Recovering Working Files Lost When Acrobat DC Crashes
For any number of reasons Acrobat DC crashes without warning. When such crashes occur the following is expected, but never occurs:
(1) Reopening Adobe DC should restore the crashed files to their last saved state. (This rarely (if ever) occurs and is entirely dependent on how the crash occurs.
(2) The "Recent" "File Lists" appears when Acrobat first opens after a crash should list all of the previously opened files. Acrobat DC fails to do this when needed - ever.
(3) Files loaded into Acrobat DC from the web are never recovered or restored to the working interface nor are they listed in the "Recents" "File Lists" table.
I find this infuriating.
Depending on how files are loaded from the web into Acrobat (in the case of a Mac running Safari (OS version agnostic)) a copy of your file might be saved either in the Mac's "Downloads" folder (unless directed elsewhere) before being vectored and opened in Acrobat DC -or- in the case of "viewing" a pdf from the web, the file is redirected and cached into the following folder:
/private/var/folders/qb/74tg814x7sj24t2ymh9dmxhh0000gn/T/WebKitPDFs-7s2mxw/
The file is cached (presumably by the System) in this location in whatever web server filename it is given. (E.g. On Pacer, pdf files are generated from a perl script so they appear as "show_temp.pl.pdf" until you open subsequent web pdf files for viewing. Subsequent Pacer generated pdf's might bear a random prefix such as "ZcHqYF-show_temp.pl.pdf". Other web servers will name their pdf's whatever the webmaster decides. The point is web viewed files will stack up in the cache directory and remain persistently whether Acrobat is open, quit, or forced closed; and whether the file is allowed to remain open in Acrobat or closed. I suspect, however, the cache is cleared between system boots or aged out after a certain period of time.
How difficult is it for Adobe to write a few lines of code that (1) determines the location of every file opened in Acrobat; (2) makes a copy of each file stored in the obscure cache folder into either a /Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Acrobat/RECOVERY folder, or better, a /Users/<username>/Documents/Adobe/Acrobat/ViewFiles/ directory the instant the file is loaded into Acrobat from the System cached folder location; and (3) Update the "Recent" "File Lists" with pointers to the files so when (not "if") Acrobat crashes, it can actually (and reliably) restore our work from our last saved iterations?
Reasoning with Adobe Support seems akin to talking to a post (or a fire hydrant if you prefer). Support agents are not developers, work from canned knowledge bases, and do not seem tasked or motivated to escalate customer issues up the lines. Maybe I'm all wet here, and there are actual solutions I have yet to learn or discover solving the above listed issues. In which case, I'm all ears.
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