Error 206 server connection error FIX 2025 windows10

Adobe error: 206 "Server disconnection" fix

This article explains HOW to fix this and WHY this error occurs. The fix is aimed at Windows (Win10) users, which tried ALL official- and community troubleshootings but none of them worked.

Issue: Adobe is NOT able to connect to its' servers, either in the creative cloud, during log-in or log-out, during startup of an Adobe product.

Result: You are not able to open, un-/install products, sign in/out.

Cause: (according to official Adobe troubleshooting) faulty firewall settings - but this is almost never the case. Real causes m̀ight be: Adobe-IP addresses blocked by network, proxy-settings that block Adobe access, Adobe-IP addresses on a local host blacklist.

You can read the TL;DR directly, or head over to the "Identify the issue" section.

TL;DR

the quick fix:

Open the "hosts" file on Windows10 with a text editor (like windows notepad, microsoft word, etc.) under this path: 

C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts

If the file is empty, this troubleshooting is most likely not the correct one for you, or you opened the wrong file.
Inside the file, delete ALL lines that contian "adobe" in their name. Save the file, now we have to do some hacker-magic, open up the Windows terminal by doing the following:

1. press windows key and type in "powershell" (if it's not installed, you can install it from the microsoft store)
2. right click on the search result and choose "open as administrator"
3. type in the command 

Clear-DnsClientCache

and press return
4. type in the command 

ipconfig /flushdns

and press return
5. restart your PC
6. open an adobe product and log in

You should be done now and you can move on.
If you still get this error, tell chatgpt/claude/gemini what you did and ask for further assistance, as your issue might lie even deeper.

Identify the issue

If you use pi-hole as your DNS, first continue to the "Pi-hole" section.
If you don't know what "pi-hole" is, ignore everything about it as you are probably not using it. (It's a great tool though, google about it ;))

We need some hacker-magic to be able to identify the issue efficiently, open up the Windows terminal by doing the following:

1. press windows key and type in "powershell" (if it's not installed, you can install it from the microsoft store)
2. right click on the search result and choose "open as administrator"

Frist, we check if your firewall is blocking adobe. Type in this command

Get-NetFirewallRule | Where-Object {$_.DisplayName -like "*Adobe*"} 

and press return.
If nothing is happening and you get 0 output from this command, this means there are no firewall rules for adobe, which is ok. Otherwise you might see something like this:

...
Name : {F8E3AE21-9A17-45A2-9718-90636743FF4C}
DisplayName : Adobe Notification Client
Description : Adobe Notification Client
DisplayGroup : Adobe Notification Client
Group : Adobe Notification Client
Enabled : True
Profile : Domain, Private, Public
Platform : {6.2+}
Direction : Outbound
Action : Allow
...

Notice the "Enabled: True" and "Action: Allow" entry - this is good as it means there are firewall settings for adobe and they are enabled, but the rule says that adobe is allowed to communicate with the internet.

If you see "Action: Block" type this in powershell and hit return:

Set-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "XXX" -Action Allow

but insert the actual value of the "DisplayName" you see from the output to the XXX, so in the example it might look like:

Set-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "Adobe Notification Client" -Action Allow

Next, we check our proxy settings. In powershell type in this command and hit return:

Get-ItemProperty ... | Select-Object ProxyEnable, ProxyServer

ideally this should return only:

ProxyEnable ProxyServer
----------- -----------

If there's more than that, head over to windows settings, search for "proxy" and disable all switches there.

Now we get to the real deal and the fix that is discribed in the TL;DR as well.

Recap: we now know that out firewall is correctly set and we have no proxy running. This means there is only one point of failure left: windows and your machine itself.

Windows uses a "host" file in which IPs are stored, so Adobe was blocked by your PC before it even had a chance of hitting the firewall or proxy, or anything from the internet.

Still in powershell, type in:

notepad C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts

and hit return. Your PC now has opened a text file which we need to edit, this demands a little manual labour but this should most definitely fix your issue.

In the text editor, on your keyboard hit the shourtcut "Control + F", or in the header menu click on "edit > search", this brings up the text search window.

Now click on the bock to DISABLE capitalization and ENABLE to begin the search at the beginning when the end of the file was reached. In the textbox type in "adobe". Now you MUST DELETE EVERY line which contains "adobe" in it.

This might take take some time. At the end, make sure you removed all adobe lines.

Click on "save", exit the text editor and head back over to powershell.

Type in the following: 

Clear-DnsClientCache

hit return and then type in

ipconfig /flushdns

and hit return.

Now restart your PC and try to sign in to adobe again. The issue should now be fixed.

Pi-hole

IGNORE THIS SECTION IF YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT PIHOLE IS
(more technical because I assume you set up the pihole and know what you are doing)

You obviously have to whitelist all domains for adobe to be able to access its' servers.
Check in terminal with `Resolve-DnsName "genuine.adobe.com"` if this returns an IPAddress: 0.0.0.0, check with a bypass: `Resolve-DnsName "genuine.adobe.com" -Server 8.8.8.8` as this uses the default DNS.
If this also returns IPAddress 0.0.0.0 we know it's not pihole blocking the traffic, because if even Google can't resolve the IP then you are NOT the issue.
You can continue checking these IPs which probably all return 0.0.0.0:

Resolve-DnsName "genuine.adobe.com"
Resolve-DnsName "lcs-cops.adobe.io"
Resolve-DnsName "cc-api-data.adobe.io"
Resolve-DnsName "prod.adobegenuine.com"

An official list from adobe can be found here: https://helpx.adobe.com/enterprise/kb/network-endpoints.html and here: https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/experience-platform/sources/ip-address-allow-list

I think I only whitelisted the basic IPs from the first link.