Adobe Acrobat Pro desktop app window is completely blank

Report · May 15, 2023

Adobe Acrobat Pro on Windows 11 Pro 22H2 worked fine on Friday, May 13, 2023. On Monday, May 15, 2023, I started the desktop app, it opened a window with the minimize, maximize, and close boxes from Windows rendered, but the window content was utterly blank. I uninstalled and reinstalled the desktop app, and the behavior continues. It is entirely repeatable with multiple restarts of the app. Rebooting Windows does not fix the issue. The Creative Cloud Desktop app loads and renders without any problems. I have attached a screenshot of how it renders/fails to render the window.

Configuration

Microsoft Windows 11 Pro 22H2 build 22621.1702 (all updates as of May 15, 2023)
Adobe Acrobat Version 23.0 (as reported by Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop - fresh install and all updates as of May 15, 2023)
Adobe Creative Cloud Version 5.10.0.573 (fresh install as of May 15, 2023)

Report · May 15, 2023

Hi Donald28502173kreg,

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

Try reinstalling the application using the following steps:

- Remove the application and run the cleaner tool (https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/Labs/cleaner.html).
- Reboot the machine
- Install Adobe Acrobat Pro from the following page: https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/acrobat-dc-downloads.html

Check if that resolves the issue.

If the issue still occurs, create a new user profile on your machine and install Acrobat. Check if it opens fine.

We may need logs to further investigate the issue if it persists.

Thanks,

Meenakshi

Report · May 15, 2023

I removed Acrobat, Creative Cloud, and the Adobe Genuine Service. After these removals, no Adobe software was reported as installed on the system. I rebooted the machine. I installed Adobe Acrobat Pro (Windows, 64-bit) from the helpx KB site. During installation, a Windows Security alert was triggered for "Protected folder access blocked" on "%userprofile%\Documents\AdobeGCInfo\ConsentRecord." See the attached screenshot for how it is reported by Windows Security. The Adobe Acrobat Pro installation completed without any errors or warnings reported by the installer. I rebooted again. Running Adobe Acrobat still give a blank window. Therefore, the proposed work-around failed.

Report · May 15, 2023

Additional Observations

After uninstalling all Adobe products and running the cleaner tool, the system still contained an empty "C:\Program Files\Adobe" directory. I was able to remove this with rmdir with no errors or warnings. It did not contain any hidden or system files. Therefore, the uninstaller and cleaner tools are also defective.
I confirmed that after running the Adobe uninstallers and cleaner tool, "%userprofile%\Documents" is now empty. No "AdobeGCInfo" subdirectory exists at that location.
However, there was a "%userprofile%\Creative Cloud Files" directory. This contained a single "_Cloud documents" shortcut file. Again, this indicates that the uninstallers and cleaner have additional defects.
I also found a "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe" empty directory on the system

This level of product quality makes me extremely nervous. What else is required to actually remove Adobe products from a Microsoft Windows system?

Report · May 15, 2023

I was able to install Adobe Acrobat Reader and it seems to work. I tried to cancel my Adobe Acrobat Pro subscription but it warns of an early cancellation fee. Since the Pro product is defective, charging for it is now a case of fraud.

Report · May 15, 2023

After installing Adobe Acrobat Reader it detected my Pro subscription, despite all my previous attempts to fully remove Adobe products, and updated itself to Adobe Acrobat Pro. It seemed to do this in two operations, reporting that it failed to do the upgrade correctly the first time. The dialogs and reporting of what operations are being performed by the Adobe software user interface appear to be deliberately vague to the point of useless. The installation of Adobe Acrobat Reader now reports itself as Adobe Acrobat Pro Continuous Release Version 2023.001.20174, 64-bit. It opens and renders the window as it did last week. Therefore, a candidate work-around for this defect is:

Uninstall all of Adobe's products.
Run the Cleaner tool
Remove a bunch of things Adobe's uninstaller and Cleaner tool fail to remove, if you can find them
Install Adobe Acrobat Reader for Windows 11, ensuring that the checkboxes to install intrusive adware are unchecked
Let Adobe Acrobat Reader discover the Pro subscription and update itself - twice.

Report · May 26, 2023

Hi Acrofail,

Sorry about the delay in response.

Glad to know that your issue is resolved. The reason Adobe Acrobat Reader updated itself to Adobe Acrobat Pro is that now there is a single installer for both applications. So, if you install Acrobat Reader and sign in to the application used to purchase the subscription, it will upgrade to Acrobat Pro. Else, it will work as Acrobat Reader.

Regarding your other findings, we will share this with the team and get this workflow checked.

Let us know if we can be of any further help.

Thanks,

Meenakshi

Marking a reply or response “Correct” will help future users with the same issue quickly identify the correct answer.

Report · May 29, 2023

I have this exact same problem. Considering I am having this 2 weeks after the OP, I would say there's an underlying issue that Adobe needs to investigate. Doing all of these steps is a bit much. In my case, just uninstalling pro and installing the reader which auto upgraded to pro fixed the issue.

Report · Oct 29, 2024

I'm currently experiencing this issue. Please send helppppp

Report · Nov 01, 2024

Hi @Obsidian _2728,

Hope you are doing well. Sorry for the experience!

If going by the screenshot of the OP, I suspect an issue with the AcroCEF process loading at startup.

Please try the steps mentioned here in the article and let me know if it works for you: Resolve errors related to the AcroCEF/RdrCEF processes of Acrobat/Reader (https://adobe.ly/3YuLTWH)

If not, please share a few pieces of information for further investigation:

1. The app version of Acrobat you use (go to Settings-> Apps-> Installed Apps-> Acrobat.

2. The OS version of your device;

3. Logs from your machine: https://adobe.ly/3UtqtIw. Please make sure Procmon is selected. You can upload logs using this tool and share your Unique log ID with us.

Look forward to hearing from you.

-Souvik