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. 

[craigg15814085]

This solved the issue for me. Thank you!

[Cathy McInnis]

This worked for me!  Thanks!

[bradleyj10479271]

This worked for me as well

[Torquil1945]

This seems to have worked. Thank you. Fingers crossed.

[A.Ozel]

This is worked like a charm. Thank you so much.

[tylers54271005]

Worked perfectly as a direct add to the registry on a non-domain joined machine for my client.

[Jennifer34857374ldmi]

Do we need to turn this setting on or off? I have this turned on and my adobe freezes constantly! 

[j.calo]

The registry setting in my post will turn off Protected Mode on Startup. 

Setting bProtectedMode to "0" will turn off Protected Mode on startup. If the policy is not set, then the setting is as the user's discretion. If it is set to 1, then it will be forcefully enabled. 

[Carrie35216485yblh]

oh em gee! thank you so much for this, it worked after trying everything else recommended this worked.

[przone]

I am getting it with the latest version of PhotoShop as well - REALLY annoying

[DONNA25196663u275]

Anybody on to this fix yet, been dealing with the lag for days now - not good for paid subscriptions

[defaultm8d7zxwov1yn]

Chiming in with another report of the same issue. We're a small shop (just 30 licensed Pro users) but 2 have reported it in the last 24 hours, and I'm sure more will come out of the woodwork. All on version 23.008.2042x 

[joela19740897]

Finally got an answer on this one - there's a glitch in the most recent Adobe update that causes conflicts with security applications. You can follow these steps to correct: 

1. Open Acrobat > Menu > Disable new Acrobat.
2. Edit > Preferences or (Ctrl+k) > in the Categories:
• General > Uncheck show me messages when I launch Acrobat
• Accessibility > Uncheck "Enable assistive technology support"
• Reading > Pages vs Documents > Do not read documents
• Search > Maximum Cache: 100000 MB then Purge Cache Content
• Security > Uncheck "Use SafeLogic"
• Security Enhanced > Uncheck "Enable Protected Mode" and Enable Enhance Security
3. Close Acrobat and Open run from the start menu of Windows > type "temp" and clear all the content that can be deleted
4. Open run from the start menu of Windows > type "%temp%" and clear all the content that can be deleted
5. Open run from the start menu of Windows > type "prefetch" and clear all the content that can be deleted

Hopefully they'll roll out a patch to correct across the board as this is not going to be fun rolling out across fifty users.

[defaultm8d7zxwov1yn]

Thanks for posting this--do you know how critical steps 3-5 are? It seems like that could cause issues with non-Adobe applications that rely on temp folders and I'm not excited about introducing new issues.

[Paula34686589y6nm]

Did you test with just steps 1 - 2?    I

[Red Ink Writes]

Oh my gosh, thank you so much for posting these steps! Acrobat is definitely working faster than ever!!

[Paula34686589y6nm]

Thank you - agree with steps 3 - 5..  anyone know or tried?

I did steps 1 - 2 and I am not seeing the issue.. but going to forward the full list of steps to our IT team to see if they complete 3 - 5 on my laptop - then will move to our team

[Ward47]

Step one solved my problem (a permanent freeze when opening any pdf).

[cevad67@hotmail.com]

joela19740897,

Thank you for posting the solution to this problem that countless people have been having with Adobe since late last year. I find it remarkable that you, a non-Adobe employee, who are "New Here since December 21, 2023", have been able to solve this issue without first typing two long paragraphs of garbage, aknowelging our pain and frustration with this software flaw and letting us know that you want to help us, the valued Adobe customers receive the service and support that we so rightly deserve!

Even more astounding joela is the fact that you didn't request log files or screenshots or ask more details about other applications we may have been using when we had this problem. You, a single user, spent your time and effort to develop a fix so your productivity could continue without having to wait for Adobe and their genius team. Best of all, you chose to publically share your solution with the countless others that have been ignored by Adobe!

Joela, thank you for your humanity! I wish I could pay you every month instead of the uncaring software giant.

Kindest regards my friend

[gspice1980]

I am also haing this issue, I have Acobat Pro on two seprate PCs, both on Win 11 fully updated.  As of this week, everytime I open a docuemnt in Adobe, it freezes/hangs for 5-20 seconds, norally when the docuemtn is first opened.  Once it clears then normal operation resumes for a while.

[tobym]

I have the same, or similar - soon after opening Acrobat some sort of dialogue half loads, with a spinner, and Acrobat never recovers. This is on Windows 11 and it's really frustrating.

[gspice1980]

Hi @tobym, I have seen this issue as well.  On mine it was caused by a signature issue, however it was possible to clear the dialougue by pressing the esc key and I could then get back into acrobat.

The difference was that I only saw the"spinning box" come up when I tried certify a document, so it may not be the same issue.

For the amount of money we pay per user per month for acrobat, some of the bugs that seem to go unfixed is bad.

[michaeld41589159]

Can confirm we are having these issues across the board on every CC installation. Adobe Reader is freezing up at load or closing and often cannot open multiple PDFs without crashing. The problem is spilling over to peripheral apps like Illustrator and Photoshop. I have seen improvement after disabling new Acrobat, turning off Enhanced Security, and running a repair.

[michaeld41589159]

correction - meant on Acrobat Standard (not Reader)