InDesign chronic crashes

[w***@adobeforums.com]

I am using InDesign CS version 3.0.1 on windows XP pro.

the program is about as stable as mercury in a tornado. It crashes when
I place objects. It crashes when I have zoomed out and see the entire pasteboard and then use the keyboard shortcut to zoom back in. It crashes if you click to many times in a row. Within the last 15 minutes it has crashed at least 11 times. I'm hoping I don't have to do an uninstall/reinstall but it's getting frelling ridiculous. I have to save after every single thing I do not knowing if the next thing I do will crash the program. Has anyone else experienced this stability issue? I'm expecting a note from microsoft any minute to tell me to stop sending them the error reports.

this is frustrating and leading to a more intense case of tourette's.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[T***@adobeforums.com]

Trash your prefs. Start ID and *immediately*, i.e. immediately after choosing the shortcut that start ID, press Ctrl-Shift-Alt. Answer the question if the preferences should be deleted with yes. And be very quick with pressing those keys.

Teus

[w***@adobeforums.com]

Still crashing. The main thing that crashes it is when I zoom out and can see the whole paste board of the spread I'm working on plus the other spreads. If I use the magnifying glass or the keyboard short cut to zoom back in and start off of the paste board it crashes.

I'm not sure if I just need to re-install and start over.

[Bob Levine]

Sounds like a video driver issue. Try turning hardware acceleration down
to zero. If that fixes it, you need a new driver.

Bob

[J***@adobeforums.com]

Post by w***@adobeforums.com
Still crashing.

All of Windows, or just ID?

--Bob's right, I'm just curious about this detail.

-John O

[w***@adobeforums.com]

Did the acceleration thing and it still crashes. I don't know why
it doesn't like clicking off of the paste board at high zoom-out levels. ID is the only program that I'm really having a problem with
at the moment and it is the only thing crashing. This box has 2GB of ram so I wouldn't think that is a problem.....

[M***@adobeforums.com]

I agree with Bob and John O. Video drivers are the most likely culprint. What display card do you have and what driver versions are you using?

Are you working alone, or are you on a system with IT support? You may even need to uninstall your video drivers and reinstall them if your motherboard's chipset wasn't udpated for your video card before installing the drivers.

[w***@adobeforums.com]

I did what Bob suggested and turned my acceleration to zero and it
still crashed. I am using an NVIDIA Quadro FX 1300 set up for dual
monitors. I'm on a network but our IT dept. consists of one guy who
is expected to support over 40 people on his own.

I guess the next step is to either update my video drivers or never zoom out as far as I have been.

I'm still not sure if this is a unique problem to me or if others have had it.

[M***@adobeforums.com]

I'd say it's pretty unique, but that's not to say others haven't had video problems before. I've had issues, both with working applications and games, that could only be resolved by updating drivers.

[w***@adobeforums.com]

I have updated my drivers and it still crashes. Try zooming out to about 12% and double click off of the pasteboard and see what happens. I'm used to clicking off to de-select. Now when I click
off the pasteboard (even the tiny space between spreads) the program
crashes. I guess this will force me to be more precise in my selections but I shouldn't have to be.

[M***@adobeforums.com]

Try zooming out to about 12% and double click off of the pasteboard and
see what happens.




Nothing. My PC set-up doesn't sound that much different than yours, but yours are serious problems that have to relate to your specific configuration. As I mentionned in a previous post, it could even be that your video card isn't 100% compatible with your motherboard without a chipset update. That seems hard to believe here, but I have run into it in gaming.

In the meantime, I would check that all drivers are updated. I'd even check out the mouse.

[w***@adobeforums.com]

I've got a Dell workstation so I would hope everything is compatible.
I've updated the video driver so the next thing is I guess the mouse and if all else fails do an uninstall/reinstall and see if that fixes it.

thanks for everyone's help.

[M***@adobeforums.com]

Just thought of one other thing.

Do you have any specific dual monitor software installed? At one point I was using ATI's HydraVision, but somehow it kept wiping out ID's preference files and I had to stop using it. (There was no big advantage anyhow.)

[w***@adobeforums.com]

Nope. Not using any specific dual monitor software. Just have my
video card (NVIDIA Quadra FX1300) set to dual monitors. I've since
discovered I cannot drag one item from one spread to another. I will
be doing an uninstall/reinstall come monday. Hopefully, that will
take care of this problem. I will just need a little more patience in learning more of the ins and outs of InDesign.

[J***@adobeforums.com]

Post by w***@adobeforums.com
I've since
discovered I cannot drag one item from one spread to another.

