PDF pages go blank

Report · Jun 14, 2016

When using adobe acrobat pro dc and I leave a pdf open and untouched. The page I am viewing goes blank as well as the next couple of pages.

I have to close out adobe and restart my machine. Otherwise any other pdf I open will have random blank pages in the file.

I have already reinstalled from the web site. Ran repair on it. Yet the issue continues. Any help would be great

Report · Mar 13, 2018

Well.... we fought this and fought this. Poured through the countless forums going back years... and we actually found something that fixed (for us) this exact issue.

This is for Windows 10 running Adobe X and DC, PDF's opened from the network (locally opened PDF's are fine) have random blank pages after sitting idle for some time.

Troubleshooting Done: Reinstalled Adobe, even used the Adobe Cleanup tool. Was using X Standard, so tried using a trial of DC. Tried different profiles on the computer. Reinstalling Windows was not an option.

We were having an issue with some Tax software crashing randomly. Support for said software informed us of a problem if Group Policy was using "Replace" to map network drives. Apparently Microsoft changed the way that Replace behaves via Group Policy on Win 8, Win 10, and Server 2012 machines and now says to use "Update" to map the drives.

After resolving the crashing tax software issue it occurred to us maybe PDF's are also being affected by the "Replaced" mapped drives. We changed GP to use "Update" rather than "Replace" and low and behold network opened PDF's have been open for over 24 hrs without an error, blank page, or single hiccup. This resolved our issue, and I really hope this helps some others, as it has been a head scratcher. Good luck!!

View solution in original post

Report · Nov 18, 2020

Hello! And thanks to Clintgoodie for the suggestions. But it is now November 2020 and I am having the exact same issue running Adobe Acrobat Pro DC on Windows 10 Enterprise ver 2004 i7-8665U 16.0 GB RAM machine.

I have the eact same question as another commenter. Adobe, please explain exactly how to change the Group Policy as suggested. I hae no clue how to do this. Is it something a regular user like me can do? is it a setting on my laptop? Or do I need to have my IT administrator do it? And if the IT admin must do it, how do they do it? Is this in Windows? In Adobe Acrobat? Please explain the exact series of steps required to update the Group Policy settings.

Thanks!!

Report · Aug 05, 2018

As a complete noob when it comes to pc issues, please could you give a step by step guide on how exactly I go about doing this.... I don't even know what Group policy is let alone how to find it.

Thank you in advance.

Report · Sep 24, 2021

Is there a solution for someone like me who doesn't have the ability to edit group policy for mapped drives? My drives are mapped from my Synology NAS via SMB but I experience the exact same thing. After several hours or a day the PDFs open within Adobe Reader go blank and I have to close and reopen them.

Report · Oct 23, 2021

Unfortunately, that solution doesn't seem to be possible for Windows 10 Home users because we don't have access to group policies [1]. On my last computer this bug made me abandon Acrobat reader; I think I'll do the same on this one.

[1] I can find lots of sites offering to let me edit my group policies if I download some unofficial software of completely unknown provenance and run it as administrator. Er, no.

Report · Sep 29, 2022

Suggestions for not "replacing" mapped drives does help but we were still having this issue even when opening directly from UNC path. Perhaps the connection is being disrupted when the machine goes idle and Acrobat doesn't recover correctly. Based on another poster, we found that preferences -> Page Display -> Use OverPrint Preview -> Always solved the issue. It's able to resume the connection after idle and no longer have blank pages.

Here's the registry key which we are pusing out by Group Policy Preferences.

HKCU\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\DC\AVDisplay

iOverprintPreview = 2

Report · May 23, 2023

Thanks, this sounds promising. However, I am having the issue with Google Drive files that are stored using Google's Drive app via some sort of virtual hard drive. So fixing this looks not simple. ...Should I just install a third-party reader?

Report · Jan 11, 2019

Hello,

We've got the same issue most of our workstations run on Win 7 with the latest Acrobat Reader DC.

The difference is our network shares are not mapped via group policies, we use the good old batch script command net use.

Is there a fix for the blank pages issue? Local files work fine, web files look also good but the issue with the network shares is a problem for us.

Thank you in advance.

Report · Jan 25, 2019

Same; no GP, here.Blank pages are frustrating

Report · Nov 19, 2019

For Windows 10, available software is Adobe Reader touch. There is no Preference option available within Settings but only Options and I can only change My name ! More surprising is that this software opens all files except one file ! So strange !

Report · May 04, 2020

I have same issue...so frustrating

Is there an answer out there?

Report · Dec 30, 2020

One my users is having this issue. He will have multiple PDF's open and after about an hour some of the pages go blank. It's only resolved by either closing/reopening or rebooted. This happened in Adobe Reader and Adobe Standard 2017 (Windows 10). Adobe: are you working on a resolution for this issue the it seems multiple people have been having?

Report · Feb 03, 2021

I was having this same issue on Acrobat Pro DC and resolved by Preferences > Page Display > Page Content and Information - Use overprint preview - change to 'Always'.

Worked a treat.

Report · Sep 08, 2021

same issue here as well.

Report · Oct 25, 2021

Hello, I have been fighting this phenomum and the sloutions above did not work for me. But here is what I found, hoping it may help a least some people

On a windows 10 PC, in a low number of incomming emails with PDF attachments, the PDF reader randomly shows all pages blank. Changing all sort of preferences did not solve the issue. The problem occurred regarldess of the reader I used so it does not seem as an Acrobat Reader problem.

But I was able to read that same PDF from my iPhone. mmm. So I opened the pdf in my iphone, mailed it to myself directly from within the reader app sharing button. And -voila- I can now read the PDF in my PC , only that the company logo at the top and bottom of the page is solid grey instead.

The next disccovery was that the issue is not random but it happens with all attachmetns I get from Avis car rental company

I suspect header and footer graphic are downloaded from a some server that is blocked by some security SW in my comptuer along with all the contents. I can not confirm this becasue this is a company IT controlled PC.

thanks

Report · Jul 22, 2022

You're a legend! Fixed my blank pages. Thanks!

Report · Nov 14, 2022

had ths issue today and i had just to set the "Preferences/Display/Content Of The Pages And Other Information/Use the overprinting view" to "Automatic".

PS: Because I'm using French version, sorry if the translation from french is approximative.

Report · Feb 26, 2023

This is just BAD PROGRAMING BY ADOBE plain and simple it is an example of crap programmers at Adobe and no quality control at all at Adobe. Open 2 PDF and go get a cup of coffee when you come back the screesn are blank and

unable to be seen or used. Does not matter if you made then on disk 6 minutes ago or if Adobe made them on own site.

No matter dates or who created them all go blank due to Adobe DC Reader sucks and worst programming example.