After some hours, pages go blank in Acrobat Reader DC and it says "Problem reading document (109)" or "There was an error reading a stream". How to fix this?

[Muttaburrasaurus]

Hi,

I have a very frustrating daily problem using Adobe Acrobat Reader DC on a Windows 10 PC.

All documents are displayed just fine, but after some hours - typically the next day - parts of pages or whole pages of opened documents are blank and an error message dialog like "Problem reading document (109)" or "There was an error reading a stream" or "Insufficient data for an image" pops up. Why not just open the document again? And why throw away the document in the first place?

This happens with documents on my network where it's easily reproduced, but I'm not sure if I've experienced it with local files. There seems to be no problems with the network otherwise, I've never seen it glitch or act sluggish or or disappear or anything.

Every day when the problem hits me I have to close the documents and open them again, which is super tedious in the new Home/Recent menu and the new worsified Search field. Only one document can be opened at a time, even if many can be selected with the checkboxes. *explodingheadstupid* The program jumps to the opened file, and I need to go to the Home menu manually again, open the next file, and so on.

This makes Acrobat Reader feel like a very unprofessional tool. Anyone with the same problem - or a solution?

Best,

M

[Adorobat · Accepted solution]

Hi M,

As per the issue description mentioned above, you are getting above mentioned error when pdfs are kept open for a while in reader, is that correct?

Could you check if an update is available for reader using "Check for updates" option under "Help" menu,  You may also download updates from here: Adobe software and product updates

Reboot the machine after installing update and try again.

Also, Try the troubleshooting steps given in the following help document

Error Insufficient Data For An Image in Acrobat or Reader versions 9.5.2 or 10.1.4

You may also refer to the following forum threads discussing the similar issue:

There was a problem reading this document (109).

"Error 109" in files returned by customer

Acrobat Pro XI - Error 109

Insufficient data for an Image - Adobe Reader DC Ver 2015.020.20042

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1848369

Let us know if you need any help.

Shivam

[DiegoCatanese]

This isn't an answer and solves nothing. I pay a lot of money for the full Adobe CC suite, and yet I have to use an aftermarket PDF reader in order to read documents that need more than 10 minutes' time. Come on, Adobe. Since the introduction of CC, you've turned Photoshop into a bloated corpse. Are you doing that with Acrobat, too?

This is supposed to be software as a service, not software as a disservice. Provide a solution to this problem or, better yet, fix it in the next update while breaking something else.

Yeah, I'm disgruntled.

[defaultufdmdgauuq2q]

I have the same problem and for years it happened after the document had been open for several hours... now it happens only after a couple mintues. No end in site for this problem. 

[Gwana16B8]

The same thing happens to be me on every document I open, on the network or local machine, does not matter.  I thought it was my version of Adobe, but I have DC, which is the latest one offered on the Adobe website.

[Robert2281529899xv]

Found this link, 
haven't tried it yet but sounds plausible
https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/pdf-pages-go-blank/m-p/8352958#M25187

Good Luck

[RPCIADMIN]

I have a client who is having this problem on multiple computers.  We have a cloud team account with the newest Adobe Pro DC installed on the users machines. 

There are no updates available, this happens on multiple machines with multiple PDFs.  None of the above suggestions have fixed the problem.  I cant imagine that they are getting a bunch of corrupt blue prints.

[AnandSri]

Hello Rpciadmin,

I am sorry for the trouble you had, what is the version of Acrobat Pro DC installed on the user's machine? To identify, please refer to Identify the product and its version for Acrobat and Reader DC and post a screenshot of the version window https://forums.adobe.com/docs/DOC-7043#jive_content_id_How_do_I_attach_a_screenshot

What is the version of the operating system installed? Is it possible to share a sample PDF file which is causing this issue? If yes, please upload the PDF file to Document Cloud storage Adobe Document Cloud choose share file option, generate the link and share the link by direct/private message only. How Do I Send Private Message

We're here to help, just need more info.

Thanks,

Anand Sri.

[Berkana98A2]

I can't even upload it to Adobe Document Cloud... error 109

[Test Screen Name]

Does it ever happen with files opened from the users own hard drive?

[neilb79455718]

Same issue being experienced by multiple users in our corporate environment. Using Acrobat Pro DC 2019.008.20071 on Windows 10 1803. When viewing 'large' (10's of MB) PDF files from Windows file server (Drive mounted with 'net use'), the PDF file may be viewed normally. However, if the file is left open for a period (e.g. 30 minutes), pages now appear blank. Sometimes this is accompanied with error, 'Insufficient data for an image', or 'There was an error while reading a stream', or sometimes no error at all. Checking the 'Files Open' list in 'Computer Management' application on the file server, it can be seen that the PDF file is no longer open, even thought the client application still has it open. To workaround this issue, our users have to re-open the failed PDF document. Reading the same PDF files from the local disk drive does not suffer the same issue.