I recently had a similar problem, where if a dialog box straddled the two
monitors, I might see a Windows crash. Turns out the fan on the primary
video card had locked up. I limped along with this for a bit, then found a
replacement fan. All is well now.

All that to say, I think you have a video card/driver/BIOS problem that only
pops up when the card is asked to do certain things. Or, maybe a mouse
driver. Keep your eyes on the drivers available for your video card, and see
if it gets updated soon. Also call their tech support to be sure your
problem is noted.

-John O

[P***@adobeforums.com]

I had a problem with Photoshop where the image window would disappear if I used the scroll wheel and it turned out to be mouse rather than video drivers, so I'd definitely give those a check.

Peter

[Ben Wiens]

William, I noted that you said the program crashes when you place objects. Does Indesign crash when you start a new document and you do not place any objects? You did not tell us what type of objects you are placing. When I was evaluating Indesign some months ago, I was trying to place all kinds of objects as experiments. Some types of objects caused Indesign to crash every time. When I learned what not to place, the program has been really stable. For me certain EPS files that I generated in Microsoft programs did not seem to be compatible. There appears to be the general thinking that one can place any file that is on the import file list. But there are variations in these files, like version numbers, and different programs method of writing them. That's one reason why I went to the Creative Suite.

[w***@adobeforums.com]

I am placing .eps files that were created mainly in PhotoShop.
I'm going to do a uninstall/reinstall momentarily to see if that solves anything.

[w***@adobeforums.com]

WELL BUGGER!!!!

I did an uninstall/reinstall with the same results. The program just
does not like me clicking anywhere off the paste boards. I guess I'll just have to be careful where I click and save often. I've got
a lot to learn about what and what not to do in this program.

[P***@adobeforums.com]

William,

This is definitely NOT normal behavior for InDesign. Have you done all the driver replacements that have been suggested, including the mouse? This is absolutely something related to your system. You might want to open the case and re-seat the video card, as well.

Another remote possibility is that this is some sort of font issue. Do you run any font manager? You might also want to test for a corrupt font.

Can you get the program to launch with only the system fonts installed?
You should be able to keep the system running if you temporarily move all fonts out of your fonts folder, EXCEPT the following list:
• Arial, Arial Bold, Arial Bold Italic, Arial Italic
• Courier 10,12,15; Courier New, Courier New Bold, Courier New Bold Italic, Courier New Italic
• Marlett• Modern
• MS Sans Serif 8,10,12,14,18,24
• MS Serif 8,10,12,14,18,24
• Small Fonts
• Symbol; Symbol 8,10,12,14,18,24
• Tahoma (if present)
• Times New Roman, Times New Roman Bold, Times New Roman Bold Italic, Times New Roman Italic
• Wingdings

If ID starts and doesn't crash, it seems likely that the problem is a font. Start putting them back in groups (or half the remaining fonts each time if you wan to get fancy) and test again until the problem recurs. The problem font will be in the last group installed. Remove half of this last group, if the problem persists the font is in the other half, and vice versa. Keep playing the halfs game until you isolate the font.

Peter

[P***@adobeforums.com]

As John O hints, it could even be a defective video card. Does your IT department have some other card hanging around you could try?

[w***@adobeforums.com]

Well I did have my motherboard flake-out on me recently. The nice people from Dell came out and replaced it. I did the uninstall/reinstall, updated my video card drivers but not the mouse yet (this hit or miss whell scrolling is annoying as well).

Recently when zoomed in on a bottom corner of a spread where I have
very little of the paste board to work on I've caused it to crash
by clicking (to deselect) in the space between the spreads. I've been trying to remember not to do that.

I will check for an update for my mouse. I am not running a font
manager.

[J***@adobeforums.com]

Post by w***@adobeforums.com
(this hit or miss whell scrolling is annoying as well).

I'd only change the first letter of the last word to "h" and agree 100%. I
never know when it's going to work. Or not.

Has anybody mentioned trashing the preferences yet? Try that before anything
else invasive. You hit Ctrl-Shift-Alt *immediately* after launching ID. Then
agree. This temporarily fixes a vast array of ID annoyances.

-John O

[P***@adobeforums.com]

Definitely deal with the mouse driver, and I would absolutely reseat ALL the boards if Dell was in there working. Any idea what caused the MOBO to fail? This sounds like you could still have a hardware problem.

Peter

[w***@adobeforums.com]

The motherboard blew a few capacitors. I just trashed my preferences. The mouse scrolled but I still crashed when clicking
between the paste boards. According to the Mircosoft site my mouse is up to date driver wise. The fan on my video card is working as well. I'm going to get another person up here to load CS and see if they have the same problem.

