damaged indesign document, indesign won't work

[powerflower]

I was working in my document and exporting it. Than it was damaged.

When i open indesign, indesign works, but when I choose to recover the document indesing crashes. I reacts to nothing anymore.

I already cleard my preferenses.

[powerflower]

My document contains weeks of work! If somebody cann help me?

[Derek Cross]

Try saving it as an IDML document, renaming it and opening it again in InDesign.

(Which version of InDesign and OS?)

By the way, you should regularly take incremental back ups using Save As, and also keep external copies.

[powerflower]

but indesign does not work at al anymore if the document opens.

So how can I save it as IDML? I work whit the windows version

[Barb Binder]

When i open indesign, indesign works, but when I choose to recover the document indesing crashes. I reacts to nothing anymore.

What if you choose not to recover the document? Will it open?

[powerflower]

It opens the document, but then indesin is not working anymore. I can not choose any button.

[powerflower]

so indesign opens, i can open an other document as well and then it works. Only my document i need does not work, makes that indesign crashes

[Barb Binder]

OK.

Long shot, but have you tried deleting preferences? There are two techniques, both outlined here:

Trash, Replace, Reset, or Restore the application Preferences

And what about restoring the file from your back-up drive? Is your hard drive backed up nightly? Or weekly? 

What Operating System are you on? If Mac, is Time Machine enabled?

[powerflower]

yes i tried did delete them, but the problem did return

[Barb Binder]

Ok, not surprised because it certainly sounds like a corrupt InDesign document, and not corrupt preferences files.

So then, I would look at restoring the back-up file and going from there. If you don't have a back-up file to work from, then you now know how important that is for the future. Hard drives fail. Files become corrupt. We always need to plan for these awful yet inevitable situations.

If no back up exists, then on to the list of resources I provided. The last resort is paying someone (Marksware) to try to recover it for you.

[powerflower]

i did send my document to Marksware a few minutes ago. I hope they can help me. The backup file i have is from 29 december. So 4 weeks work and hours of work gone.....

Thank you for the tip for Marksware.

[Barb Binder]

Ok, fingers crossed. I'm sorry this was so painful for you.

In the meantime, I would suggest making plans to ensure that this doesn't happen again. (Or if it does, that you can easily pick up and move forward.)

Derek Cross​ suggested incremental back-ups with Save as. Excellent idea to guard against corrupt files. And to guard against failed drives, also consider backing up your hard drive daily, and using cloud-based storage for your files, which is backed up automatically. For those of us who have been in the business for a long time, it's not a question of "if", it's a question of "when".

[powerflower]

Yes indeed. fingers crossed. I will make a backup this evening. I have an external storage and an daily backupagenda, but if the external storage is not plugged on, it will not make the back-up. So a big lesson and as you said very painfull. The tears are near than laughing.
But oke, life goes on. I hope they can recover it, it will take me an big amount (it is a file of 54456320 bytes).

Thanks again.

[Derek Cross]

The important thing to note is, in addition to incremental black-ups (internal and external) is to also regularly use Save As, as this will remove a build up of file corruption.

[Joel Cherney]

but if the external storage is not plugged on, it will not make the back-up.

Oh yes, I do know how you feel. Incremental offsite backup over WiFi is one of the best things to happen to me, for what it's worth. It took some tweaking to get it to work correctly without consuming system resources while I was trying to work, but the time spent was worth it in the end. (That is because I plugged in my external storage and found that it was corrupted as well as my own hard drive.)

[powerflower]

thanks for your empahtie. I need it now.

[SanyamTalwar]

Hi,

There are multiple factors both internal and external to InDesign application that can lead to document corruption. However, I can take a look and see if the file can be repaired. Please email your InDesign file to corrupt_indesign_docs@adobe.com and I will take a look at the document.

If the file is larger than 10 Mb, you can zip (and password protect) the file and upload to Creative Cloud account (or Dropbox) and send us the document link.

Regards,

Sanyam Talwar

[powerflower]

Hi Sanyam,

Thank you for given me the possibility to send the file. I did send it to you bij wetransfer. Is that also oke? you will get a link to download it. The file takes 73 pages. I hope so you can help me, as I told, it is 4 weeks of work. Thank you in advance!

Greetz Esther

[SanyamTalwar · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I have sent the repaired IDML version of your document.

Regards

Sanyam Talwar

[Joel Cherney]

Hi Sanyam, can you tell us how you fixed it? Did you use some secret employees-only tool, or is a technique you can share with us?

[SanyamTalwar]

Hi,

There are multiple factors both internal and external to InDesign application that can lead to document corruption. One thing that you could try is either exporting to IDML and saving again as InDesign document.

Regards

Sanyam Talwar

[powerflower]

Sanyam,

Thanks for sending me the fixed file. I opened it in my indesignprogram. I do have my work that i did in the pages 50 - 73. I am very happy whit that, but I lost the pages 18 tot 27. There is the error: corrupt story, contents deleted.  I did sent Sanyam the question if he can repair this pages aswel.

Sanyam, thanks for so far, I hope you can help me with the pages 18 tot 27 as well!

Everybody thanks anyway!

Greetz Esther

[SanyamTalwar]

There were corrupt stories that had to be deleted to repair the document.

[Joel Cherney]

Another possible eleventh-hour fix is the "Blind IDML export" by Martin Fischer posted over on Kasyan's site. When you can't even get the file open for long enough to export IDML, this script can sometimes produce useful IDML. Doesn't always work, but it's worth a shot. Also he hosts an English-language page with a Windows app for INDD database repair (with a link at the bottom of the page to a similar OS X app).

However, these are both last-chance fixes. I wholly endorse Derek's andBarbBinder's comments; everyone is going to lose something someday. Just the other day, I had a nasty hard drive crash. I lost three out of four partitions, in the middle of a very challenging LiveCycle job. It took me maybe fifteen hours solid to restore everything, due to the complexities of my setup, and the fact that some of my onsite backups were also corrupted. However, I only lost about an hour's worth of completed work, due to belt-and-suspenders backups both at home and offsite. (My offsite backups are not "in the cloud" unless servers at the bottom of a repurposed ICBM missile silo in Idaho counts as "the cloud." )  So, pay close attention to their advice, and figure out some easy ways to back up your work as you go.

[powerflower]

i tried to run the script but do something wrong.

I clicked on the link. the box opens, then i select my file but have to choose witch type of file it is. i do not see indd or idml. what do i choose then?