After updating to Adobe Reader DC 2018.009.20044 - Some PDFs are not correctly displayed

[gordonh42621141]

We are a producer of PDF files. We are receiving customer reports of problems displaying PDF files after updating to 2018.009.20044. This appears to involve (color?) image decompression. Reports have come from Italy, Iceland and Germany. We have confirmed the problem in the US. From a customer investigation:

Before describing the issue, I inform you that I discovered that the problem occurred after updating Adobe Reader from version 2017.012.20098 (without the problem) to the latest version 2018.009.20044 (with the problem).

My tests were made on two PCs with the same operating system version, Windows 10 Pro 1703 but running the two different versions of Adobe Reader.

The problem should not be related to Windows 10 Pro because it also appears on Windows 10 Pro 1709.

The problem also occurs to our customers to whom we send these PDF documents.

The problem not occurs opening the PDF with Edge or Chrome or another PDF reader program (I tried Foxit reader).

The problem is when I open the PDF file generated by Spool-a-Matic, Adobe Reader opens but does not show the content of the document (seemingly empty document).

By clicking on the document the content is shown but is partial as the company header and logo are missing.

Seems to be a display-only problem because printing out correctly (note that the same issue also occurs in Adobe Acrobat, probably both use the same display engine).

The real problem is the closure of Adobe Reader because the GUI disappears but the program instance (really two linked instances) remains active.

By now, every other instance of Adobe Reader launched does not show the GUI (it seems that Adobe Reader does not work).

To unlock the situation, you must close all instances of Adobe Reader from the Task Manager.

Has anyone else seen this? Is there a fix or indication of what is wrong with PDF?

Gordon

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Additional information from a Windows 7 machine using example from another customer.

The previewer appears to understand the PDF.

But when opened the initial display is blank.

However closing the tools pane reveals the document (in this case with images displayed, while in other cases the images don't display)

Reopen the tools pane and the document remains displayed.

After closing DC processes live on in task manager and must be ended in task manager.

Interestingly the SAME images in a different document don't exhibit the problem.

Reader closes without incident.

Gordon

Message was edited by: Gordon Hof

[alvinf53062577 · Accepted solution]

Hi Gordon,

There is another Thread with the same issue: https://forums.adobe.com/message/9983619?et=watches.email.thread#9983619

Adobe have now been able to reproduce the issue, and are working on a fix

[aeg102]

More cases of this EXACT problem in the UK, Windows 7 Pro 32 bit and 64 bit, only since updating to DC version 2018.009.20044.

We are having to work round this by using Chrome to open PDF documents!

[AshuMittal]

Hi all,

Adobe Acrobat and Reader official update containing the fix for this issue is now available. This update will be automatically pushed to all existing installations of Acrobat and Reader. If you want, you may also manually trigger the update by opening the application and going to Help > Check for Updates.

More information about this release is here: Acrobat Help | Release notes | Acrobat DC and Acrobat Reader DC | Update

Please try it out and let us know your feedback.

Thanks for your patience and support!

-ashu