I work in an office at a steel foundry so we have a very unfriendly
computer enviroment dust wise. Since I have a scanner and two monitors on my desk, my box is under my desk and probably gets a little extra heat build-up.

[w***@adobeforums.com]

I have removed and reseated the video card and I'm still crashing.
After all the other fixes I've tried I must defer to the forum's opinion that it is a system problem and maybe a video problem
in particular. The next course is going to be to get a colleague
to install CS and see if we can replicate the problem. If we can't,
I'll probably request another video card.

keep the suggestions coming. I appreciate everyone's help.

[P***@adobeforums.com]

What happens if you turn down the color settings to 16 bit? I'd suggest 8 bit (256 colors), but on my system it gets so weird I don't think it would help with a diagnosis.

Peter

[Ben Wiens]

William, is this happening only when you are using Indesign, or other programs as well. While I'm not a computer hardware expert, when I have problems with the hardware, it rarely just appears in one program, though it can. You are not telling us enough about your tests. Please tell us more about the following:

1. Does the crashing only happen with Indesign, or some other programs? Does it happen in Photoshop or Illustrator? If it happens at all in other programs then the problem is not just Indesign, and more likely hardware related. If it happens only in Indesign, then there is a bigger chance it is related to the software use.
2. If the crashing is confined to Indesign, does it happen on all documents you make, does it happen with blank documents, or just certain types of documents you make?
3. You mentioned before you were getting the problem after you were pasting EPS files mostly made in Photoshop. Is Photoshop the same release date as Indesign. Are you getting crashing when you paste EPS files made in Photoshop. Do you get the crashing when you paste in other types of files such as JPEG or TIFF?

[w***@adobeforums.com]

Ben,

here goes....

1. I do crash in photoshop and corel (but very very rarely).

2. Crashing at this point seems to be limited to InDesign.
But after further experimentation this morning it may be
that my file is corrupt. I futzed around with other
ID files and they seemed pretty solid.

3. I don't think it was so much the file type as it was where I
placed the graphic. They were very large dimensionaly and they
would hang off the pasted board. When I tried to move them and
my pointer would would hit the spaces off the paste board it would
crash.

I'm really begining to think the file is frelled. I'm going to recreate it (oh lovely) and see if that solves the problem.

thanks for the help everyone. I'll let you know how it comes out.

[P***@adobeforums.com]

William,

Before you start from scratch, try exporting to InDesign Interchange format (.inx) and reopening the exported file. That has a way of often curing the corruption blues.

Peter

[w***@adobeforums.com]

Peter,

I'm still a major newbie at this. Do I 'save as' for this .inx thing or do I need specific software for it?. Another pagemaker
preference I can't break is the way PM had the page icons at the bottom which made it so easy for me to navigate. Is that still an
option in ID?

[P***@adobeforums.com]

William,

.inx is an option under the File > Export menu.

The ID Pages palette has replaced the row of page icons at the bottom of your Pagemaker screen. It's a lot more powerful in many respects (it's where you set up sections and auto-numbering starts, and the like), but it is not quite as nice for navigating because it doesn't show as many pages at once unless you open it up to a large size or uncheck the "show vertically" box on the palette options accessed with the little triangle in the corner. You should read about it in Help.

Peter

[w***@adobeforums.com]

I did the .inx thing at it still crashes. I'm going to go ahead
and recreate it since the initial project has been changed on me somewhat.

Thanks for the help.

[P***@adobeforums.com]

William,

Did you ever get a second machine set up with ID? You should try that as soon as possible. If it still crashes after an interchange export cycle the problem is more likely in the system than in the file, which does not bode well for new work.

By the way, that thing with the scroll wheel not working reliably is a known issue for CS. Click another tool in the toolbox and it will come back. A real pain in the a... Fixed in CS2, for what it's worth.

Also, did you try temporarily moving fonts except for the ones I listed, out of your fonts folder to a new location? You need to absolutely eliminate the possibility that you have a font corruption problem, unlikely as it is.

I'm wracking my brain for other possible problems. Did things ever work correctly? What level of permissions do you have on the machine?

Peter

[w***@adobeforums.com]

Peter,

I haven't been able to set up another machine yet or do the font
thing. None of the other ID files I opened this morning crashed. I'm in the process of re-creating the document. So far so
good. I'm trying to get it to crash after each graphic I place to
see if I have a bad graphic instead of the file.

How do you toggle between multiple documents. I haven't figured that
one yet. It used to be ctrl+tab in pagemaker.

I've done a few projects in ID and have not experienced the crashes
that I have with this file. It just may be one of those gremlin-laced files you come across ever so often.

