AcroCEF.exe - High CPU and RAM usage causing computers to freeze and crash

[Guest]

The latest update started to kick in to our computers on Friday and we are getting high CPU usage and 100% memory usage the moment Acrobat Reader is opened. 

Task manage shows the culprit is AcroCEF.exe:

I have tested it with 3 accounts, Domain Admin, Domain Staff, and Local User. The Local account doesn't have any issues, it is just with the domain accounts. 

Antivirus isn't blocking it. Firewall isn't blocking it. Installation repair doesn't fix. Reinstall doesn't fix.

We are deleting the file AcroCEF.exe which is letting Reader run for what most of our staff use, but this is not a permenant fix as an update will make it reappear.

Clients are running Windows 10 21H1, Adober Reader version 2021.007.20091.

[Meenakshi Negi]

Thank you for reproting this and sorry for the trouble.

The team is aware of the issue and investigating it.

We will share an update with you once we get any information from the team and reach out if more information required.

We appreciate your patience.

Thanks,

Meenakshi 

[jason25427943x1be]

this post is a year old, and its still happening .

[valentin_2521]

Yes, today is 10.01.2025 and I have the same

[AnandSri]

Hello,

I hope you're doing well, and we apologize for the delayed response and the trouble.

Please ensure you have the latest version of Acrobat installed on the machine: 24.005.20421 Optional update, Feb 24, 2025. Check for any pending updates from the Menu > help > check for updates, install the updates, restart the app and the machine, and check. For more information, see this: https://adobe.ly/43aRPbr.

If the issue persists with the latest version, please collect the logs from the affected machine, and share them with us for further investigation.

Thanks,

Anand Sri.

[A. Bagaglia]

we're experience right the same problem, same simptoms, same behaviour, don't understand what s causing this.

[A. Bagaglia]

I did find the bug, at least in my case.

I dumped an image of the running process acrocef.exe which was eating up all the ram, and i discovered the following:

net::ERR_PAC_SCRIPT_FAILED

line: 104: Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected end of input

which is related to the proxy research.

check in your clients "internet options" ->  connections -> LAN settings -> automatic configuration script, if you have one, disable it, 

It is obviously a programming error in this release that has problem interpreting a response from the proxy and crashes in loop, hope this helps

[Sunil_Soni]

Hello @Deleted User  @A. Bagaglia ,

Sorry for the inconvenience caused.

AcroCEF is responsible for multiple components and internal processing so we should not delete/rename AcroCEF/acrocef_1 folders, it will cause you loss of functiaonlities. As AcroCEF is taking care of multiple things, there could be differnet issues with different setup/environment. We have identified few of them and fixed.

We need your help in identifying issue at your setup which requires live debugging session with you.

Please write back directly to susoni@adobe.com with reference to this thread for quick turnaround.

-Regards

Acrobat Team

[Sunil_Soni]

Hello @Deleted User  @A. Bagaglia 

We have identified few issues, fixed them and released a patch.

I would appreciate if your team applies latest patch via "Check for updates" from "Help" menu in Reader(or Acrobat) and update us if it fixes your issue.

If your issue is not fixed, feel free to reach out to me directly at susoni@adobe.com for debugging session.

-Regards

Acrobat Team

[default5kprn9el8acs]

Hi,

same problem here.

New Notebook, fresh and clean Windows 10 21H1 install, all updates, all drivers.

No other software only Adobe Reader.

Starting Adobe and AcroCEF is getting 100 % Memory and 95 % CPU.... 

After 1 Minute - BlackScreen and Laptop doesn't responding.

Uninstall Reader..... using alternative....

Whats up Adobe??

Greetz

Thorsten

[Sunil_Soni]

Hi @default5kprn9el8acs 

Sorry for the inconvenience caused.

Can you please collect the ProcMon log and Memory dump of the culprit processes and share with us at susoni@adobe.com

Memory dump : https://support.sitecore.com/kb?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB0758511

ProMon log : https://helpdesk.kaseya.com/hc/en-gb/articles/229015008-How-To-Collect-Process-Monitor-Logs 

Please let us know if you are available for discussion, we will schedule a debugging session with you to resolve your issue at priority.

