Acrobat DC freezing or "not responding"

Report · Apr 21, 2015

I recently installed Acrobat DC. I previously used Foxit Phantom. Now when I am in "My Computer" and I either mouse-over or try to open a PDF file, it freezes for about 10 seconds and says "not responding" at the top. It always works again after the 7-10 seconds. Very annoying. This never happened when using Foxit. Has anyone else had this problem? How do I fix it?

Report · May 18, 2016

Can anyone recommend an alternative to Adobe PDF reader? I continue to have the issues with frozen screen and Not Responding messages. However if I way for a full 2 minutes after opening a document everything works find.

And I have checked for updates and mine is the latest version.

Report · Jul 05, 2016

I am having a similar issue. I created a fillable questionnaire/form and wanted to distribute it. I tried using email then a local folder on our server. Both attempts resulted in the adobe DC not responding message. We are trying to test this out but if I can't get it to the folks then we are stuck with a form we cannot use!

Report · Jul 25, 2016

Thank you Knote,

Does this Regedit fix work with Adobe DC as well? I have given up on trying to contact Adobe about this sort of issue. When I called their support you get someone on the phone from another country, and it is hard to hear them, and understand what they are asking. Love how American companies outsource. SMH.

I am going to give your regedit fix a try. I had two end user's who had issue with Adobe Reader Freezing/Not responding during the saving process of a document.

I tried the Adobe Acro Cleaner, that didn't work.

Uninstalled Adobe Reader DC from Programs and Features-that didn't work

Reinstalled the Offline Installer of Adobe DC, yeah that failed too.

The only fix that actually worked and I hate to say it. I had to reimage the PC for the user. Yeah I could have created a new Windows Profile, but why? Just easier to re-image.

Now that I know that there is a registry fix, I will give this a shot next time.

Adobe really need to find a fix for this and get their acts together. Not happy with their products!

Report · Aug 21, 2016

I'm having a similar issue. Using Windows 10, brand new laptop, and new installation. However, there is never a freezing or error message. Simply does not open the PDF document. The only resolution I've found is to uninstall and reinstall which I have done 3 times in the last month (and 5 times last month). Works okay for a few days and then stops again. At this point I'm wondering if I just need to switch to another PDF Reader.

Report · Aug 21, 2016

Having same problem. Using Windows 9. I did uninstall & reinstall Acrobat DC ( 4x )& yes, it does work well for a while, only to have same problem again. Adobe NEEDS to fixes this.

Report · Aug 21, 2016

Windows 9?

Report · Sep 01, 2016

THIS IS INSANE!

Has anyone at Adobe fixed tho issue yet?!?

I am on MacBook Pro, and all I see is talk about what to do on a PC and .exe files, none of which solve the issue on a Mac! I never had one issue, until a few weeks ago. I have CC, using Acrobat DC. It was fine. A few weeks ago it started not launching and not opening files. It is NOT the files. And every day now I work, next day it will not work, I have to uninstall, reinstall, and then get a day of work if I am lucky.

WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED, WHEN IT WAS FINE AND I MADE NO CHANGES TO ANYTHING?!? We all paid a lot of money for a program to have to troubleshoot every day. Any insight?

Report · Sep 02, 2016

Hi Kristin,

Can you please do the following steps which would help us to debug the issue:-

1. Make sure Acrobat is closed in Activity Monitor.

2. Launch Terminal and type the command: “sudo sample Acrobat 30 –wait” . Enter the password if prompted to. A message will now be shown on terminal “Waiting for Acrobat to appear”

3. Now launch Acrobat (as per your issue it wouldn’t show anything on screen)

4. Wait for around 1 minute

5. Quit Acrobat

6. Now data for Acrobat will be shown in the terminal window. Please copy this entire data in a text file and send it to me on mail (vvinayak@adobe.com) .

Report · Sep 09, 2016

What password does it want? It won't take anything and now of course, three attempts! I tried my CC passwords, and my computer passwords?

Report · Sep 06, 2016

Same problem and it wastes so much time..For every document I have to force quit and open it again or else it freezes. So annoying. Did an update as well still no fix of this issue. In fact, it got worse.

Any way to solve it?

Report · Sep 29, 2016

I tried the 2 solutions, disabled the Protected Mode at startup and creating folder and keys in the regedit.

None of them worked for me.

The only solution that actually worked was deleting almost 4200 fonts I had installed on my PC.

Report · Oct 10, 2016

I had the same problem. Removing the tabbed interface seems to have fixed it.

