SERIOUS ADOBE ACROBAT PROFESSIONAL 8 ERROR

[_Phil_Stewart_]

Hi

I am using (or TRYING to use!) Adobe Acrobat Professional 8.
But every time it loads up I receive the following pop-up message:

"A serious error has been detected and Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional cannot continue. Please re-install the application and try again."

I click OK, and then another message appears:
"Acrobat.exe - Application Error
The instruction at "0x05bf1243" referenced memory at "0x12284e88". The memory could not be "written".
Click on OK to terminate the program"

I have tried uninstalling and re-installing but the error comes back!
What can I do?? Can ANYONE help?!!

[_Marc_McCulloch_]

Hi Lori -

It's good to see that you and Adobe are (finally) here. Please note that, for my part, I activated my legal copy of Acrobat 8.0 immediately upon installation.

Marc McCulloch

[_Darryl_Jewett_]

Hi all!

Even though I was able to get Acrobat 8 Pro to work on XP, I will be moving to Vista very shortly.

I think that focusing on solutions is important to addressing this issue and I am glad to see that Adobe IS addressing and communication with us on this now.

No matter how much time has past, the solution is the prize and what we all want in the end because most of us DO have valid licenses and DO use the product for real work.

Thank you Lori for responding and I look forward to your next post...

[_Sue_Ellen_White_]

In response to Lori's missive, I certainly did not have a trial copy of the software and I certainly do have a legal--and expensive--version of the program.

I find this blame shifting insulting.

SE White

[~graffiti]

>I find this blame shifting insulting.

You're being too sensitive. Did she mention you?

She said they're working on it and mentioned a few of the issues that have been slowing them down. Take it for what it is.

[_Mitchell_Cardno_]

Any time estimate to having a solution??? Thankfully Office 2007 can save to pdf!!

[_Seattle_1101_]

Adobe is not alone with licensing problems. It is their unique approach which may or may not permit better license tracking that is the culprit. And it is also not alone in attempting to control licensing from their own servers via the Internet.

Another example is Symantec. After years of refusing to use their intrusive antivirus software, I tried Norton 360 which for a lot of reasons was a superior product in Vista and worked in 64 bit (so they claimed). After a certain period of time, however, with three licensed copies, it refused to work, requiring a reinstall. This continued for weeks, with so many hours of effort I finally gave up. Oh yes, I also tried to clean things out. However, there are some crown jewels that they simply cannot clean out. For this reason, they gave me my money back.

McAfee is trying something different so far with their newest beta small business antivirusware which appears to be run at least partially from their own servers. Stay tuned.

[_charles007_]

Lori, I am not trying to generate a chrous of "me too's", but since I have posted quite a bit latetly and am earnestly trying to figure out what the problem is with my Acrobat 8/8.1 installation, I hasten to note that my copy was purchased from Dell with a new computer, and is not trialware, "pirated", or any such.

[_Daren_Johnson_]

I purchased one copy directly from Adobe. It was shipped to me without an activation key. I called in and was issued one. My other copy was purchased at Staples.

[_Jeff_Moran_]

Everyone,

I have an idea I want to put out for everyone and I apologize for the long post. I've been running down multiple dead ends with this issue, as have many of you, and I want to summarize some facts.

1. The issue started in December 2006, before Vista's release, creative suites release and Acrobat 8.1. So we can nix those three items as the cause of this issue.
2. The error message being popped for some, others are getting a vapor quit/crash, is an Activation issue. The error message is in the Acrobat code, but can only be accessed and presented by the Activation softare. That is good for internal troubleshooting at Adobe to know which team is responsible, but helps you little I understand. Still a good fact that you all have helped me uncover.
3. If you do not activate Acrobat a 30 day trial will start and then Activation will demand action.
4. DEP doesn't seem to be the issue either based on the reports we are seeing in the thread, although it was a good line of reasoning.

I think for many of the individuals with this issue it is starting on install and the first attempt to activate. However, because the 30 day trial kicks in when Acrobat starts to quit unexpectedly we are thinking about recent changes, such as an MS update or an 8.1 update. I would ask that you all dismiss these as variables. They appear to be dead ends to work down.

