Data merge on v2 takes FOREVER

[T_PR]

Hello,

I’m on the 30day trial version of Publisher v2, data merge has been taking hours upon hours to complete, I’m not sure why. I’ve had to restart the application and my computer and cleared out memory several times but nothing works. I’ve left it overnight and it takes 7 hours sometimes to complete.

I turned off Hardware Acceleration but no difference.

When it does complete, it asks me to link or continue with embedded and no matter which option I pick it will freeze and stop responding. I’ve left it for over 16 hours to see if it just needed time but it’s still where I started. I can see that it put some files in a separate folder but it’s still frozen. When it did this previously, it also placed them in the folder I created, but it’s still frozen. I tried quitting the app, but the new document with the merge wouldn’t save or be recovered.

I started the data merge with all the images and text boxes on the page. When it froze I then did the data merge on blank pages. Still the same result. I’m a little bit bummed because the data merge feature is so useful and I can’t get it to complete successfully.

I’ve tried both of these methods with storing on iCloud, an external hard drive, and also locally on my desktop, I get the same result every time.

Any ideas?

I’m using a MacBook Pro, MacOS Ventura 13.6.1, 16GB RAM.

Edited January 1, 2024 by T_PR
repetition

[Hangman]

Hi @T_PR and welcome to the forums,

I think we're going to need a little more information regarding the data you're attempting to merge in terms of the number of rows and columns in your source data file.

Without seeing both the data file along with the files being linked to it's going to be almost impossible to diagnose the problem.

Are you happy to zip up all linked images and upload these together with your data file and Publisher file so we can see if there is any obvious reason for the issues you're seeing? Generally Data Merge should work pretty efficiently.