Previous post marked as SPAM so I'm reposting --Recent Flash Player Update may have corrupted my wor

Question

Since the previous post was marked as SPAM, I’m going to try removing some words that may have caused this. Removed words in ( )

Part of my daily works involves printing a complete package of the day's shipping information. This includes a (Federal shipping service) scan form that I print from (well known shopping site) bulk shipping webpage. Normally, I click the web page PRINT button and the browser PRINT dialog pops up. I print to ADOBE PDF. Then I use Acrobat Pro XI to combine that file with other pdf's (created using same process) into 1 single pdf containing all the information I need for that day.

2 days ago I updated Flash Player to 32.0.0.363. I don't have any idea what the previous version that worked was. It could have been several versions ago. Just don't know.

Now when I click the web page print button it downloads the file without prompting, and the file now contains a password. Preventing me from combining with the other files or doing anything except print. And when I open the file it has the following across the top in a yellow banner. “Javescript is currently disabled and this document uses it for some features…” If I select to enable the Javascript 1 time or always, then the Acrobat print dialog box appears suddenly.

Now.. I have 2 laptops that I work from equally. I do this same process from each equally. The other laptop is still doing this correctly without a password on the file. Same web site, same file, same day. 1 laptop adds password, the other does not. Same version of Acrobat Pro, same version of flash player Same browser.

Download file on good laptop no password. Open that same file on the bad laptop, no password.
Download file on bad laptop, password protected. Open that same file on the good laptop password protected.

It has to be the Flash Player.

I COMPLETELY understand that this password has probably been provided to (well known shopping site) by the (Federal shipping service) to prevent altering the form and all that. I get that... But it was working….. And now it’s not!!!! And it’s preventing me from combining those files into 1 single file for the day. Trust me I can find workarounds; snapshot the file, insert as photo, something to strip the password, etc.... but again that all involves extra time and extra work on my part.

It’s a simple process!… print to file… combine files… 1 single file for each day. Then I combine for each month with bookmarks. 12 files for the year. Not 1095 which is what it will be without this.

How do I identify the previous version I had installed? Is there a log that I can view? Or do I just have to uninstall flash, rolling back version by version, until I find 1 that works?

Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm not keen on rolling back but.... I have to do this everyday and I can't always be in the same room where the good laptop is operating.

Thanks in advance for the forum to rant, and any suggestions that you might have.

jeromie_adobe · Answer

I believe this is an instance of "correlation is not causation". Flash updates often tend to coincide with browser and OS updates, and we really don't have much to do with PDFs outside a couple very specific use-cases, which you're not running into based on your description above. We certainly wouldn't be modifying the PDF to include password restrictions.

Flash Player is not in play when you're printing from the browser to PDF (unless you're printing Flash content, and even then, it's the browser sampling the pixels on the screen and rendering a PDF), and we're definitely not in play when you're combining or printing that PDF from Acrobat or whatever you're using.

If you haven't already, "when in doubt, reboot" is sage advice. It may be that the browser is not generating a password-protected PDF, but that it's just generating corrupted garbage that Acrobat is interpreting to mean that it's password protected. If I had to make a bet, that would be it. (I have a laser printer with terrible scanner drivers that likes to do this on the regular.). PDF is an open format, so just because a PDF exists doesn't mean that Acrobat was in play. Most browsers include their own PDF readers and writers, which tend to be default, unless you've taken steps to make sure you're using Acrobat.

Anyway, rebooting would be a great place to start. You eliminate a whole lot of weird possibilities which you'd probably never manage to diagnose, and for which the fix also happens to simply be "reboot". Start there.

If that doesn't work, I'd try printing from a different browser. Does that work? Cool. You should take a hard look at the affected browser. An uninstall/reinstall is probably the easiest. There are more surgical options if that's too painful.

If you really want to disprove your Flash hypothesis, uninstall Flash Player and do the same thing. If the problem persists, Flash was definitely not in play.

https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/uninstall-flash-player-mac-os.html

https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/uninstall-flash-player-windows.html

You can download and re-install the latest Flash Player, here:

https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer

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