Acrobat Reader DC Window not Opening

[thepcanswerguy]

I have a user running Windows 10 (1909) and Acrobat Reader DC.  It was wroking normally, but then Reader would no longer launch.  Task Manager showed several instances of Reader processes running in the background - probably one for each time she tried launching.  Killed those tasks and tried relaunching Reader, but the window still won't appear.  Restarting the computer didn't help.  Only way to resolve this was to download and run the Acrobat Cleanup Tool, restart the computer and then re-install Reader.  It worked again for about a week, and then the same problem happened again.  The File Version of AcroRd32.exe is 20.6.20042.43423 and the Product Version is 20.6.20042.371103.  

Not sure what the correlation is, but when the Acrobat Reader problem started happening, Chrome was very slow navigating from site to site.  There would be a long pause with "Resolving Host" in the status bar at the bottom left of the Chrome window.  After running the Acrobat Cleanup Tool and restarting, Chrome was moving from site to site very quickly.  Maybe the Adobe Chrome extension is also affected by the problem.

Has anyone encountered this kind of issue?  Any troubleshooting advice?  

Thanks, 

[craigmusgrove]

I am following this as I have two clients (I provide IT services for hire) with this same problem except a reboot fixes the issue until the next time it happens...As you mention, task manager lists abode running multiple times and killing them does nothing.. I log off and in again and does not fix the issue.. i must reboot to get this going.. this has been going on for about a month. Outlook 2016 does show a preview of a pdf as attachment, however that is all... quick print show a spinning pointer for a second then nothing.. I am stuck.. rebooting in the middle of the day is not a good fix...

[craigmusgrove]

... and as an addon i do not have adobe extension in google even installed.

[bscheets]

I'm having the same problem using Adobe Acrobat Reader DC Version 20.006.20042 on Windows 8.1  I've been having it for a few weeks.

Rebot fixes for awhile, but that isn't a solution.  When the problem happens, AcroRd32.exe starts, but no window appears.  That happens whether selecting a .PDF or running AcroRd32.exe manually.  Nothing specific to .PDF files themselves;  tried many samples, including simple ones I created previously.  I can actually open PDF's directly in Chrome, which is my current workaround.

Killing the AcroRd32 processes doesn't fix the problem.

Interestingly, I had Outlook hang with Resolving Host error, but not Adobe Acrobat (at least I haven't seen any such error).  I have no idea whether that is related.I've since tried with Google's and Cloudflare's DNS with no effect on this acrobat reader problem. Flushing DNS cache has no effect.  Restarting the DNS client has no effect.  I don't think it's related to DNS at all, and the Resolving Host error the first poste had with Chrome and I had with Outlook is coincidence.

It may or may not be related, but launching links from Excel started becoming extremely slow in the same time period I started having this acrobat reader problem.  That hasn't gotten any better with the DNS change either.

Windows 8.1, Firefox and Acrobat Reader have all had recent updates to the latest.  AV & Malware only what appear to be signature updates.  Turning off AV & Malware had no effect once the problem manifested itself.

Next step is looking through logs.

[jbrown08322]

Same here, can't open a PDF, multiple copies in Task Manager, reboot and it works again.

Have a client that complained about this. Told him to reboot, then try openning Adobe BEFORE attempting to double click a PDF or email attactment. Have not heard back from him, but it was just the other day.

Thinking it's the same deal, reboot works until it does not again, then your stuck.

Windows 10 1909

Adobe reader dc   version 2020.006.20042

[Cathy24102516u54f]

Did anyone get a resolution on this issue? I'm having this problem. 

Thanks,

[Wolfgang28319434nhqz]

My windows 11 machine does this as well.  Whatever the issue is it is NOT resolved.  I have a third party app that has embedded .pdf files for "help".  This is the critical case.  I have other apps that can read pdf's so I switched the default app until I boot, then I'll re-activate adobe for those.  I can't reboot each time this happens but that does fix it usually, until it happens again.  Opening Adobe reader before using this third party app help usually helps but I don't always remember this until the issue resurfaces.  Can someone at least explain whats going on?  When reader is not working I get that "Something went wrong"/"another running instance of Acrobat has caused an error" popup.  The online suggestions for that mostly involve running Acrobat to fix installs, which won't work.  Killing processes also doesn't help This is a stupid set of suggstions, it's not addressing the root cause.  The regedit stuff does not help either.

Oh wait, the default app change seems to work through the third party help system!!  Bye-bye reader,  permanently (maybe, once i get used to the other apps .pdf interface).

[Wolfgang28319434nhqz]

To be clear the popup comes after a few minutes (2?) by which time I've moved on.