Unable to digitally sign document after adding signature appearance.

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
April 20, 2021
1 reply
2990 views

I was experimenting with creating a couple of new signature appearances in Adobe. Now, after doing this, I cannot digitally sign documents. After drawing a signature field and selecting the digital ID, I am directed to the next window where you would select an appearaance. Whether I select the standard appearance or one of the custom appearances, I am unable to sign the document. Clicking the 'sign' button does nothing. The 'Sign As' window briefly "flashes" when pressing the button but nothing happens. The same behavior presents itself in both Acrobat DC and Reader.

Security digital signatures and esignatures

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ls_rbls

Community Expert

What happens if you click on "Help"-->>> "Repair Instalation"?

Other than that, when you say that "After drawing a signature field" are you referring to trying to adding a signature field using the "Fill & Sign" tool or are you referring to using the "Certify" tool?

C

centurymantraAuthor

Participating Frequently

I am using the Certificates tool to sign.

The repair installation option did not resolve the issue.

Thanks.

ls_rbls

Community Expert

Yes....I do understand the disclaimer, but we need these options checked in order to verify our trusted root certificate.

We have always had that setting in place without any issues until this week...after creating a new graphic appearance. Our certificate is not expired, but we did just renew it. The issue could be linked to this. I am not having this issue with other PDF readers...Bluebeam or Kofax Power PDF.

Ok, I see what you're saying.

I think the issue is due to the Internet Explorer integration with Adobe Acrobat.

There's plenty of documentation available on how to add trusted certificates via Adobe Acrobat but very little or confusing documentation about how to remove the old certificates since this step is not done through Acrobat directly.

If you go to Edit--->>>Preferences--->>> Internet, note the section "Internet Options".

Click on the button "Internet Settings".

This will open the Internet Explorer's "Internet options" dialogue window (which you can also access directly via Internet Explorer "Tools" file menu bar --->>>"Internet options").

Click on the "Content" tab then click on the "Certificates" button.

If you see the old certificates there, remove them completely and import the new ones.

In addition, Clicking on the "Advanced" button will open up the "Advanced Options" dialogue window, which will present the user with a list of "Certificate Purposes" (as I mentioned in one of my replies earlier...defining the certificate's purpose is also important before you proceed to signature appearance in Acrobat).

Note that, the export format should be PKCS #7 Certificates, and below that also tick the checkbox "Include all certificates in the certification path".

You may have to do the same procedure under the "Trusted Root Certification Authorities" tab if it is really necessary, but I don't think that in your particular case this is needed.

Now, unless you know how to manually access the Windows Certificate Store and be able to visually identify all of your old certificates in there, this is the easiest method that I learned a while ago when I was assisting another user.

I found this method referenced in an old Microsoft guidance.

It seems like the only user-friendly way to clear the Windows Certificate Store is only accessed via Internet Explorer, which is also tightly integrated with the Windows File Explorer shell environment.

As I ran out of ideas already, I hope this helps as an additional insight.

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