"Cannot find" a recently-opened PDF!

[George Langley]

Upgraded my MacBookPro to Big Sur, and reinstalled all of my Adobe products. I can open a PDF that I've been using for over a year (ie. prior to the upgrade) no problem using Adobe Acrobat Pro DC. I close it and it shows up in the "Recent" list. But if I click it, Acrobat announces that it "cannot find the file" and removes it from the list. "But", I say, "you just had it open two seconds ago! Waddaya mean 'you can't find it'?"

(AND, why is it removing it from the list - hasn't anyone heard of external drives? Or in the Windows world, mapped network drives, either of which may not have been connected at the initial attempt, but can surely be added back on to try again, if the name didn't disappear from the Recent list.)
But in this case, it is on the main Mac HD, which is always there.

Have tried to clear any cache I could find, and checked that I am running the latest Reader Pro.

Thoughts?

Thanks.

[Amal.]

Hi George Langley,

Hope you are doing well and sorry for the trouble.  As described you after closing the recent PDF file you are unable to open it from the recent tab and getting the error ''cannot find the file" and then it disappears from the recent tab list.

As you have recently upgraded the system, please try to reboot the system once and see if that helps.

Also make sure you have the latest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader DC - version 21.05.20058 installed. Go to Help > Check for Updates and reboot the system again.

You may also try to reset the Acrobat preferences as described in the help page - https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat/how-to-reset-acrobat-preference-settings-to-default/td-p/4792...

If it still doesn't work, please create a new test user profile with full admin rights or enable the root account in Mac and try using the application there and check.

Regards

Amal

[George Langley]

Well yes, I've rebooted many times already, and checked and double-checked that I had the latest version - was automatic when I reinstalled everything (I uninstalled everything to keep my authorization numbers before upgrading the Mac.)  I've also reset any and all preferences I could find - the document linked to above appears a bit out-of-date with some items not found and additional similarly-named ones present.

The consistent and reproducible problem I've found is if the PDF is in this new mysterious "Macintosh HD - Data" folder that all of my projects got moved into as part of the Mac OS upgrade:

1) I drag the PDF to my desktop and double-click it to open it there - it opens fine. I then close it and click it in the Acrobat "Recent" list - it opens no problem.

2) I drag it back to the "Data" folder, double-click it to open it there - again, it opens fine. But, when I then close it and click it in the Acrobat "Recent" list - it failes to open.

Also to note - Acrobat is the only program to exhibit this problem. Premiere, Photoshop, Illustrator all open any files listed in their respective "Recent" lists, even ones that are in the "Data" folder.

So, what's so special about the "Macintosh HD - Data" folder that Acrobat cannot handle it? Short of a bug, I'm at a loss. Thanks.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

If you are seeing the "- Data" drive on your desktop, you shouldn't be. Catalina  and Big Sur partitions drives into two parts, but both are linked together as one drive and the "- Data" part is supposed to be hidden. Your main drive icon is the portal (which by default is supposed to be hidden as well). You access and store your own files in your Home "User" folder. "Documents" is the logical place, but they can reside anywhere in Home folder (your desktop is part of that, which is why it works): Having files outside of that will cause all sorts of issues/permission issues.. probably causing the problem you're experiencing. The upgade should have moved your files, but if you've moved your old files, move them back to your Home Folder. If the upgrade moved some, then move those to your Home folder as well.    or, of course, on externals 😉

It took me awhile to adjust to this as well, as someone who always wanted his drive on the desktop, but I've learned since it's better this way.

[George Langley]

Unless I need to see the hidden folders for my web programming... ;-0
Thanks for the explanation. Funny - the "Projects" folder link in the "Favourites" list on the left side of the Mac Finder window opens the Data folder. And I didn't move anything (at least initially) when I first started seeing this issue.
But, you're right - I can also see the Projects folder in my Macintosh HD/Users/[username] directory (although I suspect that's because I did try to move it out of Data yesterday - it "copied" it, but my "Avaible Space" didn't seem to change - how does one copy 154 GBs to a drive that says it only has 35 GBs available? Guessing it only really shows one of the partitions, which didn't change?)

And, opening a PDF there does act as expected with the Recent in Acrobat.
But again, is not a problem with the other Adobe applications.
Am starting to think I should just reformat the drive and re-install the OS and everything fresh - can't be worse than the upgrade that went and lost all of my Mail accounts! (Had backed up my mailboxes, thankfully.)

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Yah, it's been an adjustment. I finally bit the bullet and upgraded to Catalina myself, although I installed it on a external SSD clone drive so I can keep my Mojave as a dual boot for my other non-Adobe 32-bit apps that no longer work. So far it's been okay. Better situation than you losing Mail!

cheers