.pdf files don't open from untrusted location

[Seelauch]

Hello

Since the update of Adobe Acrobat 2017 (17.011.30202) every user in our company can't open .pdf files from untrusted location!

- .pdf files won't open from outlook

- .pdf files won't open from network drives

- after some minutes an error pops up: "Acrobat failed to connect to a DDE server"

- when I look in the running processes, 2 processes for each Acrobat.exe and AcroRd32.exe are disturbing eachother. When I terminate the processes another pop up to change the settings of protected view. Then the pdf will open. If I open .pdf files from localy it works.

What we have done is added our network drives to trusted hosts then .pdfs files from the network drives open immediatly. For Outlook we do not want to add folders to trusted location.

To completly workaround this issue we disabled the protected view in Security Enhanced settings. But this is a security issue for us and is not the end solution.

What happend with the latest update? Does somebody also have the same issue?

Thank you!

[Amal.]

Hi there

Hope you are doing well and sorry for the trouble. As described you are unable to open the PDFs from the untrusted locations and throws the error 'Acrobat failed to connect to a DDE server'

Please checkout the steps shared in the help page https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/failed-to-connect-to-dde-server.html  and see if that works.

PDFs have evolved from static pages to complex documents with features such as interactive forms, multimedia content, scripting, and other capabilities. These features leave PDFs vulnerable to malicious scripts or actions that can damage your computer or steal data.

With enhanced security enabled, only the files, folders, and locations that have been trusted are exempt from enhanced security’s restrictions. You can specify trusted locations and files in several ways, depending on the action the PDF is attempting to complete as described in the help page https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/enhanced-security-setting-pdfs.html

As mentioned turning off the protected mode works for you, please checkout the help page https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/protected-mode-troubleshooting-reader.html

You may also go through the security configuration guide for Acrobat for more info. here : https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/AppSec/index.html

Hope this information will help

Regards

Amal

[Seelauch]

Hello Amal

Thanks for your instant answer!

We already tried the steps provided in the article

https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/failed-to-connect-to-dde-server.html

Unfortunately, none of them worked for us.

As mentioned we added our network drives to trusted locations - this is ok for us. What we don't want in trusted location is outlook, where .pdfs arrive from the evil internet.

Is there another solutions? Because completly deactivate the protected mode is not a solution for us.

Thanks!

[Bilal Ansari]

Hi,

Would it be possible to share the Process Monitor logs from the affected machine using the Log tool: https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/Labs/acromonitor.html

Download the tool, run it, reproduce the issue, and save the logs. Share the logs with us either by uploading them to the Document Cloud Storage: https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/home/ and share the link with us. Or attach it to the thread.

[Seelauch]

Hi

Can I send the logs directly to you? I don't want to share these logs with "everybody".

Thanks.

Regards

[Bilal Ansari · Accepted solution]

Sure. Send the details to acrosecurity@adobe.com.

Also, could you check if you have KB5005565 installed on your machine. If so, see if the steps mentioned in the below post resolves your problem.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/sept-update-2021-007-20091-bug-with-protected-vie...

[Seelauch]

It was because of KB5005565... Thank you so much!

We noticed it Yesterday because office application did not respond neither. No Thanks to Microsoft letting us test their new patches :@!%

Sorry to fingerpoint Adobe!

[Krutika23687442kjqn]

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[Krutika23687442kjqn]

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