[P***@adobeforums.com]

Ctrl + ~ cycles through open windows

[w***@adobeforums.com]

I've also found that ctrl+F6 does as well.

I have re-created the brochure back to where I was before and no
crashes. I even copied the text from the bad file to the new one
with no crashes. I used all the same graphics. I've got .eps's,
.tif's and .psd's with no crashes. I'm gonna chalk this one up
to just a flaky file. It's just one of those things that seem to
defy explanation (like most computer problems which fall under the
'no damn good reason' category).

thanks again for the help.

[w***@adobeforums.com]

WELL @#$%#$ ME WITH A PORCUPINE!!!!

I just thought everything was good. I had set up the document and placed all my graphics with no crashes. Then I re-sized the pics to
the old document and crashed. Next I was moving pics with the x/y
coordinate box up top and crashed. I'm at a loss now.

[Ben Wiens]

William, you said previously, "I don't think it was so much the file type as it was where I placed the graphic. They were very large dimensionaly and they would hang off the pasted board. When I tried to move them and my pointer would would hit the spaces off the paste board it would crash".

If this is still the case, why are you sizing your graphics larger than the page boundaries. Shouldn't you be either making your pages larger or sizing your pictures smaller?

[w***@adobeforums.com]

I've tried ID on another box and it appeared to work fine. I tried the font thing (which had its own freakiness) and still crashed.
I'm not sure what else to try other than going back to PageMaker.
Maybe we could get an Adobe guy to make a housecall.

[P***@adobeforums.com]

William,

If it's working on another machine withthe same file it's either the installation of ID or the hardware setup, and my guess is the latter.

Try deleting the video card and the mouse in device manager and restarting so that windows is forced to relocate them, then make sure you load drivers from a clean location, not the possibly corrupt System32 drivers folder.

Peter

[w***@adobeforums.com]

I think I'm going to totally uninstall CS and start over. Nothing
seems to have worked. The main thing causing a crash is clicking
anywhere off of the pasteboard. I did have one crash after using the
X/Y coordinate box to move a placed graphic.
All other programs seem solid (crashes occur but are very very rare)

system:Dell Precision 470 workstation; dual 3.4ghz Xeon processors;
2gb of ram. windows XP Pro version 2002; service pack 2
adobe InDesign CS version 3.0.1
NVIDIA Quadro FX 1300 video card
motherboard replaced in the last 2 weeks

things tried so far:
1. turned hardware acceleration to zero
2. reseated video card
3. uninstalled/reinstalled ID (suspect since it took only minutes)
4. started program with only system fonts loaded
5. recreated document and was successful and was crash free for a
short time
6. deleted mouse and video card and loaded drivers from location
other than system32 folder
7. opened file on another box and it seemed pretty stable
8. tried other ID files and they were solid at first but now
all ID files crash
9. have placed several different file formats:.eps;.tif.jpeg;.psd
10.have exported(saved as) file as .inx
11.made sure video and mouse drivers are current

Any additional suggestions are very welcome.

[c***@adobeforums.com]

I experienced similar problems with ID 3.0 in the beginning. Suddenly ID was crashing if I tried to move large images so that they crossed the "gray area" even when they were cropped or resized in ID. The cure was to uninstall ID and install again. Since then I always resize large low resolution digital photos in PhotoShop before placing them into ID. Never experienced crashes anymore.

Claudius

[P***@adobeforums.com]

William,

Make sure you hold down Ctrl + Alt + Shift when you launch after the reinstall to replace the preferences. I've found that even if you say you want to, it doesn't always do it on a reinstall.

If it isn't something like what Claudius is talking about it is still, in my gut opinion, something to do with the hardware. Can you swap the memory? I had a bad stick on an old machine that would be running along just fine until I did one particular task with Adobe Type Manager, and then it would crash, predictabley, every time. Took a week to figure out. Try running with half the memory and see if it crashes, then the other half.

