Acrobat 10 won't start anymore

[hbax450]

Love how you spend thousands to get the latest software from Adobe, and then when you simply need to open a PDF file right before a presentation, the application won't open.

Found one discussion that advises to uninstall and the reinstall.  Seriously?  And I need to download Adobe's special "the regular uninstaller process does not work so use our alternate" tool?

[normar28561211]

I have a new wrinkle. I had CS4 Design installed. Updated to Design Standard CS5.5, then to CS6. I was happy with the Dreamweaver CS4, so I didn't need to upgrade that module. A few days before my 30th day after installing CS6, my Acrobat Pro quit as described here previously. I deleted the cache file as descibed, and was left with the 89 year trial period. I am not particularly happy, but I can live with clicking on a button that says continue with trial...

Here's the weird part. At the same time, my Dreamweaver CS4 jumped into trial mode. It asked for a serial number, which I provided. But after each re-boot, it returns to trial mode and I have to re-enter the number.

Like many others, I am waiting on fix.

(sigh)

[Matt_P]

Had a similar problem tonight. Installed CS6 on May 12 so it was well beyond 30 days. However I did notice that I installed Lightroom 4.1 30 days ago on June 1. Not sure if there is a problem with multiple Adobe products that trigger this situation. The fix with deactivation and reactivation worked for me for now. I guess we will see if it really is permanent.

[ez2c]

TOTALLY WORKED FOR ME TO THE LETTER.

[jasander77]

I just had this happen a second time after having to deactivate and reactivate a month or so ago ... looks like there is a problem that needs to be addressed.

[ez2c]

I found a solution. Close everything adobe. Open illustrator or photoshop and deactivate ( before you do, make sure you have the serial number. ) close the program down... Open again and agree to Eula then select to activate. Re activate the program. Close then open it again... Now try acrobat.

This is from memory... Sorry it isn't more detail. Let me know if it works

Sent from my iPad

[Amrita_Chakrabarti]

jmacougar ...did you do a reinstall since you did the deactivate and reactivate last month...otherwise there is no way this could repeat. The workaround gives you a permenent license of Acrobat. Unless you have blocked internet access....please check your host file settings.

[john4243]

Ummmm... It didn't last for me. I had to repeat the process after another 30 days! --- just how do YOU define 'permanent'?!

Again... Protecting yourselves from criminals at the expense of your paying customers is something you should be ashamed of!  This is not the first time I've had to deal with activation issues with Adobe software!!! (It's at least the third time!) And it's insulting and inexcusable to do this to your paying customers!!

[Amrita_Chakrabarti]

I am sorry that you had to repeat it....we can do a connect session if you want so that I can figure out the problem at your end. But the workaround is going to let you use acrobat forever unless you have blocked activation or else maybe you have reinstalled the suite again. By permenent I do mean permanent which is as long as you have the product on your machine.

Let me know your timezone and we can sync up.

[jasander77]

The last time this happened I ended up uninstalling and reinstalling the entire Design Premium Suite before finding this solution. Yesterday's occurrence was a little different in that I had a PDF open. Acrobat locked up and then shut-down while I was scrolling through pages. I tried to re-launch and nothing. Rebooted and still nothing. Deactivated and reactivated and it worked again. My machine was connected to the Internet the entire time.

[pexi100]

Hei!

Today same thing happened to my desktop Win 7 64 machine. Acrobat X pro just disappeared while I was reading pdf and didn't start again. Deactivation and activation helped. Just over a week ago I had to do that process last time. I did follow both times Amrita Chakrabarti's workaround. After all, it don't seem to be very "forever without trouble"-trick...

Pekka Nurmela

[Amrita_Chakrabarti]

Hello Pekka,

I think your host entries are blocking activation. Please mail me a copy of your oobelib log in %temp% folder as well as your host file . And its not a "trick" ... its a tested workaround that works)

-Amrita

[Amrita_Chakrabarti]

Hi Pekka,

I got your message.

I can't view the log...can you mail it to amrita@adobe.com

host file can be found at : bootdriver\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc for win....on mac its at /etc

-Amrita

[john4243]

Great! Can you explain exactly how the issue was resolved? Was a patch issued? What's the current version number?... Just so I can be sure it's properly installed.

