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try67
Community Expert
try67Community Expert
Community Expert
October 27, 2025
Question

Acrobat is Unusable

  • October 27, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 646 views

I have been using Acrobat for something like 20 years now, and it's the worse it's ever been. 

I can barely use it for two minutes before it completely hangs up. The application is not responding to anything, no matter what I do, and I have to shut it down via the Task Manager.

I tried a fresh install, the cleaner tool, and everything else I can think of. Nothing works.

I'm just about to give up on the tool I've used for my work for a long period of time and that I have stood up for for many years and defended it as the "Industry Standard". I think I know my way around it, and if I can't get it to do the most basic tasks (like open a PDF for more than 2 minutes), how can you expect anyone else to be able to?

 

Adobe, you've managed to make me hate your applications. I'm just about to uninstall it for good, or at least until you get your act together. Maybe spend 0.001% of the time and resources you spend on the "AI Assistant" to make the core functionality of your software actually usable for the people who (used to) use it on a daily basis? A far-fetched idea, I know, but one can dream.

 

It's version 2025.001.20813* on Windows 10, if anyone has any tips. Same issue happens in both the old and new UI**s, by the way.

 

* And to add insult to injury, I just discovered that the About Acrobat window closes by itself each time you move to a different window, and of course there's no way to copy the version number directly from it... And why would there be? It's just the most basic piece of info you need whenever you try to debug any problem... Why make it easy when you can make it difficult, forcing the user to memorize the number each time? 

 

** Why is there a new UI that's riddled with bugs in the first place? Why does it not have support for some of the functions of the old UI? Why release to the public something that half works? You know it's terrible. That's why you left the old UI there... Sort it out first, then release it. We're not your beta-testers! Sorry, needed to rant some more...

    2 replies

    JR Boulay
    Community Expert
    JR BoulayCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    November 14, 2025

    I have the same problem. I haven't been able to use Acrobat on my PC for over two months.

     

    Acrobat is an astonishing piece of software which continues to run 3 to 6 instances in the background consuming 12% of the processor's resources after I forced it to quit because it was no longer responding.

     

     

     

     

    Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe
      try67
      Community Expert
      try67Community ExpertAuthor
      Community Expert
      November 14, 2025

      Same here, pretty much. Do you happen to have folder-level scripts installed? I suspect this issue is related to them.

      JR Boulay
      Community Expert
      JR BoulayCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      November 14, 2025

      "Do you happen to have folder-level scripts installed?"

      Yes

      Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe
      try67
      Community Expert
      try67Community ExpertAuthor
      Community Expert
      October 27, 2025

      And another thing... Why the hell does Adobe need to run multiple services on my machine constantly?

      Here's just a small selection of the ones I'm seeing running right now:

       

      * Acrobat Collaboration Synchronizer 25.1 (2 instances)
      * Acrobat Licensing Service
      * Adobe Content Synchronizer
      * Creative Cloud Interprocess Service
      * Adobe Notification Client

       

      And there are probably more I haven't spotted...

       

      All of them taking up resources and slowing down my computer, even when no Adobe application is running!

        T
        Tariq Dar
        Legend
        November 14, 2025

        Hello @try67,

         

         

        First and foremost, we sincerely apologize for the delay in responding to your post. We greatly value your patience and the effort you put into sharing your experience.

        I can imagine how frustrating it must have been to encounter issues with Acrobat – that is certainly not the kind of experience we wish for our users, particularly for community members. We appreciate you bringing this to our notice.

         

        Could you please verify if the issue persists after installing the latest updates? As you are aware, Adobe frequently releases fixes and enhancements, and your input will help us ensure that everything functions correctly.

         

        If the issue continues, please provide any recent error messages or actions you have taken so far. We will do our utmost to assist you swiftly.

        Please share the diagnostic logs and memory dump.

        To collect the logs:

        1. Download and run the Diagnostics Utility from:  https://adobe.ly/3LAVfgZ
        2. Click on Start Diagnostics. Ensure advanced logging is checked.
        3. Launch Acrobat, reproduce the issue with your file.
        4. Once done, click Stop Monitoring.
        5. Copy the Log ID and share it with us.

        For a crash or freezing issue, we would require crash logs: https://adobe.ly/47WghOi

        • Upload logs to any Cloud Drive(One Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc)

         

        Thank you for your ongoing support and patience.



        Best regards,
        Tariq | Adobe Community Team

        try67
        Community Expert
        try67Community ExpertAuthor
        Community Expert
        November 14, 2025

        Hi Tariq,

         

        Thanks for your reply. Better late than never... I have since tested it on another machine and experienced the same issues. When a client of mine reported the same thing happening to them we concluded it was related to the presence of folder-level scripts. They seem to cause this issue when they are installed in the app's JavaScripts folder, and it returns to "normal" when they are gone. This happened consistently on multiple machines. When we moved the code to an Action or Custom Command it worked fine.

        I will run the diagnostic tool when I can and send you the results, though. Hopefully this is something that can be solved quickly as it's extremely inconvenient for those of us who develop and use scripts, as you can imagine. 

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