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Question

Adobe Reader "(Not Responding)"

Forum|Forum|14 years ago
January 15, 2012
23 replies
287022 views

I have had this problem for awhile now.

Whenever I try to open a PDF document on my compuuter Adobe Reader opens it, but when I go to scroll or click on one of the tabs I get (Not Responding) in the title bar. I wait for a short time but it just hangs, and when I click anywhere in the window it goes opaque leaving only the red X cancel button clear.

I was running the latest version of Reader, but uninstalled it and installed an earlier version (9.4) thinking it might fix things, but still getting the same problem.

My system details: Win7 Home Premium 64-bit OS

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C

carlp76523975

New Participant

I am having the same issue

A

Anonymous

I have experienced same start-up lag and application "not responsive" twice in our office and it confirmed that this is NOT an Adobe's fault.

Simple re-install will most likely NOT address the issue because somehow the user's data has got corrupted and will remain that way after re-install.

In order to check if the fix is applicable, first create a new user account on the affected machine and re-logon as the new user.

If the Acrobat reader issue is gone, then this is the right time to get a copy of good files located in user's profile folder:

1. View System and Hidden files :

Open up Windows Explorer > Tools > Folder options > View > Check "Show Hidden files" and uncheck "Hide Protected Operating System files" > hit OK

2. Copy Adobe configuration data located in User's Application data folder :

Press WIN key + R > type appdata and hit Enter. Browse each folder, find the folder named "Acrobat" inside the folder "Adobe" and copy to a new folder located ether on the Root e.g. C:\ drive so that any user can access later on, or on a USB stick

The folder and files structure must remain unchanged, so make a note where each set of files originally belongs.

Once you have got the files copied, log off and log back on with your primary account.

Press WIN key + R > type appdata and hit Enter. replace the files located in Adobe/Acrobat with the ones you have previously copied .

If this does not work, consider re-installing the application using third party uninstaller like IOBit uninstaller - This will cleanup all configuration files and traces..

Another option to speed-up the overall performance is to disable unnecessary plug-ins :

Manage plug-ins

Plug-ins add more functionality, but they also increase the memory needed. To minimize memory requirements, you may want to install only the plug-ins that you use. To load a plug-in correctly, you must place it in the plug-ins folder. You can temporarily disable plug-ins when starting your software.

Disable a plug-ins

Do one of the following:

(Windows) Open the plug_ins folder (Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Reader 11.0\Reader\plug_ins)
(Mac OS) Control-click the application icon, and choose Show Package Contents. Then double-click the Contents folder and open the Plug-ins folder.
(UNIX) Move the plug-in out of [location of install]/Adobe/Reader9.0/Reader/plug_ins.

Select the plug-ins you do not want to load, and move them out of the folder. Some of the plug-ins may be in folders nested inside the plug-ins folder.

Disable all plug-ins temporarily

Press the Shift key immediately after starting Acrobat.

Hope this helps

Cheers

bamijian

Participating Frequently

I was really glad to find this thread and have tried some of the solutions. For one, I disabled 3d rendering, and I also tried pressing shift as soon as I started Acrobat. Here is what is happening.

Acrobat Reader 10.1.14

Windows 7 service pack 2

Protection disabled.

File history set to 1.

Repair installation didn't work.

All Acrobat add-ons are enabled so that isn't the problem.

From the Start button, clicked left on Acrobat, go to Properties, Compatibility tab, Compatibility mode set to Windows 7.

Open Acrobat. Fine.

Open file. Fine. I can scroll. If I enter 100% in the zoom window, I can zoom. If I enter a page number in that window, I can page to there. I can also use the page buttons.

Use menu bar with File, Edit, View, Window -- FINE.

Use navigation pane with Create icon, open icon, setting icon NOT FINE.

Use left panel with bookmarks NOT FINE

What happens is the CPU usage zooms to 25% in Task Manager, and I can't do anything else until I use End Now on Acrobat.

In the meantime, if I go to the File/Edit/View menu and select File, it begins blinking rapidly. It stops within a minute, but it's useless until I kill and restart. Also on the top right the minimize icon blinks rapidly and is useless until I kill and restart.

One question I had was whether Active X filtering in IE 11 had anything to do with it. It doesn't. Tried it both ways.

Second situation.

When I run from hard drive and go out say to Internet Archive to look at a file before "buying" so as not to clutter up my hard drive too much here's what happens.

The floating navigation bar disappears after at most 5 seconds.

