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Participant
November 14, 2018
Answered

After some hours, pages go blank in Acrobat Reader DC and it says "Problem reading document (109)" or "There was an error reading a stream". How to fix this?

  • November 14, 2018
  • 6 replies
  • 25816 views

Hi,

I have a very frustrating daily problem using Adobe Acrobat Reader DC on a Windows 10 PC.

All documents are displayed just fine, but after some hours - typically the next day - parts of pages or whole pages of opened documents are blank and an error message dialog like "Problem reading document (109)" or "There was an error reading a stream" or "Insufficient data for an image" pops up. Why not just open the document again? And why throw away the document in the first place?

This happens with documents on my network where it's easily reproduced, but I'm not sure if I've experienced it with local files. There seems to be no problems with the network otherwise, I've never seen it glitch or act sluggish or or disappear or anything.

Every day when the problem hits me I have to close the documents and open them again, which is super tedious in the new Home/Recent menu and the new worsified Search field. Only one document can be opened at a time, even if many can be selected with the checkboxes. *explodingheadstupid* The program jumps to the opened file, and I need to go to the Home menu manually again, open the next file, and so on.

This makes Acrobat Reader feel like a very unprofessional tool. Anyone with the same problem - or a solution?

Best,

M

Correct answer Adorobat

Hi M,

As per the issue description mentioned above, you are getting above mentioned error when pdfs are kept open for a while in reader, is that correct?

Could you check if an update is available for reader using "Check for updates" option under "Help" menu,  You may also download updates from here: Adobe software and product updates

Reboot the machine after installing update and try again.

Also, Try the troubleshooting steps given in the following help document

Error Insufficient Data For An Image in Acrobat or Reader versions 9.5.2 or 10.1.4

You may also refer to the following forum threads discussing the similar issue:

There was a problem reading this document (109).

"Error 109" in files returned by customer

Acrobat Pro XI - Error 109

Insufficient data for an Image - Adobe Reader DC Ver 2015.020.20042

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1848369

Let us know if you need any help.

Shivam

6 replies

Participant
March 6, 2022

As a Spanish speaker I highlight unknow English vocabulary to search for them later in an English-Spanish dictionary. As a student with a dissability I use the program at home. I am currently doing a research and I highlight comments relevant to my research. After a couple of hours reading and translating long documents the next pages become BLANK; I cannot save the information highlighted, not even print it. ACROBAT DO SOMETHING, YOUR CUSTOMERS AND PEOPLE'S PROFESSIONAL AND ACADEMIC STUDENTS DEPEND ON YOU. I PAID LOTS OF MONEY FOR THE SUBSCRIPTION AND I NEED MY RESEARCH NOTES TO GRADUATE, UNBELIEVABLE!!

alekzanderz
Participating Frequently
July 23, 2021

I can confirm that I also have this issue persisting in July 2021, over 2 years after the start of this thread. I have the latest version and the problem happens every day with me having to waste time re-opening documents. Very unprofessional on Adobe's part that no working solution has been proposed.

Legend
July 23, 2021

I believe this most likely happens because the IT department run something to "force close" files on the server regularly - leaving Acrobat unable to continue. Adobe seem unlikely to try to recover from this, I suggest you talk to your IT support and get them to exclude PDF files. However, the person who set this up may not have told anyone and may even have left - it could be a challenge to get the message through.

Participant
July 23, 2021

Hi there, I can confirm I have spent several hours on this with my IT team as they try to work out what is causing the crashes. It is not a force close policy on our end I can promise you...

stephen_mcdowell
Participant
December 4, 2020

I have the same issue - and did at my previous job as well. Typically after a few hours, and always after gogin to sleep, the document will she the current page but doesn't respond to search attempts and gives one of the above errors and shows blank pages if I scroll. Close and reopen and it's fine. This happens with reader and Acrobat Pro. Frustrating that this issue has been around for so long and no solution's been floated.

