Adobe Acrobat Reader DC has stopped working

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This week we noticed that we have several machines that have Acrobat Reader DC version 21.005.20058 that are now getting this error every time we try to launch the application. It has worked perfectly prior to this last week.

If I do a repair on the install, it starts working again for anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour before it starts happening again. Ive compared registry settings when it was working vs after it breaks as well as making sure no updates are being pushed. I have also disabled our Antivirus on those machines and tried again and hit the same problem. I created a dump file to try to see where the issue lies but am unable to view its contents in any debugging app ive tried. Event viewer shows the faulting module as ntdll.dll and the exception code is 0xc0000409. Im a bit stuck as to what to check next. Ive tried removing completely and reinstalling and that works the same as the repairs but only for a while. Ive also tried installing an older version to no avail. 

Any suggestions?

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Also to add, I have tried changing the registry settings to disable protected mode as was suggested in threads a few years ago, but none of those setting appear to help either. 

[AkanchhaS]

Hey,

sorry to hear about your experience. Looking at the description given above, it seems that you have started experiencing this issue after getting the latest patch installed, is that right?

Thanks for sharing the most of troubleshooting steps that has been performed. You may once try disabling the following preferences settings once: 

Navigate to Reader>Edit>Preferences>Security (Enhanced)>disable "Protected Mode at Startup" and "Enhanced Security">OK>Reboot Reader

If it gives the error message right after launching the app and you don't get the chance to navigate to preferences, then try the further troubleshooting steps given here:

https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/troubleshoot-errors-freezes-reader-windows.html 

Thanks,

Akanchha 

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Thanks for the follow up but I have tracked this down to a combination of 2 recent windows updates, specifically KB5004298 and KB5004285. Have to remove both or it will continue to happen. Im an trying to track down specifically what in those updates is breaking it, however Windows event logs only give me what looks like a generic ntdll.dll error which search dont turn up anything on. I know I can generate a dump file for Acrobat that may give me more insight but im having issues reading the contents of that file, can you give me any additional direction from the Adobe side on how I can check logs and see what specifically is causing the crash or how I can read that dump file that gets created? In the past Ive seen you guys ask it to be sent but id like to look through it myself if possible.

Thanks!

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Anyone have any tips or guidance for nailing down exactly what is causing this to crash? Preview panes are also off which I saw as a suggestion in version past as well.