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What Was Adobe’s Major Outage on November 18, 2025?

Causes, Impact, and How to Build a “Never-Stopping Workflow” for Next Time

On November 18, 2025 (today in Japan time, or from the night before),
Adobe products such as Illustrator, InDesign, and Premiere Pro became unable to launch, mainly on macOS.

Posts flooded X (Twitter), other social media, and news sites such as:

“Illustrator won’t start so I can’t export the print-ready data.”
“Premiere won’t launch and I can’t open my editing projects.”
“Creative Cloud keeps loading forever and I can’t do anything.”

As a result, there were cases where
DTP, video production, web production, and marketing teams were practically forced to halt their operations.

In this article, we’ll walk through, from a Japanese on-the-ground perspective:

The overview and causes (what we know so far) of this outage
The concrete impact on creative and marketing workplaces in Japan
Non-stop, non-”quick-fix” approaches that individuals and companies can take
How greeden can help

1. Who Does This Concern? – Who Is Hit Hard by This Outage

This topic is going to feel very “personal” especially for people in the following groups:

Staff at design firms, printing companies, and production studios
(Daily users of Illustrator / InDesign / Photoshop / Premiere / After Effects)
People in marketing, PR, and creative departments in general companies
Freelance designers, video creators, and photographers
People in IT / information systems / IT managers / DX promotion units
at organizations where Adobe products are the standard tools

And for managers and executives who are already wondering:

“Is a workflow that assumes Adobe as the only base really safe?”
“How should we think about BCP (business continuity planning) in the cloud era?”

this article should also be worth your time.

2. What Happened? – The Overall Picture of the Outage

2-1. When and Where It Occurred

From multiple reports and Adobe’s official community posts, here’s what we know about the outage.

Time (Japan time)

Morning through daytime on November 18, 2025
Some people were already reporting “very slow / weird behavior” on the night of the 17th

Main affected OS

macOS (Mac)
According to Adobe’s official community:
“Many reports have come from Mac users, and as of now we have no confirmation of the same issue on Windows.”

Main affected apps
As reported by media and Adobe community posts:

Creative Cloud desktop app
Illustrator
InDesign
Premiere Pro
Bridge
Camera Raw
and in short, a wide range of Creative Cloud–related apps.

2-2. Specific Symptoms

Based on media coverage and community reports, typical symptoms include:

Creative Cloud

Keeps loading endlessly
On exit, shows “AdobeGCClient has stopped working” or similar messages

Illustrator

App will not launch
Extremely sluggish performance
Clicking does not select objects
Files will not open
Even if they open, the screen is completely black
Keyboard shortcuts do not work

InDesign

Strange modal dialogs keep popping up, making it impossible to operate
Tools and text frame creation do not respond

Premiere Pro

App will not launch
Text input doesn’t work

Bridge / Camera Raw

When launching Camera Raw from Bridge, a message appears saying “editing features are not enabled,” making it unusable
File names cannot be changed

…In other words,

“Apps wouldn’t launch at all, or even if they did, they were practically unusable.”

This was far beyond “a bit slow” – it was an outage on a scale where creative work stopped completely.

3. What Went Wrong? – The Causes (What We Know So Far)

3-1. Adobe’s Official Comments

Adobe Customer Support (@AdobeSupportJ) acknowledged on X (Twitter) that

Multiple Adobe apps could not be launched
They are “currently investigating the issue to resolve it”

As of now (based on reports as of the night of November 18 through the morning of the 19th in Japan):

No detailed “technical root cause” has been officially disclosed.

3-2. The Key: Communication Issues in the Creative Cloud Desktop App

Summaries from X trending topics and technical blogs suggest that:

The outage was highly likely triggered by an issue in network communication handled by the Creative Cloud desktop app.
Since going offline improved behavior for some users, it’s suspected that
license authentication and cloud connectivity were blocking the app’s normal operation.

In fact, Adobe’s official community listed mitigation steps such as:

“Restart your Mac and wait about 5 minutes until the Creative Cloud home screen finishes loading.”
“Turn off network connectivity (i.e., go offline) and then relaunch the app.”

These are essentially steps to reset communication processes.

3-3. Relation to the Global Infrastructure Outage

On the same day, November 18,
CDN provider “Cloudflare” experienced a global outage,
which affected many major services like Google, X, AWS, and OpenAI.

However, at the time of writing:

There is no official evidence directly linking the Cloudflare outage to this “Mac-only Adobe issue.”

Adobe itself focuses on the “communication issues in the Creative Cloud desktop app,”
but from what’s public, we cannot tell exactly which infrastructure layer failed and how.

So at this point, all we can realistically say is:
“Some kind of server-side or network-related ‘communication trouble’ on Adobe’s side ended up stopping Mac apps.”