This issue has persisted for us across several versions of Adobe Acrobat Pro DC.

[Lighthaus_Hamish]

Exactly the same issue/s. Been experiencing them for well over a year now, wasting so much time. Painful Painful Painful.

[Lene5E25]

Hi there

I/we have the exact same problem here in 2020, and it is driving me nuts, as it is timeconsuming and annoying. 

I hope there are some fix for this in the near future. But as this treads is a couple of years old, I am not too optimistic :o(

[Berkana98A2]

Having the same issue here after hours of editing... can't save the PDF. Major waste of time.

[stephen_mcdowell]

I have the same issue - and did at my previous job as well. Typically after a few hours, and always after gogin to sleep, the document will she the current page but doesn't respond to search attempts and gives one of the above errors and shows blank pages if I scroll. Close and reopen and it's fine. This happens with reader and Acrobat Pro. Frustrating that this issue has been around for so long and no solution's been floated.

[Jonnie5E73]

Exactly the same issue here. Team of 20, multiple files, everyone has the up to date version, has rebooted their computer and all the non-help I have seen offered above - it is still a problem. We have a dedicated IT team on hand too - this is not a problem at our end, Adobe, it is a problem at yours. Muttabuttasaurus details our exact problem but now 28 months later. Any time I go away from my computer long enough for it to go to sleep, or lock it, or even just hold pdfs open for a while whilst working on them, they fail and produce the same error message "There was an error reading a stream". Only way out is closing and reopening every individual pdf in your tedious program. How have you not fixed this in over 2 years?

[alekzanderz]

I can confirm that I also have this issue persisting in July 2021, over 2 years after the start of this thread. I have the latest version and the problem happens every day with me having to waste time re-opening documents. Very unprofessional on Adobe's part that no working solution has been proposed.

[Test Screen Name]

I believe this most likely happens because the IT department run something to "force close" files on the server regularly - leaving Acrobat unable to continue. Adobe seem unlikely to try to recover from this, I suggest you talk to your IT support and get them to exclude PDF files. However, the person who set this up may not have told anyone and may even have left - it could be a challenge to get the message through.

[Jonnie5E73]

Hi there, I can confirm I have spent several hours on this with my IT team as they try to work out what is causing the crashes. It is not a force close policy on our end I can promise you...

[Test Screen Name]

That's great, this comes up often, but never have I heard from anyone who connected with IT. Let me give you what I understand, and some ideas. I'm going to assume you're on a Windows client of a Windows server.

Acrobat does not read entire files when it opens. It's designed to be able to handle hundreds of thousands of pages, and many gigabytes of file size. So it reads as it goes (using memory to cache). This means it opens a file and leaves it open until the document is closed. 

Now, I've never seen this reported for local files, only network files. Acrobat/Reader, like most apps, does nothing special for network files - it just opens a file, and expects it to still  be there when it needs to read it - minutes, hours or weeks later. These errors all seem to point to the document being forced closed - something Acrobat cannot do and doesn't understand, so it results in errors, often when reading a large image (which wasn't in the cache), but also when reading streams, which hold all the separate bits of a PDF.

So, since it doesn't happen with local files, my money is on something closing the file. And, so far as I know, Windows servers and Windows clients don't do this "out of the box" nor have an option to switch on. But there is a method to force close on the server, typically to be used when a client has crashed holding a critical file open. There are both GUI and command line tools - here is a page giving advice http://woshub.com/managing-open-files-windows-server-share/

Files being left open is a common problem, and it clashes with the common wish to update files. (The solution to this is to use an intranet, but I digress). I am sure there are therefore some clever scripts to force-close all files, and I still suspect something is doing this. 

Some research seems worthwhile, which IT may be able to conduct. As well as checking with the tools in the page linked, another check is to try to delete a file (FROM THE SERVER NOT THE CLIENT) after being opened in Reader. A loop to try deleting and stop with a timestamp when it succeded might be useful. If it were me I would be looking to analyse the timings. For example, do files always close after 30 minutes open? Or on every hour? Or when open for more than 2 hours, at 37 minutes past the hour? Whatever you find may point the finger at an automated task.

[VivianGV]

As a Spanish speaker I highlight unknow English vocabulary to search for them later in an English-Spanish dictionary. As a student with a dissability I use the program at home. I am currently doing a research and I highlight comments relevant to my research. After a couple of hours reading and translating long documents the next pages become BLANK; I cannot save the information highlighted, not even print it. ACROBAT DO SOMETHING, YOUR CUSTOMERS AND PEOPLE'S PROFESSIONAL AND ACADEMIC STUDENTS DEPEND ON YOU. I PAID LOTS OF MONEY FOR THE SUBSCRIPTION AND I NEED MY RESEARCH NOTES TO GRADUATE, UNBELIEVABLE!!