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PRD_IT
Participant
June 4, 2013
Answered

"Internal Error Occurred" on Windows 7 & Outlook Previewing

  • June 4, 2013
  • 13 replies
  • 41236 views

I am having an issue with Acrobat XI that I have also seen with Acrobat X and Reader XI and Reader X.  I have also found another discussion that I believe is related.  I believe this is a bug in Acrobat, but I don't know how to go about getting it fixed.

In my case, the "Internal Error Occurred" error pops up (usually behind the other windows, making the system seem hung) when users click on a PDF in Windows Explorer (especially if the preview pane is enabled).  The same error pops up if a user clicks on a PDF attachment in Outlook and enables preview.

I have used procmon to see what is happening when the error is triggered, and it appears that Adobe software tries to access the user profile incorrectly.

The discussion I refer to where another user gets the same error more often / in a worse way (but I believe for the same reason) can be seen here:

http://forums.adobe.com/message/4344860

I believe it is the same issue because the user (LaneCx) says "The only thing that could be considered out of the ordinary is that the C:\users folder is a separate mounted drive."  This is in the post dated Apr 18, 2012 6:01 AM.

In our case, C:\users isn't a separate mounted drive, so C:\Users\Public is accessible by the Adobe products.  However, the other user profiles are separately mounted (for instance C:\Users\John.Doe is a separate mounted drive).  As such, I believe Adobe fails to access some piece of individual user profile data (when John Doe is logged in and the preview extensions are called).  Again, I believe this because of what I saw in procmon (but that was some time ago and I don't remember what all I saw).

Can anyone who has C:\Users (or C:\Users\LoggedInUser) mounted as a separate profile tell me that this works for them?  If so, was any special configuration or repair performed in order to make it work?

Alternatively, can anyone tell me how I can get Adobe to fix this if I can't work around it?

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer unico-dan

We seem to have solved the problem. Or at least we have found a definitive workaround that works on 2 test users.

The registry settings iProtectedView, bProtectedMode or bEnableProtectedModeAppContainer are of no use. If AcroRd32.exe is launched via shell extension, protected mode is mandatory. Even the registry entry bUseWhitelistConfigFile is of no use, as via shell extension this as well is ignored.

So AcroRd32.exe runs in strict protected mode. In this mode Acrobat Reader restricts itself from writing in serveral folders even if the ACLs are ok. It is only allowed to write in C:\Users\(user)\AppData\LocalLow\

While trying to show the preview, AcroRd32.exe writes its stuff to the LocalLow folder but then tries as well to write to C:\Users\(user)\AppData\Local\ which results in ACCESS DENIED (showed by procmon) and the famous INTERNAL ERROR (user-message).

With a lot of trial & error we've found out, that AcroRd32.exe doesn't necessarily has to write to C:\Users\(user)\AppData\Local\. It just checks, if the following folder is present:

C:\Users\(user)\AppData\Local\Adobe\Acrobat\2017

(probably replace 2017 by any other version or replace path with roaming path.)

Can anyone confirm?

Further reading: Sandbox Protections — Acrobat Application Security Guide

13 replies

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akraa1
Participant
August 30, 2013

I have the very same issue on Windows Server 2012 RDS (Remote Desktop Session Host) with the "user disk" feature activated! The user profiles are redirected from C:\Users\<username> to a VHDX disk file on another drive (or even another server). Acrobat somehow fails to resolve these paths correctly.

I've added the bProtectedMode=0 registry key from the beginning per this Citrix document: http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX133435

But even then the PDF preview feature (for example when adding a PDF to an e-mail in Outlook) causes Acrobat Reader XI to crash (Internal error occurred). I've set the Windows XP SP3 compatibility mode flag on AcroRd32.exe for all users, this seems to eliminate this for now. I don't know though if there's a downside of this workaround.

Hello Adobe, when do you finally fix this ridiculous bug??

    B
    Bill12
    Inspiring
    August 31, 2013

    I believe this is an issue of the preview aspect of windows. There is an issue that has been reported in other discussions about the problem I believe, but unfortunately I do not remember the issue precisely.

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    Bill12
    Inspiring
    July 25, 2013

    Did you apply the updates in case that resolves your issues?

    P
    PRD_ITAuthor
    Participant
    July 25, 2013

    We are running 11.0.3, the problem is the same as it was on 11.0.2, 11.0.1, and 11.0.0.  This is true in Acrobat and Reader.  Based on other posts in this thread, it apparently existed on 10.x as well, but we have never run that with this contingency.

    S
    scott_resnik
    Participant
    July 25, 2013

    I'm not sure the updates referenced in the other thread that this thread references have any bearing on the issue described.  This issue is directly related to having the "Users" folder mounted / redirected somewhwere other than what Reader expects. 

    I can install the product fine on machines where the Users directory is in a standard location.

    A
    Anonymous
    June 18, 2013

    I have had the same problem since the moment I installed Adobe Reader XI :"An internal error occured"

    People of Adobe, any help ?

    S
    scott_resnik
    Participant
    July 25, 2013

    Same problem here.  Been going on since Adobe Reader X.

    It seems adobe has never thought about having folders mounted on different drives.

    I have the Users folder, and the ProgramData folder all mounted to a different drive.  This is on Windows 7 x64 Ultimate.  I too also have the "An internal error occured." on startup.

    It'd be nice if adobe would at least acknowledge their software is broken, but they don't seem to care.

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