If I try to click the Adobe logo to pin the navigation panes, it freezes. I tried this because it would let me type in the zoom factor or page number like I can do when I run from my hard drive.

I have the hand tool and I can't do anything about it.

I can use a keyboard command to download the file to hard disk.

The CPU and memory usage once again are out of sight.

So this isn't just about the hard drive or about the file history. It's about something involving the navigation panes including the bookmark panel. Those are what drive both the hard drive version and the online version crazy and makes the file/edit/view menu blink like crazy.

The next question I had was this. I'm using FiOS. When I do this:

Edit -> Preferences -> Internet -> Internet speed

The value for this is set to 56kbps.

That doesn't seem right.

Has anybody tried this if everything else didn't work?

I would appreciate if other people would try this out and if the api solution means they don't see these things happening, let me know. I'd love it.

But it's nonsense for the two features that make Acrobat Reader THE most convenient to freeze the whole application. What on earth did they do?

R

remote33

New Participant

I was having the same issue at work. Right click on the adobe icon. Click on the compatibility tab. Click on Run this program in Compatibility mode for, and then click on the drop down menu and click on windows 7. Then click apply and then click ok. I was able to open several pdf's quickly and was able to print quickly.

T

tynkrb3l

New Participant

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!

This worked for me!

E

ebp8702

New Participant

Thank you for the hint with the weblink.api!
Renaming the weblink.api in the plug_ins folder saved the problem in my case as the problematic pc has no internet access.

PalleNygren

New Participant

No problems. There might actually be Another solution to this, by disabling AR to pone home. Check out NSA:s recommendation on how to lock down Adobe Reader on the link below. The registry entry that did the trick for us was the "bDisableADCFileStore".

/Patrik

https://www.nsa.gov/ia/_files/app/Recommendations_for_Configuring_Adobe_Acrobat_Reader_XI_in_a_Windows_Environment.pdf

PalleNygren

New Participant

My issue with Adobe Reader 11.0.09 is that after start, it runs for a few seconds and then it freezes for 10-30 seconds (different timings on different servers). The thing is that the servers are blocked from all Internet usage, and this is what causes the start-up delay. I have reproduced it in a VMWare workstation VM. As soon as I either open up the firewall or remove the Weblink plugin, the problem goes away.

Funny thing is that if I on my test server open up the firewall, start Adobe Reader, then shut it down and again block the Internet access, next time I start Adobe Redaer it doesn't hang? This is however not possible on the production servers, which need to be shielded from the Internet at all times.

Removing the Weblink plugin is also not an option though, this also removes the pane on the right in Adobe Reader, which several of my customers are using.

Surely there must be a sensible solution to this problem? Expecting access to the Internet and delaying the start-up must be a serious case of shit programming?

/Patrik

BTW, screenshot from Process Monitor. Looking at the entries next to the blue bullets, you can tell that there is a delay of 7 seconds. Judging by the info given by Process Monitor, my guess is that Adobe Reader is trying to suss out how to access the Internet...

J

Jessticy

New Participant

hkv48 when Adobe starts to hang up don't touch anything else and leave it for about 4-5 minutes. In my scenario I thought Adobe was crashing when actually it is just taking a VERY long time to respond. Once it does respond it works normally until the program is closed. Unfortunately, I'm still working on a solution but this might help you troubleshoot moving forward.

BarryChopper

New Participant

Solution from Wowbagger-TIP worked for me (Adobe Reader 11.0.07):

"Simply reduce the number of files in "Edit->Preferences->Documents" item "Documents in the recently used list" down to 1.

The 1 is always the current open file, so you effectively don't get any history any more. After that simple Adobe Reader has never hung with me again since."

A

Anonymous

Barrychopper and Wow-bagger-TIP:

I am trying to follow your suggestion " Simply reduce the number of files in "Edit->Preferences->Documents" item "Documents in the recently used list" down to 1"

I am not sure where the Edit function is but I assume you mean it is Edit in Adobe program. If so, I am not able to click on Edit as Adobe will immediately hang once I open it (it does not matter whether I am trying to open the program or trying to open a PDF file).

As such, the solution does not work for me.

Any tips?

thank you

The_Intersect

New Participant

hkv48: I would recommend trying to repair your installation of Adobe Acrobat--that has solved a number of problems for me in the past.