Thanks,

John

[little_guy]

And yes this happened to me, although because of system crash my 30 day clock didn't start until June 26.

My question is why if Adobe has had my email and registration for the last 15 years, they couldn't send out an email to all registered users alerting them in a timely fashion to their problem that they couldn't fix.

This only cost me an hour hunting for a solution because alot of my collegues were further up the food chain and had to gnash their teeth for days trying figure out the issue.

[M__Kruijt]

Same problem over here! I have Design & Web Premium CS6 on Windows 7 64 bit. Acrobat stopped working after 30 days. I assumed that something was wrong with my isntallation. Therefore I did an uninstall followed by a reinstall. The problem seemed to be solved. BUT after 30 days Acrobat stopped working again

The solution described by Amrita Chakrabarti seems to solve it. But 30 days did not pass yet!

[Rosa-Maria Cornell]

I had the same problem and most frustratingly I appear to be stuck in a loop that requires me to log into my account but then doesn't bring up the registration bit; I thought maybe it wasn't getting through so put in the wrong password and was informed the password was incorrect.  Next try - clear cache, restart computer and try to reactivate the progam.  It would have been nice if Adobe had advised customers - I have wasted so much time on this and even though I know my way around computers I have to admit that I haven't kept up with the technology and a lot of the inner workings are pretty foreign to me these days.  Surely you shouldn't need a Computer Sciences degree to be able to use Acrobat?  Just saying ...

And now I've discovered that it deactivated ALL my registered Adobe software and I cannot reactivate any of it ... I mean you are ****** me, right?  I just spent a fortune (that I didn't have) on these programs and now I have to get some technical geek to go through my computer so that I can get it all happening again?  SERIOUSLY????

Not Happy ...

[dgatwood42]

I'm seeing this failure with Lightroom on my Mac.  Fortunately, ten seconds with Instruments told me what was wrong.  Instead of doing product registration correctly using a privileged helper, they try to write files directly into /Library as the currently logged-in user.  Unfortunately, the permissions for /Library keep getting tightened down (because apps should specifically *not* be doing what Adobe is doing!), and thus the folders their installers create no longer inherit a group writable bit for the admin user in Mountain Lion and newer (or maybe even Lion and newer).

To fix this problem, run Terminal, and type:

    sudo chmod g+w "/Library/Application Support/Adobe/XXXXX"

where XXXXX is the name of the Adobe app (in my case, Lightroom), then press return.  Redo your registration, and it should "just work", but you *must* be logged in as an admin user.  Otherwise, you'll have to set the permissions even more permissively.

If that doesn't work, you can figure out what file Adobe's app is failing to write (without producing any user-visible error—shame on you, Adobe, for not checking result codes and telling the user what file your app failed to write, not logging the error in the system log, etc.) as follows:

1.  Run the app that's causing problems.  Get as far as the screen where you enter your serial number.

2.  Run Instruments (part of Xcode) and choose the "File Activity" template.

3.  Click the pop-up menu that says "Choose Target" and choose the Adobe app in the "Attach to Process" submenu.

4.  Click the record button, then enter your admin password when prompted.

5.  Switch back to the Adobe app and enter your serial number.

6.  Look at the list of files and find the one where the file descriptor is listed as -1.  This is the descriptor that you get when a file cannot be opened for any reason.

7.  Fix the permissions on the folder that contains the file, or add missing folders, or whatever, as needed to make it so that Photoshop can write to that file.

[RUB10]

Its’ really hard to imagine a company like Adobe can’t figure this out yet

I didn’t realize how long this had been going on. I thought better of them.

At least allow it to open and ask for the key again.

Who do I contact to get my money back? Just kidding. But not really.

Now, where did I put that Quark 30 day trial?

[epluribusone]

Running Win7x64 Ultimate and Acrobat X Pro v10.1.8.  Had the same problem where it simply wouldn't open.  I think there was an error a few days ago, though I quickly dismissed it, and now it just won't open and no error appears.  Thanks to one of the posts, I was directed to C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Adobe PCD\cache\cache.db.  I ranamed it to cache.db.bak and Acrobat launched fine.  It told me that it was a trial version with 32,768 days remaining (nice trial) though it gave me the option to enter the serial number, which I did, and now all is well.  Thank heaven for Google.