Participant
March 16, 2021

Exactly the same issue here. Team of 20, multiple files, everyone has the up to date version, has rebooted their computer and all the non-help I have seen offered above - it is still a problem. We have a dedicated IT team on hand too - this is not a problem at our end, Adobe, it is a problem at yours. Muttabuttasaurus details our exact problem but now 28 months later. Any time I go away from my computer long enough for it to go to sleep, or lock it, or even just hold pdfs open for a while whilst working on them, they fail and produce the same error message "There was an error reading a stream". Only way out is closing and reopening every individual pdf in your tedious program. How have you not fixed this in over 2 years?

Participant
July 7, 2019

Same issue being experienced by multiple users in our corporate environment. Using Acrobat Pro DC 2019.008.20071 on Windows 10 1803. When viewing 'large' (10's of MB) PDF files from Windows file server (Drive mounted with 'net use'), the PDF file may be viewed normally. However, if the file is left open for a period (e.g. 30 minutes), pages now appear blank. Sometimes this is accompanied with error, 'Insufficient data for an image', or 'There was an error while reading a stream', or sometimes no error at all. Checking the 'Files Open' list in 'Computer Management' application on the file server, it can be seen that the PDF file is no longer open, even thought the client application still has it open. To workaround this issue, our users have to re-open the failed PDF document. Reading the same PDF files from the local disk drive does not suffer the same issue.

This issue has persisted for us across several versions of Adobe Acrobat Pro DC.

Participant
October 7, 2019
Exactly the same issue/s. Been experiencing them for well over a year now, wasting so much time. Painful Painful Painful.
Participant
August 24, 2020

Hi there

I/we have the exact same problem here in 2020, and it is driving me nuts, as it is timeconsuming and annoying. 

I hope there are some fix for this in the near future. But as this treads is a couple of years old, I am not too optimistic :o(

Participant
February 13, 2019

I have a client who is having this problem on multiple computers.  We have a cloud team account with the newest Adobe Pro DC installed on the users machines. 

There are no updates available, this happens on multiple machines with multiple PDFs.  None of the above suggestions have fixed the problem.  I cant imagine that they are getting a bunch of corrupt blue prints.

AnandSri
Community Manager
Community Manager
February 13, 2019

Hello Rpciadmin,

I am sorry for the trouble you had, what is the version of Acrobat Pro DC installed on the user's machine? To identify, please refer to Identify the product and its version for Acrobat and Reader DC and post a screenshot of the version window https://forums.adobe.com/docs/DOC-7043#jive_content_id_How_do_I_attach_a_screenshot

What is the version of the operating system installed? Is it possible to share a sample PDF file which is causing this issue? If yes, please upload the PDF file to Document Cloud storage Adobe Document Cloud choose share file option, generate the link and share the link by direct/private message only. How Do I Send Private Message

We're here to help, just need more info.

Thanks,

Anand Sri.

Participant
November 18, 2020

I can't even upload it to Adobe Document Cloud... error 109

Adorobat
Community Manager
AdorobatCommunity ManagerCorrect answer
Community Manager
December 12, 2018

Hi M,

As per the issue description mentioned above, you are getting above mentioned error when pdfs are kept open for a while in reader, is that correct?

Could you check if an update is available for reader using "Check for updates" option under "Help" menu,  You may also download updates from here: Adobe software and product updates

Reboot the machine after installing update and try again.

Also, Try the troubleshooting steps given in the following help document

Error Insufficient Data For An Image in Acrobat or Reader versions 9.5.2 or 10.1.4

You may also refer to the following forum threads discussing the similar issue:

There was a problem reading this document (109).

"Error 109" in files returned by customer

Acrobat Pro XI - Error 109

Insufficient data for an Image - Adobe Reader DC Ver 2015.020.20042

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1848369

Let us know if you need any help.

Shivam

Participating Frequently
January 27, 2021

This isn't an answer and solves nothing. I pay a lot of money for the full Adobe CC suite, and yet I have to use an aftermarket PDF reader in order to read documents that need more than 10 minutes' time. Come on, Adobe. Since the introduction of CC, you've turned Photoshop into a bloated corpse. Are you doing that with Acrobat, too?

 

This is supposed to be software as a service, not software as a disservice. Provide a solution to this problem or, better yet, fix it in the next update while breaking something else.

 

Yeah, I'm disgruntled.