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Participant
September 17, 2025
Question

"The operation failed because Adobe Acrobat encountered an unknown error" only of first try

  • September 17, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 438 views

When I try to draw using Fill & Sign, I get the "The operation failed because Adobe Acrobat encountered an unknown error" error only when I click on the PDF for the first time. If I close the error and try again, I can draw (as seen in the video). Some PDFs don't work at all.

 

What is the exact problem with the PDF (attached)? We are trying to debug this, see what's the exact problem and fix it. Some of our clients have errors with PDFs and we don't know where to look for the exact problem.

 

Please don't suggest rebooting, reinstalling and other unseless fixes. Some PDFs work with no issue. It's not an OS or Acrobat version problem. It's the PDF. Optimizing the PDF also doesn't work. I tried CLI tools like "qpdf" to fix it with no success. I want to see the exact error in logs and why it doesn't like this PDF. 

1 reply

Participant
September 18, 2025

I used the QPDF CLI tool to fix the PDF and nothing worked:
$ qpdf --repair-input damaged.pdf fixed.pdf

$ qpdf --linearize damaged.pdf fixed.pdf
$ qpdf --recompress-flate damaged.pdf fixed.pdf
$ qpdf --decrypt damaged.pdf fixed.pdf

 

Even their check method doesn't show anything wrong with the PDF: qpdf --check damaged.pdf

What kind of PDF analysis tools are out there? Using a text editor shows the binary of the PDF. Even if I see the internal readable code of the PDF, I don't know how to fix it. I need a tool that can find the issue and also fix it.

Meenakshi_Negi
Legend
September 18, 2025

Hi ionel_5501,

 

Thank you for reaching out, and sorry about the trouble caused.

 

Please allow us some time to check the document you shared.

In the meantime, please let us know if this issue occurs only with this particular document or with others. Did you create the PDF or receive it to fill out? 

 

Thanks,

Meenakshi