I have only been in digital design for 30 years and a specialist UI/UX for a chunk of that. TOC in InDesign is a total mess and is now COSTING me money trying to create work arounds as it just crashes/ does not work or is just really badly designed and confusing.

Come on Adobe, Do this properly and stop these hack work arounds.

I am using auto update so the software is up-to-date and yet it crashes each time I hit Update TOC...

Fun Fun.

I agree it's not user friendly not a intuitive, though I placed a request to rebuild it. such as when creating any style give an option to add it in TOC. e.g. while creating any heads, there should be a check box "add to toc".

For present systems you need to create a TOC styles from from the "Table of Contents Style" menu. and add the headings to that menu..

You can create multiple TOC style, e.g. Contents, Tables, and Figures. This way you can apply the required styles to pages.

If not clear let me know, I'll explain in details how to create a effective way to handle this..

I concur completely and glad its not just me.

for a function that is only done once (for say a 800 page book), I find myself spending so much time problem solving why TOC isn't picking up a heading, changing text to style ive nominated, etc, etc, etc

Despite the amazing piece of software that is InDesign, the TOC function needs to be simplified

Couldn't agree more. The current TOC system is a pain