-Regards

Acrobat Team

[biosVIRUS_004.20.6.9]

A. Bagaglia,

I can confirm that this issue exists on our PCs within my organization as well, and disabling the proxy does resolve it in a test situation. I've annotated as well within a related thread that the latest patch does not resolve the issue for us with our required proxy settings in place on a Windows host (Re: Acrobat Reader DC version: 21.7.20091.59174 Cr... - Adobe Support Community - 12389015).

[A. Bagaglia]

It is a shame that the latest patchstill does not solve the proxy problem, I encourage everybody to protest about this with adobe fellows, I don't think it is a big patch to release........

[biosVIRUS_004.20.6.9]

AcroCEF crashing issue still not resolved in the latest build version - 21.007.20099.

[A. Bagaglia · Accepted solution]

I solved my problem.

I did carefully rewrite the proxy.pac file, and there was a bad char somewhere.

I suggest you to rewrite yours.

The shame is that acrobat does not catch the exception and goes in loop, but if your file is without errors it goes smooth.

Again, clean your proxy.pac, then put a rule at a time and test it, you'll find your error.

[biosVIRUS_004.20.6.9]

Without revealing too much, I wanted to post that we've resolved the issue within my organization. We took a look at the proxy and noticed that *.acrobat.com addresses were trying to be contacted quite a bit at the time of the error. After some tweaks were made, we were able to get the AcroCEF issue to not showcase itself anymore. We did take a look at the PAC file and even recreated it, but the issue remained. We noticed that the problem persisted even when a regular proxy address was set and no PAC was used. Our issue was isolated to the proxy that we have configured at my organization, and some changes to the configuration concerning *.acrobat.com resolved it for us. I still think something with Creative Cloud or Acrobat changed and caused this for us as a whole, as this was never an issue with us prior to 21.007.20091 being released.

[Guest]

Yep, we ended up doing the same. Our issue was on a localhost line.

What helped locate the issue was on Adobe's site, we found a link for proxy support: Proxy support (adobe.com)

CC uses 'localhost' for libraries, I guess Reader has been updated to do the same.

[Maciej83_PL]

Same here. Updated a few minutes ago, restarted the laptop and AcroCEF consumes the whole memory and almost whole CPU and then crashes...

I have seen the replies below but it would be great if we could get a regular patch on this.

[defaultxqsfiobrksjn]

Same issue here, happening across 4 sites Windows 7, 10 Server 2008R2 and Server 2012R2, 70 Devices

Can confirm that the proxy pac/wpad does fix the issue but not a working solution for our organisation.

Please FIX..

[Richma2z01m]

We've also just started seeing this issue on 21.007.20099 and 2021.007.20091.

Has anyone had any luck with resolution beyond the proxy .pac file modifications? What were you required to add? Was it just *.acrobat.com or were there further addresses?

I've had a look through the article below and obviously don't want to whitelist everything as a temporary workaround.

Adobe Creative Cloud Network Endpoints

[Guest]

Our tech basically scrapped ours and recreated it anyway. But it is to do with local addresses like 127.0.0.1 etc. 

Adobe have the following as required for the proxy Proxy Config (Adobe.com):

FindProxyForURL(url, host)
if (isInNet(host, "127.0.0.1", "255.255.255.255")) {
     return "DIRECT";
}

This may also help Proxy Support (adobe.com) 

[Christof26204406zeo7]

Currently the problem occurs since yesterday the 19.09.2022 with Acrobat Reader version 2022.002.20212 / 64-bit on Windows 10 clients with 21H2 and Office version 2208 or older. Is there a fix from Adobe or a way to analyze the problem to find the cause?

[robertw67616757]

Same here. Disabling Automatic Proxy Detection as A. Bagaglia suggested does still does resolve it. 

[Christof26204406zeo7]

Is there no other way except disabling automatic proxy detection? We need the automatic proxy detection because our devices have to register in different networks.