Anything beyond that is still speculation.

4. Business Impact – What Kind of Workplaces Got “Checkmated”?

Looking at news articles and social media, we can see
which workplaces were hit, and how.

4-1. DTP, Printing, and Publishing

Illustrator / InDesign became unusable
Existing files couldn’t be opened, or appeared completely black
Fonts and layout could not be checked

→ Preparation and editing of print-ready files came to a complete halt.
→ The delay spread across print schedules for magazines, catalogs, flyers, POPs, packaging, and more.

In particular:

“If we don’t deliver today, we’ll miss the print deadline.”
“The client’s campaign start date is fixed.”

In such projects, an outage of even a single day can be fatal,
and this reality came into sharp focus.

4-2. Video Production and Streaming

Premiere Pro would not launch / editing couldn’t proceed
Final tweaks like text overlays and last-minute replacements couldn’t be done

Thus, in areas like TV commercials, web videos, YouTube, and streaming content, issues likely included:

Delivery delays
Changes to streaming schedules
High tension when final checks for broadcast or streaming couldn’t be completed

4-3. The Blow to Small Studios and Freelancers

Large companies may have backup options such as:

Switching to Windows machines
Allocating licenses for alternative tools

But for small studios and freelancers, “a Mac + Adobe suite” is often their only weapon, meaning:

“From morning through the entire day, they couldn’t generate any revenue.”
“If Illustrator doesn’t open, that literally means zero work.”

A lot of people were likely forced into extremely tough situations.

5. What to Do in the Moment? – Workarounds That Actually Helped This Time

From here, we’ll look at workarounds that proved effective in practice and those advised by Adobe itself for this incident.

5-1. “Emergency Band-Aids” That Worked

According to reports and Adobe’s official community, the following two steps helped at least some users:

① Restart the Mac and Wait for the Creative Cloud Home Screen to Finish Loading

Restart your Mac
Launch the Creative Cloud desktop app
Wait about 5 minutes until the home screen finishes loading
After it’s fully loaded, launch each app

Because the outage slowed down CC’s loading,
Adobe emphasized the importance of:

Not touching other apps while CC is in a half-loaded state.

② Turn Off Network Connectivity, Then Relaunch the App

Temporarily turn off the Mac’s Wi-Fi / Ethernet (disconnect from the network)
In offline mode, quit the problematic apps completely and then relaunch them
Once the app launches normally, reconnect to the network

Many users reported that

The app wouldn’t start online, but did start offline,

and Adobe recommended this as a temporary workaround.

Key points are:

Go offline first

Completely quit the app

Then relaunch it
…in that exact order.

5-2. If It Still Doesn’t Work, Try This

Even beyond this particular incident, when similar Creative Cloud issues occur, there are relatively safe steps you can try, such as:

Log in from another user account on the Mac and test again
Update the Creative Cloud desktop app to the latest version (or reinstall it)
Follow Adobe’s official troubleshooting documentation, including steps like:
- Clearing caches
- Resetting permissions

However:

Deleting libraries, or
Completely uninstalling and reinstalling applications

are “heavy” steps that carry the risk of disrupting an active production environment, so if you have live projects:

Always back up first and proceed very carefully.

6. A Realistic Way of Thinking About “Avoiding System Downtime”

Here comes the truly important part.

To be blunt,

“There is no way for users to completely ‘avoid’ outages that stem from Adobe’s servers or networks.”

That said,

“Designing systems so that business doesn’t stop—or damage is minimized—even when outages occur”

is something users absolutely can do.

6-1. Stop “Single-Vendor / Single-Tool Dependence”

When incidents like this happen, it’s tempting to get emotional and say:

“Adobe is the problem.”
“Cloud services can’t be trusted.”

But that alone doesn’t move your operations forward.

A more practical mindset is:

Don’t lock all design data into Illustrator / InDesign’s proprietary formats only
Always keep final deliverables as PDF/X, SVG, PNG, MP4, and other formats that can be handled by other tools as well

In other words, increase the “portability” of your data.

In addition, you can:

Handle rough designs or smaller projects
- in Figma, Canva, or other DTP tools, with workflows that are coverable by sub-tools
For time-critical projects,
- predefine “which tool we’ll switch to if trouble hits”

This kind of multi-track setup is highly effective.

6-2. Assume “Offline-First” for Licenses and Authentication

This outage likely involved a scenario where
issues in online authentication or communication processes ended up taking down the apps themselves.

So instead of assuming you can always be online, it’s safer to:

Ensure you have an environment where you can work offline for a certain period without issues.

Concretely:

On critical machines, regularly check and renew licenses
- Prevent “I launched it for the first time in a while and the license won’t validate”
Before long trips, location shoots, or offline work periods,
- cache necessary files and fonts locally in advance
For each project, aim for a state where
- “I can carry on working at least today and tomorrow even if there is no internet.”

