Open linked PDF from Excel file in Acrobat sometimes dont work - acrobat process hangs

Dear Community,

I have an Excel file with many (hundreds) of links to PDF files, which are stored on a network share (I was able to reproduce the issue with local saved PDF files too). Since one of the last Adobe Acrobat updates we've made, often I can't open the linked PDF. I click the link, the Acrobat Reader Process starts in the background but no Acrobat Reader window opens. Excel is stuck with "Microsoft Excel is waiting for finish of a OLE-action in another application". If i kill the Acrobat Process via task-manager, i can continue working in excel and open other linked PDF files until the issue occurs again. Sometimes the issue occurs on the first linked PDF I clicked after opening the Excel sheet but sometimes it works for 130+ links and then the issue occurs.

What I've tried so far:

- Reinstalling the Acrobat Reader software

- Repair the MS Office Installation

- Tried other Office Version (Office Standard 2013) -> issue occures there too

- Try with local saved PDF files instead on network share

- checked if the issue is related to the PDF-file itself (not it isn't)

- checked if the issue persists even if i save the excel file and some test PDF files locally on my PC

The issue occurs on multiple workstations with multiple users - on acrobat reader and acrobat reader pro.

Software used:

Acrobat Reader (pro) 22.003.20310

Office Standard 2019 click to run with Excel v1808

I know there are some similar posts with kinda same issue. But the solutions on these posts did not solve my problem. Since excel don't open linked PDF-Files in MS Edge, even if its set as default PDF-application, using Edge as PDF-viewer is no workaround.

I appreciate any help.

Kind regards