Preference gone, every time InD crashes

[DBLjan]

Hello world,

im getting furious: Were currently working with a new DAM-company named Canto with the product Cumulus. To make it short: InD gets stuck, probably while Cumulus "DocWatch"-Plugin is managing server-weblinks and permission on assets. This happens approx 3 times a day.

Does someone have a good idea, how I can quickly restore my preferences? "Hey, just keep *this folder* backupd. If you lose your Prefs, dont hasitate, just copy that stuff back."

I wouldnt whine here, but after a clean restart of InDesign I do all the preferences (paragraph settings/printer-presets and what not) again. Then I shutdown InDesign to keep the preference and save them. When I restart InDesign, everything is fine. This state keeps appearing, until I get one of these crashes: InDesign just freezes, not waking up…so you have to kill it by the task-manager.

Odd thing is: Preferences should stay. Its new to me that after a crash InDesign loses nearly all of its settings.

Only thing I changed since this happens is upgrading from Canto 11.01 to 11.02, and updating OSX from 10.12 to 10.13.2, still using InDesign CC 2017.0.
I never had this, but I blame Canto or MacOS, and until this gets solved, I need a workaround to calm my nerves… Please help.

[Laubender · Accepted solution]

Hi Jan,

the only workaround is that you backup "this" folder 😉

On Mac OSX this is:

User > "user name" > Library > Preferences > Adobe InDesign > Version 12.0

Be it a Time Machine backup every hour or a manual backup.

Regards,
Uwe

[Laubender]

BTW: I also seen InDesign CS6 crash on OS X 10.6.8 and all preferences were set back.
So I think that's nothing specific to OS X 10.13 and InDesign CC 2017.

Regards,
Uwe

[DBLjan]

Thank you both, ill try that, and hope the file "InDesign Defaults" is holding these prefs i lose every time, because subfolders seem to be okay and not included in the loss.

[rob day]

I need a workaround to calm my nerves

Make a folder with a copy of your Adobe InDesign prefs folder, and in the same folder create an alias of your user Library Preferences folder. Then when you have preference problems just Option drag your Adobe InDesign copy onto the alias and restart ID.

[DBLjan]

Nah, that didnt work!

Just got a freeze/crash, and replaced the "Version 12.0" folder…
InDesign app prefs are still gone, printers are missing, paragraph settings are default.

I wanna cry.

Any ideas?
I have installed CS6, CC15, CC17 and CC18…are you sure my CC17 = v12?

[Laubender]

Hi Jan,

The prefs for CC 2017 are definitely in the version 12.0 folder.

Could it be, that your backup version is already in disarray?

Regards,
Uwe

[DBLjan]

I dont really know. I do my configuration, the most obviously is to set the app appearance from darkish to light grey.

Now I close InD. When I open up again, all setting are there. I can do this all day. So I guess my v12-folder must be okay.

Now InD freezes, only option is to kill it by the task manager.

By the way: These subfolders-setting are things that wont go away upon crash. Which file/s does hold the settings exactly?