Installing InDesign Server CC 2015 – Troubleshooting for Sitecore PXM

Hey Fellas!

Recently, I have been busy working on a project on Sitecore Print Experience Manager. And I must say, Sitecore PXM is awesome!

If you are interested in knowing more and understanding what Sitecore PXM is, I would suggest referring to the Sitecore PXM Video Series by Mark Demeny.

During the beginnning of the project, we installed and configured a trial version of Adobe InDesign Server CC 2015 and faced a number of challenges while doing so. The solution was not easy to find. I thought to write about it, maybe it helps someone using Adobe InDesign Server CC for that matter.

After I installed the InDesign Server CC 2015, I went to the installation location (C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe InDesign CC Server 2015) and clicked on the InDesignServerService.msc it gave me the following error.

These are the steps that I followed and as below:

Go to Command Prompt as Administrator and go to the location where InDesign Server is installed. In my case it was C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe InDesign CC Server 2015

First, uninstall InDesignServerService

InDesignServerService.exe /install /u

\regsvr32 InDesignServerMMC64.dll

– I registered the 64 bit version of the DLL — and Bingo! The above error was gone!

Next, open MMC Snap in from command line
add InDesignServerService.msc
install InDesignServerService

InDesignServerService.exe /install

Right-click on InDesignServerService folder in left-pane and choose New > New InDesignServer-instance
specify port and other options – I have selected 8088

open Services, start InDesignServerService

Open Services.msc
- Open properties of InDesignServerService
- Set Startup type to Automatic
- Go to Logon tab and ensure that Local System Account is set and Allow service to interact with desktop is checked.

But, even after doing all these steps, the InDesign Server wasn’t starting.

Okay, you want to know how did I understand that InDesign Server wasn’t starting?

Well, that is because the SOAP response on browser wasn’t available at http://localhost:8088/service?wsdl – where I had configured the InDesign Server.

Next, opening Console and typing InDesignServer -errorlist it showed me the following error:

Aah, so that’s what all was about!

Going into the details, I found that it was because the trial license wasn’t installed while installing the Adobe InDesign Server and that we need to specifically install it. Thanks to this link: https://helpx.adobe.com/indesign/release-note/indesign-server-cc-release-notes.html

For that, we need to download APTEE – Adobe Provisioning Toolkit Enterprise Edition – from here: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/creativesuite/enterprisedeployment.html

Next, I installed the Adobe Provisioning Toolkit Enterprise Edition and then fired the following command in the command window:

adobe_prtk –tool=StartTrial –leid=V7{}InDesignServer-11-Win-GM

and restarted the InDesignServer Services:

Tadaa!! The InDesign Server was giving the SOAP response now.

With that, installation of InDesign Server is completed.

Check out the next post, in continuation to this one, which explains configuring the InDesign Server and the corresponding Sitecore instance with which we are planning to connect it.

Happy InDesigning! 🙂