Peter

[w***@adobeforums.com]

Peter his some additional info.

the following tools crash the program when clicked in the gray area
selection tool; direct selection tool; pen tool; pencil tool; line
tool;

the hand tool and text tool did not cause a crash.

here is my InDesign.log that shows some access violation

//=====================================================
Exception code: C0000005 ACCESS_VIOLATION
Fault address:

4A970A38 01:0003FA38 C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe InDesign CS\Required\LAYOUT.RPLN

Registers:
EAX:038B4978
EBX:00000000
ECX:01A7EBD8
EDX:00002C36
ESI:00000000
EDI:00000000
CS:EIP:001B:4A970A38
SS:ESP:0023:0012F230

EBP:0012F280
DS:0023 ES:0023 FS:003B GS:0000
Flags:00250202

Call stack:
Address Frame Logical addr

Module
4A970A38 0012F280 0001:0003FA38 C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe InDesign CS\Required\LAYOUT.RPLN
//=====================================================
Exception code: C0000005 ACCESS_VIOLATION
Fault address:

4A970A38 01:0003FA38 C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe InDesign CS\Required\LAYOUT.RPLN

Registers:
EAX:03A83FF8
EBX:00000000
ECX:01CCE638
EDX:00002C36
ESI:00000000
EDI:00000000
CS:EIP:001B:4A970A38
SS:ESP:0023:0012F230

EBP:0012F280
DS:0023 ES:0023 FS:003B GS:0000
Flags:00250202

Call stack:
Address Frame Logical addr

Module
4A970A38 0012F280 0001:0003FA38 C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe InDesign CS\Required\LAYOUT.RPLN
//=====================================================
Exception code: C0000005 ACCESS_VIOLATION
Fault address:

4A970A38 01:0003FA38 C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe InDesign CS\Required\LAYOUT.RPLN

Registers:
EAX:0278D9E8
EBX:00000000
ECX:01CCE638
EDX:00002C36
ESI:00000000
EDI:00000000
CS:EIP:001B:4A970A38
SS:ESP:0023:0012F230

EBP:0012F280
DS:0023 ES:0023 FS:003B GS:0000
Flags:00250202

Call stack:
Address Frame Logical addr

Module
4A970A38 0012F280 0001:0003FA38 C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe InDesign CS\Required\LAYOUT.RPLN
//=====================================================
Exception code: C0000005 ACCESS_VIOLATION
Fault address:

4A970A38 01:0003FA38 C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe InDesign CS\Required\LAYOUT.RPLN

Registers:
EAX:02CDDCB0
EBX:00000000
ECX:01CE4F58
EDX:00002C36
ESI:00000000
EDI:00000000
CS:EIP:001B:4A970A38
SS:ESP:0023:0012EA00

EBP:0012EA50
DS:0023 ES:0023 FS:003B GS:0000
Flags:00250202

Call stack:
Address Frame Logical addr

Module
4A970A38 0012EA50 0001:0003FA38 C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe InDesign CS\Required\LAYOUT.RPLN
4CF447AE

01C252D8 0001:000137AE C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe InDesign CS\Plug-ins\LAYOUT\INFO PANEL.APLN

I don't know if this will help anyone but it may be a start.

[P***@adobeforums.com]

William,

I'm afraid the error log doesn't mean much to me, but it very well might to some of the other readers, particularly if someone from Adobe tech support is monitoring the thread. Did you send the error log to Adobe since you have an incident open? Have you had a chance to try the half-the-memory game? I'm really suspicious that it is some hardware issue.

Peter

[D***@adobeforums.com]

I don't know much about crash logs either, but the words Access Violation strongly suggest a corrupted or badly form font is gumming up the works.

Dave

[w***@adobeforums.com]

I haven't sent error to Adobe yet nor the memory. I've been trying
get every thing uninstalled/reinstalled etc. I was shown how to
enlarge my paste board area so that'll be a big help. That clicking
another tool to get the mouse to scroll again seems to be a limited type deal. You seem to get so many before it stops working.

I will definitely look into sending Adobe a copy of the crash log. Any idea who'd it be?

thanks ya'll.

[P***@adobeforums.com]

William,

I seem to have confused a couple of threads. I see now you don't already have a tech support incident started, so you would need to do that before you send in the log. They would, I'm sure give you an address to send it to.

Flaky scroll wheel is one of those annoyances you have to learn to live with, but you can search for it and find some other info on this forum, and I believe also in the Adobe Knowledge Base.

Dave is a very smart guy, and if he thinks this could be font related, you might want to go back and play with the fonts again. If you can, try to find another machine and copy those system fonts and use them to replace the ones in your fonts folder. You can copy yours to another location on your hard drive so you can get them back if you want to. You mentioned things were flaky when you had only the system fonts installed, but you weren't specific, so I don't know what was really going on. ID is much pickier about fonts than other apps, so it is possible that even a corrupt system font would not cause other problems, but show up in ID.

[T***@adobeforums.com]

the words Access Violation strongly suggest a corrupted or badly form
font is gumming up the works.




The term Access Violation in Windows is maybe the most common error message. You will get it anytime you try to access anything that is not there: a null pointer. So, as such it does not necessarily mean a font issue. (Although it could well be that there is a font issue involved here.)

Teus