How to repair the installation (in Windows 7):

Launch the Control Panel
Under the "Programs" heading, select the "Uninstall a program" subheading (I know--seems odd to select the option to uninstall when you want to repair, but, that's what you need to do)
In the list of installed programs that appears (it could take a minute to add all the installed programs to the list), locate "Adobe Acrobat {version} Pro" or a similar item referencing Acrobat. Left click that item
Now, at the top of the list you should see options for "Uninstall" and for "Change". Click the "Change" option.
Read and follow the instructions in the dialog boxes that appear to repair your installation.

Hope this helps solve the problem you are having.

S

Spennis

New Participant

Same issue here. Latest version of Adobe Reader, latest windows updates (Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit). Adobe reader says "Not repsonding" for about 10-15 seconds every time I open a document. Reinstalling it doesn't change the situation.

M

Mike_GN1

New Participant

OK, I've just spent the last two hours messing around with this. First, I had two distinct problems...

Problem 1: if I double-click on any PDF file, PDF Reader hangs for 10-20 seconds without opening. After the delay, PDF Reader opens and I can see the document.

Problem 1 Resolution: Uncheck the "Enable Protected Mode at startup" checkbox as previously described in this thread. With this box unchecked, Adobe will open quickly every time.

Problem 2: if I double-click on any PDF file (on my hard drive, in an email, etc.), Adobe Reader opens the document and is responsive for about 5 seconds. It then goes unresponsive ("Not Responding") for between 10 and 20 seconds. If I wait, it does come back and works normally until I close and re-open it. When I re-open by double-clicking on any PDF file, I again get the 5 seconds responsive, 10 to 20 seconds unresponsive pattern.

What I Tried: I tried every single suggestion in this discussion up to this post. None of them solved this problem.

Problem 2 Resolution?: Most of the time, I have my computer linked to my company's server via a VPN. I have found that if my computer is connected to the VPN and has all of the network drives mapped, then I do not experience Problem 2 - everything works fine. If my computer is not connected to the VPN and does not have the network drives mapped, then I experience Problem 2 almost every time I open a PDF file. For some reason, Adobe Reader is looking for network drives a few seconds after it starts - if they are not mapped, then it hangs for 10 to 20 seconds.

Adobe, please consider why Reader is doing this.

OS: Windows 7 Professional, 64-bit

Adobe: Version X (several versions), Version XI (11.0.0)

Hope this helps someone...

A

Another Photographer

Participating Frequently

This is a monumental problem. It occurs on 2 Windows 7 computers. It has been happening for months on both of them. I tried all of the fixes and nothing worked.

I upgraded both computers to Windows 8, clean install. For first day and a half, all was good, but now it's happening again. One system is a 64 bit desktop, the other is a 32 bit taptop.

I cringe whenever anyone sends me a pdf. Is this what Adobe wants?

A

AnHoBe

New Participant

Here is what I found: go to

Documents and Settings\<user>\AppData\Local\Adobe\Acrobat\10.0

In my case this folder was empty and that caused exactly the described problem. I just copied the contents from another user's folder:

\Cache

AdobeCMapFnt10.lst

AdobeSysFnt10.lst

SharedDataEvents

UserCache.bin

That fixed the prob.

Good luck

I

i_t_spec

New Participant

I spent hours trying to fix this problem for a user. AnHoBe's post finally fixed it. I don't know why though.

M

mbmast

Known Participant

I am away April 27 through April 30, back May 1.

G

Gravo123

New Participant

I have the exact same problem as the original post. I'm using Windows 7 64-bit. I have removed version 10.1.2 and put version 9.5 back on and that has sorted the problem.

Not ideal but I too don't have time to mess about with it.

One thing to add, don't know if its relevant but I have reader installed on a Sold State drive. (as before It was on a normal sata2 platter drive working without issue)

Cheers

A

Another Photographer

Participating Frequently

I am also using SSD drive for OS and Programs. Data is on hard drive.

Removing support for legacy video hardware did not fix it.

AnHoBe suggestion did not seem applicable--<user>\AppData\Local\Adobe\Acrobat\10.0 was not empty.

K

khwajakhurram

Participating Frequently

Go to the Acrobat Plug_ins folder and remove all the .api files (cut and paste them elsewhere). One of these preload api's is causing the hangup.

You can put the api files back one at a time if you want to identify the culprit

C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat 10.0\Acrobat\plug_ins

Path could be different on your PC depending on OS and Acrobat version

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Manage plug-ins

Disable a plug-ins

Do one of the following:

Disable all plug-ins temporarily

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