Unable to launch InDesign after updating to v16.3.2 on macOS Big Sur v11.5.1 on MacBook Air 2019

[beckarahn]

inDesign auto-updated to 16.3.2 when I launched it this afternoon and it now beachballs on the "Welcome to inDesign" screen and becomes completely unresponsive. I am on a 2019 Macbook Air. I have already tried uninstalling and reinstalling inDesign several times and have deleted the preferences files various ways according to several troubleshooting help pages. I updated the OS to BigSur 11.5.1 (still beachballs). I have booted into safe mode and tried to launch from there (no change). I disabled all of my user installed fonts. I have run out of troubleshooting suggestions and I am stuck. (I launched both Photoshop and Illustrator just to make sure it wasn't something with my Adobe ID and both of those are fine.) Can anyone help?

{Renamed by MOD}

[J E L]

@beckarahn Wow, you've tried a lot of things already. Usually any one of these fixes works. It sounds as though your system requirements are okay but check to be sure: InDesign system requirements (adobe.com)

What about rolling back a previous version if you are stable to work there temporarily? Finally, if you haven't done so, reach out to Adobe help. I hope you are back in business soon!

Online Chat: https://helpx.adobe.com/contact.html?rghtup=autoOpen (type "agent" to get a live person)

Phone: Monday–Friday, In the US 24 hours per day: https://helpx.adobe.com/contact/phone.html

[Anshul_Saini]

Hi there,

Sorry to hear about the crashing. I understand your frustration! I would request you to share a few more details like:

• Submit crash report by following these steps (https://helpx.adobe.com/in/indesign/kb/submit-crash-reports.html).
  While submitting the crash report, please, use the same email address, with which you are signed in on this community. This will help us find the crash report and help accordingly. 
• Did you use the Creative Cloud Cleaner tool to uninstall the app?
• Are you using Time Machine? Some users have reported that their InDesign is not working properly because of it. If you are using it try disabling it and see how it goes.

Also, you may try testing in the Root account. The root user account has unrestricted read and write privileges to all areas of the file system in OS X. Follow the steps here to log in to the root account and launch the InDesign application.
If InDesign launches fine in the root account, then the issue could be related to permissions. Follow the steps below to repair the permissions in your user account.

• Go to Terminal (Go > Utilities > Terminal.app)
• Execute the following command on terminal to provide permission:
• sudo chmod -R 777 /Users/<user>/Library/Preferences/Adobe InDesign
• sudo chmod -R 777 /Users/<user>/Library/Caches/Adobe InDesign
• sudo chmod -R 777 /Users/<user>/Library/Application Support

Looking forward to your response.

Thanks & Regards,

Anshul Saini

[beckarahn]

Yes, we tried *all* of that. I don't use Time Machine, I submitted many bug reports, I tried launching it in the root account (no different), repaired/changed permissions, reinstalled an older version. I actually worked with someone on the Help team for two hours last night and they couldn't solve anything. But thanks for the suggestions here! We did try those things.

So this morning, I deinstalled Creative Cloud and all of my Adobe apps, deleted every Adobe preference/cache/library etc I could find, ran the cleaner/deinstallers, and I am now reinstalling everything completely fresh. So far inDesign is working again and I have most everything else reinstalled. 10+ hours to get it fixed. (I think.)

[Anshul_Saini]

Sorry for this trouble. Glad to hear that you and your team resolved the issue. I would like to know how InDesign is performing now?

Let us know if you need any further assistance. We'd be happy to help.

Regards,

Anshul Saini