Request
I have another idea to check out. I've learned that when Acrobat activates this process occurs: Acrobat.exe launches Acrobat.dll. Acrobat.dll communicates with a couple of files, one of which is acrobatfnp.dll. Activation will then be queried and use FNPLicensingServices.exe and modify the trusted storage file (adobe_00800000_tsf.data). When this is successful the AcrobatFNP.dll and Acrobat.dll should both have the same modification date and time (within a few seconds of each other). I would like to hear a report if these modification times are off from those with the problem. First 3 that report differences will find me following up on this line of thought. If anyone reports they are the same I'll abandon that inquiry.

Those who continue to help troubleshoot I'm assuming have tried the steps and possible solutions put forward already. I'm also assuming that nothing is blocking FNPLicensingServices.exe from running on the machine (like a firewall, MS Live OneCare, Norton anti-virus, etc.).

Thanks for you continued help with this. I wish I had gold stars to hand out to you all.

Jeff Moran
Acrobat Quality Engineering Manager

[_charles007_]

Jeff, my Acrobat.dll shows a modification date of May 11, 2007, 2:46:04 and AcrobatFNP.dll shows a modification date of May 11, 2007, 2:45:55--just a few seconds apart.

May 11 is near the date that my installation stopped working. Perhaps significantly, the CREATION and ACCESSED dates for those files are only a couple of seconds apart on August 24,2007 (the last time I tried reinstalling). The creation date is after the modification date (?).

[Using VIsta Ultimate and Acrobat 8 Standard updated to 8.1].

[_Marc_McCulloch_]

Jeff -

My Acrobat.dll shows a modification date of May 11, 2007; 2:46:04 am. It shows a Created and Accessed date of August 21, 2007; 12:35:59 pm.

My AcrobatFNP.dll shows a modification date of May 11, 2007; 2:45:55 am. It shows a Created and Accessed date of August 21, 2007; 12:35:56 pm.

Vista Premium and Acrobat 8 updated to 8.1.

[_Daren_Johnson_]

Jeff -

Acrobat.dll 10/23/2006 1:33:46 AM
AcrobatFNP.dll 10/23/2006 1:33:38 AM

[_Jeff_Moran_]

Thanks everyone. It appears my latest idea may not offer results. Bummer. Okay back to the drawing board. If anyone on the thread works/lives near the Adobe San Jose or Adobe Seattle office please let me know. We are really need to debug this but still can't reproduce internally.

Thanks
Jeff

[_Daren_Johnson_]

I live in Seattle

[_kevin_cheng_]

Hello,

For those who are experiencing the issue, I am wondering if you could check your file system and find whether the following file exists

c:\program files\common files\Adobe\Adobe PCD\cache\cache.db

If so, could you please email it to 'kcheng@adobe.com'

Best regards,
-Kevin Cheng
ALM Quality Engineering Manager

[_Mitchell_Cardno_]

If you e-mailed Kevin, ensure you don't make the same mistake that I had done. I uninstalled Pro a couple of days ago and installed the reader to open pdfs. The chache.db file is there, but there's no info at the bottom (if you opened it in wordpad). Uninstall the reader, and reinstall Pro, then send that cache.db file over to him.

[_Mark_Levinsohn_]

Kevin, as requested I have forwarded the cache.db file to you via email.

As a general feedback to Adobe, and especially Jeff Moran, Lori DeFurio and yourself, I just wanted to add that I am most pleased that Adobe has finally begun to communicate with it's client base, and acknowledge the issue here.

Where possible, I (and as can be seen, most folk on the Forum) shall continue our endevours to support you and the team there at Adobe as much as possible in your quest to find the solution to this problem.

One thing that seems very strange about this case, is that Adobe keep telling us that you cannot replicate it internally at Adobe! So one needs I assume to start looking at what it is that you have internally there, as opposed to what "we" have out here. FRor example, does the activiation server sit inside of your compnay firewall, allowing all your activation attempts to go through first time? etc. etc. As I purchased my upgrade direct from Adobe Europe, I logged my case with the Dutch Support desk, and Richard Nesse there spent considerable time with me trying to work through all the official "fixes" given by 2nd line support, to no avail. However, one thing he did say, is that he can see from his side that NO ATTEMPTS AT ACTIVATION have been made and/or registerd on your side - which from my perspective is correct, as I have never been offerd the activation screen. In all my numerous attempts at installing and re-installing Acrobat, both the activation field options are greyed out (if I can get to click that menu option quicj enough, before Acrobat hangs. So clearly, your application upon initial implementation is doing some call, which causes this problem. And once it gets (or rather does not get) the result of that call, blocks the activation from going further.

