PDF disappears after Acrobat Pro crashes while saving

Question

I work with large PDF files (200+ pages) using Acrobat Pro - see version in screenshot below.

I typically add a lot of comments and highlighting to my files. The issue randomly happens when I try to save a file and Acrobat crashes while saving.

I force close Acrobat, then when I reopen and select to restore the unsaved files, Acrobat cannot find the file.

The file disappears from my computer and is nowhere to be found: work folder, temp folder, recyclying bin, etc. Hours of work just lost and I have to start over.

I have gone through the log reporting process at least once to no avail, the issue is still there.

What is going on??? Why does Acrobat delete files without my say so? How to prevent/fix this?

olganator · Accepted Answer

Thanks for your reply, @creative explorer .
I'm saving my files to the local machine, not cloud.
I'd already figured out that until the issue goes away, I have to save incremental versions - thanks for confirming this idea. When I remember to do it - I follow that (quite annoying!) process. 😊
While looking for a solution I've come across a suggestion to turn off the "new Acrobat" - did that and had to get used to the slightly older interface again.
Since then it crashed only once and while it offered to open the recovered files, it couldn't do that.
I held my breath and looked in the folder where the files should have been - and they were still there, didn't disappear, thankfully. This time I only lost a little bit of work done between the time I last saved and the time it crashed.
I'm saving maniacally now.
In general the newer version that I turned off seems to have performance issues which I tolerated for a while but stuck with it. Now I can see that the previous version (which doesn't have the AI assistant BTW) is much more nimble. And more importantly - it doesn't delete my files! 🤞

creative explorer · Answer

@olganator When you save a PDF, Acrobat typically creates temporary files to manage changes and ensure the integrity of the original document. If the program crashes during this sensitive write operation—especially with very large files (200+ pages) that contain extensive comments and highlighting—it can lead to an incomplete save where the temporary file is corrupted or the original is partially overwritten or even deleted by the system in an attempt to clean up the failed operation.

Question for you is.... are you saving this to your computer or the cloud? If the cloud, I strongly suggest saving to the computer first 100% safer (still could crash) so that you won't need to worry about the internet kicking you out, sync conflicts, anti-virus hiccups.

Also, save frequently by using the "File > Save As" to create incremental versions of your document (e.g., filename_v1.pdf, filename_v2.pdf), providing immediate backups and preventing the loss of hours of work should a crash occur. And then slowly combine version. Save Combine another version. Save. Yes, it may mean more work versus lost work!

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