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Participant
Apr 3, 2024 1:57 PM UTC
Answered

Acrobat "save as" & "overwrite" changes the file name to random characters

For some reason a save error has recently appeared in the last few days, both for our users who are using Adobe Acrobat Reader 2020 MUI (ver 20.005.30574) and also Adobe Acrobat (64-bit) 24.001.20615...

 

When they open a PDF and try to "save as", then overwrite the file, they are etting an error. When they click OK, the filename on the tab changes to a random series of characters.  If they instead give it a new name, it works, but then they have to save, delete the old file, then rename the newly saved file each time.

 

Is this a new known issue, or is anyone else experiencing this?

Timothy28775726ww4tCorrect answer
Participant
Oct 28, 2025 12:00 PM UTC

This is happening to one of our users - we are all on the latest Acrobat premium - are there any other solutions that we can try to resolve this issue?


What we discovered is that the version used to *create* the PDF is what is important.  We no longer have this issue when viewing PDFs using any recent version of acrobat we are on as long as the version of the program (or driver) that created the PDF is current.  This is sometimes still an issue with things like our scan-to-email in PDF format, automated reports from our service providers, etc.  Anything that generates PDFs  that have theis issue should be upgraded in order to solve it.

13 replies

Participant
Mar 6, 2025 4:19 PM UTC

This happens to multiple people on our team. We are all on the latest version of Adobe Acrobat Pro. The documents on which it occurs are ones we have exported from Adobe InDesign (latest version). It occurs with our newly created documents, our older documents, documents created by others.

 

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AnandSri
Legend
Jun 6, 2025 2:31 PM UTC

Hello @ml_9750!

 

I hope you are doing well, and we apologize for the delayed response and the trouble.

 

If possible, please install the latest build of Acrobat across the machine for all users: 25.001.20521. Planned update, Jun 02, 2025. Check for any pending updates from the Menu > help > check for updates, install the updates, restart the app, and the machine, and try again.

 

If the issue persists, please share sample PDFs and screen recordings to help us replicate it. Also, please provide the following information: the current version of the operating system on your device, and the logs from the affected machine. To collect the logs, download and run the Log Collector tool. Make sure to select all log options and attempt to reproduce the issue. After that, close the Log Collector tool; it will generate the logs along with a log ID. Please share this log ID with us for further investigation.

 

Thanks,

Anand Sri.

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Participant
Oct 28, 2025 11:45 AM UTC

This is happening to one of our users - we are all on the latest Acrobat premium - are there any other solutions that we can try to resolve this issue?

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Participant
Feb 26, 2025 3:27 PM UTC

We have "resolved" this... 

 

The issue occurs when the DRIVER that originally creates the PDF is "old", as is when someone is using the Acrobat Reader 2020 MUI, or when we scan-to-email on oour old Konica, etc.

 

We upgraded everyone to Acrobat 2024 DC or Pro and now all PDFs that are generated on those systems do not have this problem, regardless of what reader version is trying to save.

 

Hope this helps!

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Serkan_Canturk
Participant
Feb 26, 2025 9:33 AM UTC

yep, here the same

 

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Participant
Apr 19, 2024 3:34 PM UTC

One of our users is experiencing this exact same problem using Adobe Acrobat Pro - Continuous Release - Version 2024.001.20643 - 64-bit.  Any assistance would be appreciated greatly.

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Participant
Apr 16, 2024 5:21 PM UTC

We also have this problem in our environment but I have not been able to actually pin it down when it happens. Our users state that it seems random but it does only seem to happen for us when a pdf is stored on the fileserver and then saved.

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Meenakshi_Negi
Legend
Apr 4, 2024 10:32 AM UTC

Hi IMStarboardNGB,

 

Thank you for reaching out.

 

As mentioned, they receive an error when trying to "save as" a PDF. Please share the screenshot of the error message.

Share the screen recording of the workflow and what happens. Check if the issue occurs with some PDFs or PDFs from particular sources. 

Share some sample PDFs on which the issue is reproducible. We will try to replicate the behavior on our end.

 

Thanks,

Meenakshi

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Participant
Apr 11, 2024 7:05 PM UTC

It now appears that the issue comes from the creation of the PDF files.  When I (on pro) generate a pdf, regardless of what method (save as pdf, microsoft print to pdf, adobe print to pdf), this issue doesn't occur for any of the users, however when a user on reader version 2020.005.30574 generates a PDF, it does. 

 

There are 2 issues actually: 1) can't save as and overwrite the file, because they get an error and it changes the filename and title that appears in the tab, and 2) when they generate a pdf using microsoft print to pdf driver, they can't highlight in the resulting document.

 

I have attached an example of the error message, and in the screenshot you can also see how the filename in the tab has been changed to a random string of characters.

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