Acrobat Processes hanging in Task Manager

I’m having the same issue on multiple computers. I’m using the latest version of Acrobat (26.001.21789). The Acrobat’s stack up in the Task Manager and I have to close them out to get it to open.

We’re having the issue here as well with 26.001.21789

I was able to avoid the recurring issue where Acrobat processes remain stuck and PDFs will not open by uninstalling the current release and rolling back to the base Acrobat DC version, 2021.001.20135.

Because the unified installer normally prompts users who do not have an Acrobat Standard or Pro license to sign in, I set the following registry value to enforce Reader functionality:

reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\DC\FeatureLockDown" /v bIsSCReducedModeEnforcedEx /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

I also disabled automatic updates so the affected version would not be reinstalled:

reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\DC\FeatureLockDown" /v bUpdater /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

After applying these values and restarting Acrobat, the user was able to open PDFs normally again. This is only a temporary workaround while waiting for Adobe to provide a confirmed fix, particularly since remaining on an older version may carry security risks.

It may be possible to patch up to a more recent but still unaffected version.

Experiencing the exact same issue for + 2 months now. Ran the troubleshooter and submit the logs, please could i get assist with reviewing Log ID : cb6e8330-4834-41ae-b3e7-81381f20b414?

The affected user’s rely heavily on Adobe and this issue is really impacting productivity.

We are getting reports about the same issue happening with our users. These users open a lot of pdf files as a part of their job and have to constantly end the stuck background instances through Task manager. We have verified they are running the latest version of Adobe Pro DC. 

I’ve seen similar behavior with Acrobat where the application processes remain active in the background and prevent a new PDF from opening. Since ending those processes temporarily fixes it, it sounds more like a stuck Acrobat instance than an issue with the PDF files themselves.

One thing worth checking is the exact Acrobat/Reader build. Adobe has addressed a similar issue in recent updates, so I’d make sure all affected machines are running the latest available build and restart them after updating.

If it still happens, I’d also check whether the affected machines have anything in common, such as a particular Windows version, virtual desktop environment, security software, or browser workflow. That might help narrow down what is keeping the processes stuck.

@ angular_calmness50f8 thanks for sharing the logs ID, we have passed it to our development team for futher analysis. We will keep you posted on the updates. 
Thanks for your cooperation and understanding
~Amal

Hello! We have also continued to run into this issue, unfortunately even after we ran the update to .21745, and .21771. We observed the issue this morning, but afterwards did see there was an upgrade available. Due to the nature and the pattern we’re observing, we expect to see a return in the coming days, pending the latest release potentially resolving this issue for good.

We did submit a diagnostic report, essentially what happens is the same as above. We kill running acrobat and acroCEF (if present, this morning we only had an acrobat process floating on its own with no CEF running in the background), and files will continue to open.

In our case, our impacted folks open hundreds of documents with Adobe every day, and they run into this once every few days.

Diagnostics report run: 

b6176c09-94a1-41d6-9809-bc4ee9bce00e

Hello,

Mr. Wili,

I am facing the same issue most likely with Windows 11, First, I thought it is RAM issue, and when I checked, absolutely there is no issue with RAM. I tried this following solution and it worked; Therefore, check the following steps:

• Open the task manager.
• Check on the background process and end task to the Acrobat running processes, and don’t forget to end task to Acrobat sync
• then launch the acrobat software, and click on the 3 dots.
• Go to help ==> click repair installation, then in the help menu, click Check for updates.
• Then on the 3 dots go to Preferences ==> Then select Security (Enhance)
• Uncheck ‘Enable Protected Mode at startup’ and ‘Enable Enhanced Security’ boxes.
• Then relaunch Acrobat and PDF files 
• Check the registry keys possibly this is one of the causes.

Re-installing the Adobe Acrobat won’t solve the issue because I’ve tried that.