6-3. Explicitly Include “Tool Outages” in Your BCP

Many companies account for the following in their BCPs:

Earthquakes, fires, power outages
Cyberattacks
Pandemics

But they often don’t explicitly assume that:

“Major cloud-based SaaS platforms (Adobe / Microsoft 365 / Google Workspace, etc.) may be unusable for half a day to a full day.”

In light of cases like this, it’s important to:

Clearly include “major cloud service outages” in your BCP
At the same time, work with on-the-ground teams to decide:
- What are the alternative tools / workflows?
- Which operations are critical, and how many hours of downtime would be catastrophic (an idea of RTO)?

7. A Practical Checklist: Concrete Actions Companies Can Start Now

Based on everything above, here’s a checklist of actions you can start as soon as tomorrow.

7-1. Reality Check

Inventory your company’s (or team’s) degree of Adobe dependence (by app and department)
Check the ratio of Mac vs. Windows
Assess how much work can be done online vs. offline
Review your current use and skill levels around alternative tools
(Figma, Canva, other DTP tools, etc.)

7-2. Data & Tools

Check where the master data for key projects is stored (cloud vs. local), and whether there are backups
Change your delivery and archiving flows so that final files are stored not only as Illustrator / InDesign formats, but also as:
- PDF/X, SVG, high-resolution images, and intermediate files
Create a sub-tool mapping sheet that states:
- “For this type of project, we can at least minimally respond with this alternate tool.”

7-3. Operations & Structure

Define your internal communication flow for Adobe outages:
- Who checks the status pages or news?
- How is information shared internally and with clients?
Write a simple “same-day action plan when systems go down”, including:
- Steps for offline-only operation
- Steps to switch to alternative tools
- Templates for explaining the situation to clients

7-4. Information Gathering

Follow Adobe’s official status / support pages and domestic IT news (ITmedia, Impress, ASCII, Mynavi, etc.)
via RSS, email, or X lists
You might also consider registering with SaaS outage monitoring services such as isdown.app or StatusGator.

8. How greeden Can Support You

Incidents like this are, realistically:

Capable of recurring at the same scale tomorrow, and
Equally possible on other critical SaaS platforms, not just Adobe.

With that in mind, greeden can help in the following ways:

8-1. Current-State Assessment and Risk Analysis

We can review your:

Tool stack
Business workflows
Data storage and backup patterns

and work with you to visualize:

“Which systems or tools, if they go down, halt which operations, and for how long?”
“Which areas are critical yet lack backup strategies?”

8-2. Designing a “Non-Stop Creative Workflow”

For workflows that currently assume “Adobe-only,” we’ll propose ways to “multi-layer” your setup from the perspectives of:

Data formats
Alternative tools
Offline operation

For example:

For Illustrator + InDesign workflows:
- Introducing and training teams on sub-tools such as Figma / Canva
- Strategies for backing up deliverables
For Premiere-centered video production:
- Failover designs that combine other tools or cloud editors

We aim to design setups that significantly reduce risk without overburdening frontline staff.

8-3. Supporting BCP and Governance Documents

To ensure executives, field teams, and IT all operate with the same assumptions, we can help draft or review:

“Guidelines for responding to cloud SaaS outages”
“IT BCP policies that cover AI and SaaS”

It’s hard to create a “perfect BCP” from day one, so we can also help you:

Start gradually, focusing first on the creative domain, then expand step by step.

9. Summary: Don’t Let This Outage Be “Just a One-Off Incident”

On November 18, 2025, there was a large-scale outage where multiple Adobe Creative Cloud apps for macOS became unlaunchable or unusable.
Based on public information, the central issue appears to have been
- communication problems (authentication / cloud connectivity) in the Creative Cloud desktop app,
- with the impact concentrated on Mac, and little to no similar issues reported on Windows.
Adobe’s official community and various reports suggested as temporary workarounds:
- “Restart the Mac and wait for CC to finish loading.”
- “Turn off the network, then relaunch the apps.”
  and these steps did help many users to some extent.
But fundamentally, this incident exposed:
- The fragility of creative workflows that depend on a single vendor and a single tool
- The fact that cloud SaaS outages are often missing from existing BCP scenarios

That’s why this is a good moment to take steps like:

Multiplying data formats
Preparing sub-tools and backup environments
Operating under an “offline-first” mindset where possible
Explicitly writing cloud outages into your BCP and aligning internally

In short, this is the time to start moving toward “being ready for next time.”

If you’re asking yourself:

“Given our situation, what should we do first?”
“How can we gradually strengthen our system without breaking our existing workflow?”

we’re happy to listen to how your team currently works and help you design concrete improvement plans as greeden.
Please feel free to reach out any time.