Best regards
Mark

[_Helmut_Kah_]

I opened my cache.db file with wordpad. The following text appears more than once among all the unintelligible character strings:

EPIC_UPGRADE_NOT_VALIDATED.

Does that mean anything to the more technically oriented members of this forum?

[_Seattle_1101_]

I have just cleaned out every single location of Adobe known to man, including some that man was previously totally unaware. I did not eliminate my downloaded software, which is required for Acrobat 7 and 8 given the fact that I downloaded them via the Internet.

After doing all of this, I ended up after a while with the same error as I had ended up with for the past week or so. It just took a bit longer.

The installation failure is forcing me to turn to other alternatives.

[_Seattle_1101_]

Ok. I confess. I cannot stop since there is no decent substitute for Acrobat and Adobe has a monopoly. So I continue to try.

I have done everything now (with both Activation and Deactivation greyed out) except for being able to get the software to work. No longer getting the message dealing with Epic, just a message that I need to activate the sofware (which I have already done).

I believe that this has to do with permissions within Vista. I have no interest in opening my entire operating system to others, which is why I bought Vista to begin with. However, the new licensing system seems to require that Epic, Macrovision, and Adobe work in concert, fine apparently with XP but not so fine with Vista. So far, the different message means that it simply voided my prior registration. Whether this allows me to uninstall is still a question, but it seems that it will allow this as well.

The printer did not work completely the first time I installed the software, and does not work so well if one is doing the installation without doing so as administrator. It still gets two error messages, which immediately change to "Failed to install" so it is not willing or able to show the failure.

More later.

[_Mitchell_Cardno_]

With the amount of frustration demonstrated on this forum, and with the long overdue response from adobe to fix this problem (first post was in June!), I'd hope that adobe would recognize the amount of patience that the forum posters have had, along with the support provided to adobe, and commemorate them for that. Since this product is not usable on our systems in its current state, it would be great if adobe were to offer the users experiencing these problems a free upgrade to adobe 9 pro when it comes out.

[_Mitchell_Cardno_]

For the people that are experiencing the same problem as me, have you tried booting into safemode and trying acrobat? Before the windows screen after starting up, hit F8 repeatedly until a boot options menu appears. Select Safe Mode (with or without networking), and continue loading. Does Acrobat work while you're in safe mode? It does for me, I just cannot activate it.

[_kevin_cheng_]

Hi all,

Thanks very much to everyone who provided the file to me.
I will review them and get back to each of you this week.

Since everyone's situation / failure scenario are similar but not
identical, I am hoping that I could work with each of you individually
until we identify the root cause and appropriate workaround / solution.

Thanks again for your patient and apologize for the inconvenience
the issue might have caused you.

Best regards,
-Kevin Cheng
ALM Quality Engineering Manager

[_Marc_McCulloch_]

I second Mitchell Cardno's suggestion of a free upgrade to Adobe 9 Pro for contributors to this thread. This may be the first time that a software manufacturer has required its users to actually PAY to alpha test their product. We are not talking about inconvenient bugs here - the software is UNuseable.

As for Adobe's inability to recreate these problems "inhouse", I respectfully suggest that they purchase a vanilla mass market computer and attempt to install and use Acrobat from an environment other than their own (i.e. outside their firewall) under the same conditions that we are struggling with.

[_Seattle_1101_]

Ok, further input.

If one runs the software as Administrator, then no EPIC message occurs. I suspect, although do not know, that this is because Acrobat communicates with a server at Adobe everytime it is begun, especially if needed, and/or because EPIC software does this in some way either by communicating with Acrobat or in some other method either on the computer or on some off-site location. I assume this because deactivate is greyed out when not run as an administrator, and the EPIC message appears, whereas if run as administrator it apparently can intercommunicate in the manner required by Acrobat to function.

Before, I could not read Acrobat files in Acrobat 8 because it said I was not licensed. Now it says that I cannot print for this reason. Must still be something that involves the printer and precludes any further action at that level.

I have two other programs that also do PDF conversions. One has worked before, and still worked as of this morning. Mysterious, but not likely a conflict (or is it?).

The trick now is to get the printer to work without changing security settings.