Adobe Reader Whitebox and Blue Circle when opening PDF

Question

Any time we open a PDF via Adobe Reader, we get a whitebox and blue spinning ciricle. This stops the user from being able to do anything. The only way to close down Reader is to kill it from the task manager.

We have tried to re-install Adobe, it's on a fresh install of Windows 10 and we have checked the security settings of Reader, but nothing seems to work. Please can anyone suggest anything to get this to work. It's slowly effecting more and more of our end usrers. For any one it effects, Adobe Reader is unsuable.

defaultq7grvgncbjmp · Answer

Sept 2023 - Having the same issue. White Box and "Circle of Doom" when attempting to password protect document. If user reboots machine and tries again it may work once, but then goes back to "White box and Circle of Doom Mode"

Have also had this with a user attempting to open a PDF in Adobe DC

Have tried the below -

In Preferences > General > Uncheck 'Show online storage when saving file' and 'Show online storage when opening file' > Click OK and reboot the computer once - No Effect.

Rename of the preference folder - No Effect

Reg Key deletion recreation -

Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat[DC/2017/2020].
Delete the [DC/2017/2020] folder in the Registry Editor - No Effect

Only thing that has worked -

In Preferences > Enhanced Security > Uncheck 'Enable Protected mode at startup'

Got standard warning banners.

Changed - Protected View >to all files

The above is a work around, but this issue has something to do with "protected mode at start up"

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