do you class these as "hyperlinks"?

What about endnote references? They WERE imported from Word. I can turn them into footnotes... but do you consider them "hyperlinks" imported from Word?

I will set the component files of the book so that new chapters begin where they begin.

This is a great post, but please clarify if you can. Thanks so much!!