Report · Nov 11, 2016

Anything yet on fixing this issue?

I am a Windows 7 Enterprise Service Pack 1 64 bit computer using Acrobat Reader DC 15.020.20042.

Reader often locks up on me, usually when I go to print.

It doesn't look like there has been any clear fix yet. I do believe that the issue is part of the "Going out to the cloud" aspect of it.

Would signing out of the Adobe Online Service account fix it?

Report · Nov 24, 2016

Hi, constantly "not responding", driving me crazy! Running windows 7 proffesional, on a New HP Pro, and it´s NOT an option to change any windows version as this is a coporate machine!

I use the reader to read pdf as the pro crsches, BUT I behind schedule to edit and create files!!!

Are Adobe sleeping??

This thread is OLD?

Not happy me are, ish

Report · Nov 30, 2016

Ya, we are experiencing this today. with all the updates installed its still an issue.

i have a feeling that its down to some of the files the users are working on, as it definitely affects some files, and not others.

in our case, its when we go to use the measurement tool in adobe reader pro.

none of the fixes suggested resolve the issue. pretty shoddy by adobe in fairness.

happening on both win 7 and 8.1 machines.

Report · Dec 31, 2016

Like all of Adobe's recent products, I'm finding that Acrobat is extremely slow. I've tried all of the listed solutions, but to no avail. I'm on Windows 7. I'm getting really frustrated with the whole CC product. Everything seems to be so slow as to be unusable.

Report · Jan 10, 2017

We're having the same issues on all of our computers (either Windows 7 or Windows 10) with Adobe Acrobat DC. It hangs "not responding" so much that the program is almost unusable. We've tried the suggestions and they don't make any difference.

I can't believe Adobe has this type of issues with a flagship product. Something is seriously wrong with DC.

What over PDF viewing and editing programs (not made by Adobe) would anyone suggest. We've tried Soda PDF 8 and we're too impressed. It was good for printing, but lacked the necessary zooming and annotation tools.

Thanks.

Report · Jan 11, 2017

Hi stephenc63574721

Could you please share the Acrobat DC version you are on? Please share a screenshot of Help > About Acrobat Pro DC.

Thanks,

-ashu

Report · Jan 12, 2017

Sincerely,

Stephen

Moderator: I took out your personal credentials, too dangerous on a public forum

Report · Feb 07, 2017

Thanks for cleaning that up. Our version is 2015.006.30280.

Report · Feb 02, 2017

I am having the same problem when trying to insert or merge files. We are running Adobe Acrobat Pro DC version 2015.023.20056 on a Windows 7 network machine. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling. I've run the repair installation tool and checked for updates (none). I've turned off tabs and tried running Adobe with absolutely nothing else open...still the program either stops responding or I eventually get an "out of memory" error message before it shut itself down. HELP. The whole reason that my company got this subscription for me was so I could merge and manipulate pdf documents in an attempt to reduce paper usage. Right now all I'm doing is spending my time trying to troubleshoot Adobe and attempting to find workarounds. It's actually taking 3 times as long to work each file than it did using paper copies.

Report · Feb 07, 2017

Tried something yesterday that seems to have helped ALOT. Under Preferences & Adobe Online Services I unchecked Sync Settings\Sync preferences across devices and document services. The program is MUCH better now especially on large drawings.

I don't know if this is THE solution, but it's made Adobe Acrobat Standard DC much faster and better for us. I got suspicious that it was trying to reach out to the Internet or something. We seemed to have the biggest problems with large drawing files (we're architects).

Give it a try. Good luck.

Report · Apr 12, 2017

stephenc63574721 Hi Stephen,

Can you please share the following info with us so that we can debug why the issue is happening when SYNC setting on:-

1. Which build of Acrobat are you using? You can check so by launching Acrobat -> Go to Help Menu -> Pressing “About Adobe Acrobat Standard DC”

2. You said that the problem is with large drawing files. Would it be possible for you to share one such file with us on which you are seeing the issue?

Thanks,

Varun

Report · Apr 14, 2017

I, too, am finding Reader practically unusable. I've already tried to uninstall and reinstall. I'm using mac Sierra 10.12.3. I have to constantly close an re-open Reader. It only works for a few minutes before it freezes.

Report · Apr 14, 2017

Varun,

We're using Adobe Acrobat Standard DC version 2015.006.30306. I'll upload the drawing file we're having issues with separately.

Steve Cashman