Adobe Acrobat Freezing constantly.

[Rodney34355046q1uf]

Over the last few days, everytime I and a few other Adobe Acrobat users just open the app, it hangs and we need to wait for it to respond. Sometimes it works, but it is unpredictable. This was not an issue last week. I have updated to the newest version via updates yet it still happens. I paused virus scanning w/o any improvement. 

I also tried to disable enhanded security and protected mode, but that does not seem to help either.

Do you have any suggestions, this is quite annoying. 

[j.calo · Accepted solution]

Adding this setting to our environment (via a GPO) seemed to have resolved our slowness/freezing issues with Acrobat Pro. 

Edit>Preferences>Security enhanced>uncheck "Enable Protected Mode at startup".

A few years ago, we applied this setting to Adobe Reader using a group policy setting. Back then, Adobe Reader was exhibiting slowness and freezing when launching PDFs from one of the financial application that gets used across the enterprise. However, it seems that we never applied this same policy for Acrobat Pro. We noticed this on Thursday, and then updated our policy to include the same reg key for Acrobat Pro. 

These are the reg keys in question that configure the policy:

Path (for Reader): SOFTWARE\Policies\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\DC\FeatureLockDown
Path (for Acrobat Pro): SOFTWARE\Policies\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\DC\FeatureLockDown

Reg Value Type: DWORD
Reg Value Name: bProtectedMode
Reg Value Data: 0

I don't expect this to work for most folks in this thread since it seems that many have already tried, but I wanted to mention it anyways. 

[Jared35141547qmz3 · Accepted solution]

So was able to get the issue resolved after a couple of additional contacts with support. It involved:

- disabling "New Acrobat"

- in Add/Remove programs in Windows, repair any and ALL Microsoft Visual C++ reistributables that allow you, any that don't allow the repair simply remove

- run the Adobe Acrobat repair install

And that's pretty much it. Reboot the computer and it was good to go. Running as fast as it did before all the bugs started popping up. Hope this helps

[Lisa345733857m3m]

Everyone at our company and my daughter's law firm is having this issue. Adobe, you have a real problem that may be related to recent updates on Windows 10 and later with which you are not now compatiable. It is a huge productivity issue. Please address the group regarding when you are going to resolve this issue. I would suggest you send an email  out to all your subscribers, as the issue in my case and many others with whom I am speaking is that bad. 

[Alex32659157oe38]

This is Adobe we're talking about; they'd rather take our money every month and release unoptimized garbage and tell us to "figure it out". I'll be SHOCKED if this is fixed, or they actually communicate with their customers. 

Shame to see this company's downfall, but at this point I don't feel bad anymore. 

[Bridget Machaela]

We are all experiencing this issue in my firm. We used Acrobat reguarly for converting, organising, editing and protecting documents and this is really impacting our work times. We have tried all the suggested solutions re protected mode and reinstallations but the problem persists. This needs a quick fix or we will need to look for another solution. 

[Nicholas K]

We've already found another solution, if it's not resolved within 1 month we will be permanently sticking to the alternative

[woe-is-me]

do tell please

[Dianne at Allegra]

Same problem. Started happening occasionally a month or so ago and has gotten steadily worse the last 2 weeks. Very Frustrating! Thanks for those who have posted solutions - ADOBE - how about a FIX???

[Amal.]

Hi there,

I appreciate you reaching out, and I understand that experiencing issues can be frustrating. I'm here to assist you in resolving this matter.

I'm sorry to hear about the trouble you're experiencing. I know technical issues can be inconvenient. However, your cooperation in collecting and sharing the crash/freeze logs will greatly help us in understanding the issue and finding a solution tailored to your situation.

To make this process as smooth as possible for you, please follow the instructions provided in the link (https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/collect-logs-crash-freeze.html) to collect the necessary logs. Once you've done that, feel free to upload the log file to any cloud storage of your choice (Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.)

After uploading, please generate a shareable link and share it with us. This will enable our team to investigate the issue thoroughly and work towards a fix.

~Amal

[Rajendra21907769u181]

Hi Amal

I am not sure why you want others to do the job for you. Adobe should have self analysing tools being the biggest mega ssoftware provider. The whole internet is libve with this stupid problem. I am looking for alternate products as Adobe seems to care less for customers. It has been more than a month and you still want to collect data. Have you guys worked out a fix to the freezing problem and where can I find it?

[Amal.]

Hi there,

Please update the application to the latest version 23.08.20470 from the help menu > check for updates and reboot the computer once and see if that works.

~Amal

[Scott26155732ejm9]

Seeing this same issue at several clients

[CorbyB838]

all clients at our office are experiencing this issue. Going to try to disable protected mode. Not thrilled to turn off security features, but I am getting a bunch of complaints.

[Gretchen33034268oyt2]

We are having the same problems across multiple users on both Pro and Standard. 

[Fbc]

Same problem here on both computers with Acrobat lastest version.
Uncheking "Enable Protected Mode at startup" seems to work for us.

[terrexaccounting]

Me too.  I can hardly work with it.  It is sooo slow and keeps freezing.

[gnomedog]

I checked late yesterday and they have a un update patch available.  I don't know why they didn't send out a notification, but ......

Note - I had to close everything down and do a manual download and installation because it wouldn't update with any of the Adobe services running, and trying to update from within the Adobe program keeps them running. 

It is better than it was, but still lagging sometimes. Worth installing IMO.

[gnomedog]

Well, the update patch seemed to help for one day, now it's worse than before.  Freezes and crashes every time I I open or try click on a page inside a doc, or close it. So frustrating. Why can't they fix this? Roll back to a working version if necessary.  Had to diable Projected Mode at Startup to use it at all, and this requires extra steps to rename files when I extract.   pages.

[gnomedog]

And now it keeps popping up and asking me to activate.  This has become a huge issue for our small company. 

[JenChapDE]

I am also having this issue and we pay for the pro version....ugh its so frustrating!

[Jared35141547qmz3]

I am also experiencing this issue. I've tried the disabling protected mode and the other fixes, none of have worked. 99% of the plans I open cause Acrobat to freeze almost instantly making it unusable. I pay for Acrobat Pro. This has been going on for a month or two, but now it is just simply garbage. Need a fix to this immediately

[Ward47]

It sounds like the symptoms vary a little, but for the case of always freezing a few seconds after opening a PDF, one of the solutions offered here on Dec. 21 worked for me: Open Acrobat > Menu > Disable new Acrobat.

[Jared35141547qmz3]

I did try this and it has not resolved my issues unfortunately

[Ward47]

Too bad. The bug might manifest differently in the Pro version, which I am not using. Or there are multiple bugs with similar symptoms.

[Jared35141547qmz3 · Accepted solution]

So was able to get the issue resolved after a couple of additional contacts with support. It involved:

- disabling "New Acrobat"

- in Add/Remove programs in Windows, repair any and ALL Microsoft Visual C++ reistributables that allow you, any that don't allow the repair simply remove

- run the Adobe Acrobat repair install

And that's pretty much it. Reboot the computer and it was good to go. Running as fast as it did before all the bugs started popping up. Hope this helps

[Valentina32136038h1j6]

How do you disable "New Acrobat"?

[Valentina32136038h1j6]

This worked! Thank you.