Trying to build my index hangs almost constantly & tables lose dimensions with missing fonts

[wmaynard]

I have spent over a week trying to get my index to build.  I can make a little bit of progress here and there but this is an absolutely infuriating experience.

Any time I need to update my index, the only way I can make meaningful progress is to delete it first and re-insert it.  If I change anything when I have my index open, Publisher locks up and has to be force quit.  For example, the following regularly crashes my application:

• (100%) Changing any of the Labels and Separators, then changing the input focus to any other field.
• (100%) Clicking the "Update" button in the Index window.
• (100%) Changing an item's parent topic when the referenced .afpub file is not open.
• (5-10%) Updating a style
• (<1%) Adding a new index mark

I can let the spinning wheel sit there and process indefinitely and nothing will ever happen - I've left it alone for 16 hours while I worked on other tasks and there's no change.  There are more triggers to this condition too, but these are the most obvious offenders.  Any time there's any change to an index, I risk crashing the application.

This is driving me crazy.  I've successfully reproduced this on a different Mac with nothing else installed (fresh machine) as well, but that put me in an even worse position; because the fresh machine was missing fonts, all of my tables' dimensions were altered.  After I saved my index from the second machine, all of my tables were ruined (and I have dozens in my project), so I had to revert to a backup to restore my layout and continue using my main machine.

I've only compiled about a fourth of what I expect my finished index to be and I'm really not looking forward to fiddling with this - but at this point, I'm 95% of the way done with my book, so I guess I just need to grin and bear it.  I really hope someone can solve these awful bugs - otherwise I'll be moving back to Adobe for future projects.  I've lost around 80 hours in total to application crashes during this project.

---- Requested details

Firstly choose the correct Bugs forum, according to the Operating System you are using. In that forum state the following

1. What Application are you using? [Designer/Photo/Publisher]  Publisher
2. Are you using the latest release version?  2.3.1
3. Can you reproduce it?  Yes.  See above.
4. Does it happen for a new document? If not can you upload a document that shows the problem?  No.  I'm unwilling to upload or share the work itself as I've spent years on the content.  I suspect it has to do with inserting the index in an .afpub file that's not the source of the index marks, or has to do with the sheer number of them that I have.
5. If you cannot provide a sample document then please give an accurate description of the problem for example it should include most of the following:

•    What is your operating system and version (Windows 11, OSX Ventura, iOS 16 etc)?  macOS Sonoma 14.3.1
•    Is hardware acceleration (in Preferences > Performance) ON or OFF ? (and have you tried the other setting?)  ON.  I've tried both; no change in behavior.
•    What happened for you (and what you expected to happen)  The application hangs when making updates.  I expect the application to not hang.
•    Provide a recipe for creating the problem (step-by-step what you did).  See above.
•    Screenshots (very handy) or a screen capture/video.  See below.  The spinning wheel does not get recorded on the screen capture but it appears instantly when clicking on "Non-Breaking Space"; I included the Force Quit Applications in the video to show this instead.
•    Any unusual hardware (like tablets or external monitors or drives that may affect things) or relevant other applications like font managers or display managers.  I primarily work off of a RAID-1 NAS, but this problem occurs when the files are local as well.  I've reproduced this on an M2 Mac Studio with 4 monitors (1 landscape, 3 portrait, my main machine) and an M1 Macbook Pro using only the laptop screen.
•    Did this same thing used to work and if so have you changed anything recently? (software or hardware) No.  I've never had this work.

----

 

[MikeTO]

I don't know the answer, but two suggestions to get you up and running while this is figured out.

First, try it in 2.4. It should be released very soon as the second release candidate was shared today. (Note that files saved in 2.4 can't be opened in 2.3 so work on a copy.)

Second, using copies of the files, combine them into a single file. Don't open the Book but open Front Matter and use Add Pages from File to merge the other three files into it (except for the index). Don't add the index file, rebuild it from scratch. While this would undo the work you did to create separate chapter files, I bet the problem you're experiencing is related to the Books feature so this would at least get you to the finish line.

Good luck

[wmaynard]

Thank you for your reply.  In trying to combine the book files into one, Publisher crashes on me.  After I add pages from my afpub files and I interact with pages, the app exits.  This isn't 100% reproducible but happens most often when I'm scrolling through pages.

Maybe the Windows build is more stable, or it's a problem with Apple Silicon, but this is a worse experience than before.  I'll try the new release soon.

[MikeTO]

I know you say you've seen no change with hardware acceleration off, but I recommend turning it off and changing Display from Metal to OpenGL. This latter one is important on Apple Silicon, you'll get a lot of random crashes with it set to Metal.

[Lee D]

@wmaynard Welcome to the forums.

I can't reproduce any crashes when trying the steps you included using any of the test files I have with indexes setup. If I provide a Dropbox upload link via DM would you be able to share the files you're using?

[wmaynard]

I'm hesitant to share my actual files since I've spent years creating the content, but I will make copies of them, replace content with filler text, and see if I can still repro.  If that works I'd be happy to share the pruned version.