Adobe RdrCEF has stopped working

[Kaspars34825819micy]

We've noticed error message 'Adobe RdrCEF has stopped working' on our company's older Windows 10 desktop computers. It is popping up upon opening .pdf files. Fixes we have tried, but did not help:

1. Delete or rename RdrCEF.exe and RdrServicesUpdater.exe,

2. Complete reinstall by using the cleaner tool,

3. Update to newest version of Adobe Reader by using bash script

Adobe Reader only works when downloading online installer and installing it manually, but we are distributing Adobe Reader to 100's of computers and this solution is not optimal.

[ryanj96891096]

All of my users of Acrobat Pro DC are experiencing the same thing when starting the application as of the latest version 23.008.20458. They receive the 'AcroCEF Has Stopped Working' error within seconds of opening the application (whether they have a file open or not) and repeatedly as long as the application is open which is making it very difficult to do any work with Acrobat.

Updated to latest release 23.008.20470 that came out yesterday 1/16/2024 and that did not resolve the issue. Started a support case with Adobe 2 days ago and they wanted to walk through troubleshooting with a user so I provided them with contact information for an applicable user and have yet to receive any assistance since and have followed up on the case daily.

Have also tried repair and cleaner tool with no resolution.

We could really use a solution from Adobe; even if it means installing a prior version or something. Some direction aside from the usual repair, reinstall, cleaner tool suggestions that don't resolve this. Any workarounds to keep users operational would be appreciated.

[ryanj96891096]

This fixed the problem for my whole fleet of Acrobat and Reader users.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/acrocef-exe-rdrcef-exe-errors-with-acrobat-reader...

[Kaspars34825819micy]

Hi, Ryan. Thank you for your reply, but unfortunately this did not solve our issue. Maybe you have any other suggestions?

[Harsh Vats]

Hi,

Sorry for the inconvenience here. Can you please provide the following information?

• Did this start happening after you updated the Reader version or after you updated Windows version?
• Also Please share the ProcMon logs of Acrobat and rdrCEF/AcroCEF for debugging purposes.

Thanks,

Harsh

[Kaspars34825819micy]

Hi, Harsh. 

We noticed that giving full control rights to folder Adobe fixes the issue for user. We want to refrain from giving full access to users. Maybe there is a specific set of folders or files which we can set to modify for adobe to work? We ran ProcessMonitor and noticed that some of the folders and files receive access denied message when running Adobe. The error disappears when giving full control.

[Tariq Ahmad Dar]

Hi all, 

This is a known issue introduced via the Windows 2022 update(KB5034129), and Microsoft would be fixing this in an upcoming release for Win 2022 Server. Please follow the steps mentioned in the release notes for Windows Server 2022(KB5034129) to resolve this issue till the OS update with the fix is available. The keys would be AcroCEF and RdrCEF. 

If you aren't using Windows Server 2022, please help us with more details.

~Tariq