Adobe Reader Unable to Open AIP Secured PDF

[TonyZH]

Hi Adobe,

Our company started to use AIP plugin for creating secured PDF recently. We observed that the secured PDFs created with AIP label could not be opened by Acrobat Reader (with AIP plugin isntalled also) on some workstations. The following error occurs when user trying to authenticate using their email address:

We have whitelisted RDRcef proccess following the aritcle on your website and verified that Windows defender is not blocking it.  Latest Acrobat reader (32-bit) and AIP plugin are installed on our windows 10 systems.

After further investigation, we found that the 'irandom' value in the following reg path seems causing this issue.

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\DC\WebResource

If the value is below '1000' (hex base) ,  user will get this error.

If the value is above '1000', user will be able to open the secured PDF after completing authentication.

However, this value gets randomise by itself after installation/reinstallation/update. I have reported this to Adobet support but was told that Adobe reader is no longer supported as it is a free application.

I'm not convinced since this is also impacting our Acrobat Pro users indirectly ( the secured PDF files they created can't be opened by other Acrobat reader users).

Is there a way to fix this issue ? What will be the impact if we set this value to 1000 (hex based) on all workstations using GPO?

[S S.]

Hello Tony,

I hope you are doing well. I am sorry for the delayed response and your experience with Acrobat Reader.

If the issue occurs only with minor updates, I suggest you disable automatic updates for the application.

You may refer to the below post to get complete information about this:
Solved: Disable Auto-Updates for Acrobat Reader DC on Term... - Adobe Support Community - 12385227

Let me know if it helps.

Thanks,

Souvik.