2 users able to open same InDesign document

[Guest]

We have seen instances in which 2 users are able to open the same InDesign document.

The document is on a Mac file server.

The users are running InDesign CC2015 on their individual Macs.

The first user does Open Document, navigates to the server and selects the document to open.

The user gets a message that a plug-in is missing, says to ignore and the document opens.

The second user then does Open  Document, navigates to the server and selects the same document to open.

The user does not get a message about any missing plug-in and the document opens.

This does not happen if the first user does not get the missing plug-in message. In that case, the document opens, and when the second user tries to open the document, the second user cannot do so.

Is it possible the InDesign does not lock the document, or whatever it does to indicate it is in use, if a user gets a missing plug-in message, says to ignore and opens the document?

Has anyone else seen this behavior?

[SJRiegel]

I can't answer your question, but it seems to me that even if the file-locking mechanism was working perfectly, having two people taking turns making edits to the same document is asking for trouble. 

It may be that there is a process that could avoid the necessity of more than one person touching the main InDesign file during any given version change. If you will describe your process, you may get some ideas from users here on ways to have a only one user altering the main file.

[Guest]

It appears that if the first user does NOT get a message about a missing plug-in, when the second user tries to open the same document, the second user gets a message that says the document cannot be opened because it is in use.

InDesign is being used at a newspaper and at times one user needs to open the (single page) document and at time another user needs to open it.

[SJRiegel · Accepted solution]

InDesign is being used at a newspaper and at times one user needs to open the (single page) document and at time another user needs to open it.

Is one user doing layout, and the other editing the text? If so, InCopy would be a good solution.

If you have designers doing ads to put on the page, they could do them as separate InDesign documents that could be placed. If the ads needed editing, this could happen without opening the main document, and they would update when it was next opened.

[rohit_ID]

Indesign files when opened generate a .idlk file at the same location which alerts the indesign that the file is already open and locks that file to open on some other instance of inDesign. Similarly, when you close the file it automatically deletes the .idlk file generated.

Just look if that is generated in both the cases. Ideally when the .idlk file is present it won't allow two users to open the file at the same time.

[Guest]

We were able to establish that InDesign created the .idlk file when the document was opened that displayed the missing plug-in message, and as soon as the user clicked on the choice to ignore that plug-in, the .idlk file disappeared, after which the document could be opened by a second user!

[christophe_dep33]

Hi,

I am working on a windows environnment (Active Directory Server and SMB shares) and InDesign didn't generate the .idlk lock file. It disappear one second after it generate. Or it didn't show off at all.

Did you see some issues like that ?

We have Mac OS 10.10.5 and Adoe InDesign Creative Cloud

Thanks,

Regards

[Guest]

I pinned down the behavior to this scenario:

1. First user opens InDesign document

2. User gets message that a plug-in is missing.

3. User clicks on Ignore to open the document anyway

4. The .idlk file disappears

5. Second user opens the InDesign document

[christophe_dep33]

Well that's weird because we don't have the message saying there is a plug-in missing.

But when I saved as a new document the file without the lock, the idlk file appear and lock the file.