Participant

Answered

Acrobat opens on its own

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
June 29, 2017
26 replies
29089 views

I have Adobe Acrobat Reader DC 2017 Release Version 2017.009.20044 on a Windows 7 computer. Every day or every other day I notice that Acrobat starts to open all by itself usually while I'm entering data into an Excel spreadsheet or something. This does not happen on start up but what appears to me to be at random times throughout the day. And twice it tried to open with a window that asked if it was OK for Adobe to make changes to my computer. This was strange as I was doing nothing with PDFs, Adobe, Acrobat, or any other thing that is even remotely connected to Adobe in any way. Is there any way I can stop this from happening?

Correct answer GoombaGurl

Even Uninstalling Adobe Acrobat with creative cloud and then reinstalling it didn't install the update. People have to find a niche tab in a menu that's inside AA in order to fix it. Well...

Thank you for going through all that hassel. My Adobe Acrobat is probably fixed, only time will tell. Other people who come across your efforts are sure to find resolution.

Thank you 🙂 I hope so. It's almost 24 hours and no random open up. So seems to be working. I think the update may have corrupted a file in the %appdata%/folders and by deleting them and opening Acrobat, it forced the program to redownload or build the necessary files (this is usually the case) that are updated.

Show previous replies

UmbePortobello

Participant

Same issue here ever since installing Adobe Acrobat Reader DC on my Mac for the first time in November 2018. I have latest version of Mac OS and latest version of Adobe Reader. Most of the times I log in, something starts in the background and then goes away (can see it in the dock). But obviously leaves Adobe Acrobat Reader DC in my recently opened apps list in the dock. Incredibly odd and annoying. Needs fix asap, this has been going on far too long.

C

corpski2

Participant

My situation is worse. I'm ethernet cable connected and every system restart, Adobe Acrobat DC runs on its own, with Creative Cloud always advising that it needs to repair itself soon after. I reboot maybe 6-10 times a year and this has happened consistently. I'll be uninstalling Acrobat soon and will just rely on OS X preview.

M

MikeSpicy

Participant

I think that's the best solution we've heard so far. UNINSTALL this (cr)App. Can Adobe track uninstalls? Or do we need to picket outside the Adobe offices?

M

mzagor

Inspiring

So is Adobe Acrobat spying on my computer? After each login the Acrobat is an open app, with no window, doing something and then after few moments it dissapears. What is going on? I've disabled all login items, ant the CC App in not lauched, but still Acrobat opens.

Or is it a hack?

J

JosephC1105

Participant

Expanding on faithp82869455's comment: On my Mac Mini (late 2014) running OS 10.14.3 it seems to launch automatically whenever a wifi connection is established, which means that it launches every time I start the computer. If I change networks, Acrobat tries to start again. During startup of the computer I watch for the Acrobat launch on my Dock and immediately force-quit it when it begins. Occasionally, after several minutes, I get the message about Acrobat being forced to quit and the offer to send info to ...whoever... Apple or Adobe or both -- I don't remember. Most times, though, that message does not appear. I may try the Acrobat Cleaner Tool, too. I don't use it as much as I used to, so an uninstall would not be out of the realm of possibility.

To date, I have not seen this issue on my Samsung Notebook 9 Pro running Windows 10, v. 1803.

quixoticquest

Participant

the I can verify that Acrobat DC is running auto-updates regardless of preference.

To test (there was a reboot after each step):

I observed that every time I connect to wifi after a few hours of not being connected, Acrobat will auto-opens.
After this, I ran the Acrobat Cleaner Tool. For a day or two, I did not observe Acrobat auto-opening itself.
Installed Acrobat DC from Adobe Desktop App
Set preferences in Acrobat to not auto-update, do not launch at startup, etc. Went through every preference option in both the acrobat app and the adobe desktop app. Disabled everything even remotely related to the internet (even disabling Acrobat javascript) or wifi or telemetry
Left disconnected from any internet source for at 24 hours
Connected to wifi, Acrobat DC immediately auto-opens itself

When Acrobat auto-opened, I opened console.app. I was able to capture this log:

The timestamp is within a minute of connecting to wifi. It appears that the preference setting for auto-update is either not being respected or is misleading.

My guess is for the latter in that there really isn't an option to not phone home whenever an internet connection is detected. Rather, the options only prevent the automatic installation of an update, not the automatic checking for whether there is an update available.

F

fbitterlich

Participating Frequently

It gets even better. Today it crashed here after launching itself with a segfault in adobe_upgrade.dylib.

I've never heard about an application that auto-launches just to check for updates. Why does Acrobat have to get in my face so much even when I'm not using it?

F

faithp82869455

Participant

I've seen a pattern to mine. It opened every time I connect to a wifi network, which for most would happen on reboot. We had a power outage a couple of weeks ago, so I was bouncing from hot spot, to coffee shop wifi's, and so forth all day. Everything I connected to a wifi, it would launch. Super annoying, and it takes battery life, which is important when I can't charge my Mac.

MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2017, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports)

OSX 10.14.4

Running latest version of Adobe Pro

Not set to run at startup.

I am going to try the Adobe Acrobat Cleaner Tool as suggested and see if that does anything. Otherwise, I guess I'll just uninstall for aw while. I don't use Acrobat much.

DavidMatos

Inspiring

Same here.

Just your regular daily dose of Adobe incompetence. Who needs to get work done anyway, right!?

sir_mahtin

Participant

I too am experiencing this on my mac. It started sometime last week & I am getting quite frustrated with this. I've gotten to the point that I force quit the program every time it begins to open; because it will open & then just sit there as an icon in my dock. It seems to just be running in the background. I did check users & it is not listed as a startup option anymore. Originally it was, but I deleted that, thinking that that would somehow solve the problem, it didn't. I just started to google the question about "how to stop adobe..." & my question popped up, so apparently this is a pretty major problem that a lot of people are experiencing. I am pretty close to uninstalling the program from my computer at this point. I am pretty sure that I can live without adobe if necessary. I would rather not, so please give this problem the appropriate attention it deserves.

A

ator5F8A

Participant

Same problem here with Acrobat Reader DC 19.10.20064.311007 on my mac. No login item is in the list.Glad I finally found a thread describing the issue. This problem has started recently. When ever I wake my Mac,

C

corriglionni

Participant

I am having the same problem, mainly on restart on Mac running OS X 10.14.3. It seams to have started after the last big update.

L

lynm51335693

Participant

I've been having this issue for the past couple days as well, very annoying. It will open randomly throughout the day.

H

hif

Participant

Same in Adobe Acrobat Reader DC 2019.010.20098 in Mac OS 10.14.3 (and earlier). "Open at login" disabled. Opens every single time!