Acrobat Plugin Doesn't Load When "Enable Protected Mode at startup" is Not Selected

Forum|Forum|11 months ago
February 6, 2025
1 reply
439 views

Hi, I have developed a plugin for Acrobat and Acrobat Reader that works fine if the "Enable Protected Mode at startup" checkbox is selected.

When the checkbox is NOT selected, or when it is disabled, my plugin doesn't load.

Is this expected? Is there some way to get my plugin to load when Protected Mode is disabled?

Acrobat SDK and JavaScript

Thom Parker

Community Expert

No, this is not normal. But the most likely cause is code in your plug-in that is causing it to not load.

In the PluginInit.cpp file, make sure that the PluginExportHFTs(), PluginImportReplaceAndRegister(), and PluginInit() functions are returning true.

Thom Parker - Software Developer at PDFScriptingUse the Acrobat JavaScript Reference early and often

M

mike_8934Author

Participant

Thanks @Thom Parker for the reply.

I can verify that the three methods are returning true. It's good to know the plugin actually is loading in this case.

My plugin does use a Sandbox IPC Broker (`sandboxpisdk::InitSandboxPIBrokerIPCChannel`), and this is failing.
Is this a limitation with running in non-Protected Mode?

Thom Parker

Community Expert

The sandboxpisdk::InitSandboxPIBrokerIPCChannel() function returns false when Protected mode is turned off. It only returns true in Protected mode if the specified broker exe file exists. But either way this doesn't affect whether or not the plug-in is loaded.

BTW, how are you determining if the plug-in is loaded?

Have you set breakpoints and walked through the plug-in initialization?

Thom Parker - Software Developer at PDFScriptingUse the Acrobat JavaScript Reference early and often

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