Grey Screen in IE 11 after newest DC update

Report · Oct 13, 2016

After the newest Adobe Reader DC update Version 2015.020.20039, my users keep getting a grey screen when opening a PDF in the browser. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the product and it still happens. The only way around is to uninstall and download an older version of Reader. Is anyone else getting this issue? I keep getting calls from more and more users and when I check, sure enough Adobe Reader was just updated. I need this resolved as soon as possible. It worked just find before the update. Thanks!

Report · Oct 18, 2016

Thanks Julien, I am sending you an email with connect conference details. Let's syncup.

regards

Aj

Report · Oct 18, 2016

Hi, Our business is also impacted by this issue. We are receiving 100's of calls since this update from our customers. Seems to affect IE11 with Adobe DC. Does not matter which Windows version is being used. Tried checking the 'Display Large Images' preferences box but did not resolve the issue. We also tried un-checking the ‘Enable Protected Mode’ in Internet Options > Security tab. This worked for a few customers PDF's then the problem manifested itself again.

Rolling back to previous version of Adobe (i.e. XI) is not an adequate solution for us as we are still getting these call come through from customers using Adobe DC.

If it helps with the resolution, in our circumstance the PDF is created by a web application and auto-executed. Frequently this PDF is coming back grey/blank.

However, customers are able to open PDFs manually, proving that the PDF itself is not corrupt.

Report · Oct 18, 2016

I added the website that I use to trusted sites in IE11 and it is working for me fine.

Report · Oct 18, 2016

Can you please try after adding site with which you are seeing the problem to Internet Explorer's Trusted Site list and see if it fixes the problem. You could find the steps to add a site to Trusted list @ How to Add a Website to Trusted Sites: 15 Steps

Thanks

Manish Pali

Report · Oct 18, 2016

Manish,

Unfortunately the numbers of customers who are ringing us up with the problem is nearly zero. We have tried this solution with the 2 customers who have rung up this afternoon and it worked for them. However, a sample of 2 isn't enough to say 'this is the solution' IMHO.

Can any of the other companies who still have plenty of customers with the problem please try this out also?

Report · Oct 18, 2016

I have tested this out on 2 machines so far and it has worked for the last hour. I have asked the affected users to let me know if they notice the issue returning and have asked them to not reboot. As stated by another poster, a reboot checks this again.

Report · Oct 19, 2016

Manish and colleagues,

Can we have a progress update please? Are you still investigating the cause or are you waiting for us to try the trusted sites fix?

Report · Oct 19, 2016

We did the Trusted Sites fix for approximately 15 users and that seems to be holding. But we're not going to be doing that on the other hundreds of computers. Still quite surprised that no one at Adobe has been able to reproduce this issue

I saw some other threads that mentioned a new NPAPI plug-in having issues but I don't know if that is related

Report · Oct 19, 2016

In testing:

We turned Protected Mode off and that seemed to work. However, that wasn't something we felt comfortable recommending to our users. Today, we have turned Protected Mode back on, and explicitly added the required domain to Trusted Sites, and I agree that it seems to work.

Without wishing to give a "get-out" I do wonder, given that we have had no problems in either Chrome or Edge, whether Adobe are now using some new security standard / protocol, that IE11 *ought* to be using, but probably never will?

I should mention this is being tested in a Windows 7 environment. All was OK until the latest DC update - no MS updates, apart from Security Essentials definitions, around the time that the problems started.

Report · Oct 20, 2016

Manish / Reader support,

Can we have an update please? You didn't post anything on this thread yesterday.

It seems reasonably certain now, at least for the few customers who have rung us, that the Trusted Site fix does work for our customers. There are also other entries from other people where that has worked for them also. Is that where you are going to leave this issue?

Report · Oct 20, 2016

Thanks to folks who helped us identify and reproduce the problem.

The Trusting site is not the solution for this problem and it is just a workaround. We are actively working on the fix and we will update the thread about the fix and other details soon

Thanks

Manish

Report · Oct 20, 2016

Hi Manish, is there any update on this issue yet ? Thanks

Report · Oct 20, 2016

I have many user with windows 7 64bit with this bug

This problem is very annoying

It would be nice to have an estimated time for the next update ...

Otherwise I'll have to find an alternative

Report · Oct 20, 2016

Yes it is and for sure an update would be nice !!!...

I have to ask my employees with Windows 7 ''backup'' all others with 8,1 and 10.

Any other alternatives in mind Maxime ?

Report · Oct 20, 2016

I have found that adding the site in question with a GPO registry edit does help cure the issue. I did have a few sites that open PFD's from an alternate web address than the one hosting the link/button you click to open it. I had to get screenshots from those users to find what the other site was and added it to the trusted site list.

Using the Edit > Preferences > Security (Enhanced) > Uncheck "Enable Protected Mode at startup" also works as a temporary fix until reboot.
Although this is an issue, it had a few workarounds and you can get by in an small/medium enterprise situation by using GPO. Second option works best.
Closing and opening IE also helps, but if you clear the temp files it lasts longer

Report · Oct 20, 2016

Great I will try this... Thanks !

Report · Oct 20, 2016

I have a put the website where my user need to go in "IE Trusted Sites" by GPO, but it seems didn't work

Report · Oct 20, 2016

Go back to Acrobat Reader XI

Or maybe try Foxit Reader

Report · Oct 18, 2016

We are also noticing this issue on about 100 computers at my office. We have found that clearing IE cache along with closing and opening IE temporarily (random amount of times until it fails again) allows us to open PDF's. We are all IE11 on Windows 7 Pro 64-bit machines. We are not noticing the issue on any Windows 10 machines yet.

Report · Oct 18, 2016

This is happening to us as well.

We discovered that disabling protected mode fixes it, so we disabled "Enable protected mode at startup" for everyone with the issue.

That fixed the issue for the remainder of the day yesterday, but today, everyone that we disabled this option for all have the option re-enabled and the grey screen is back.

To test, we unchecked "Enable protected mode at startup" and then reboot a PC, it re-enabled "Enable protected mode at startup" on its own.

The bottom line is that we can fix this in the moment with an undesirable and insecure workaround, but even that is temporary until the next reboot. We are available for anyone that would like our assistance in troubleshooting/reproducing, but I will also email the addresses offered already in this thread.

Thanks,

Josh

EDIT: We are attempting the trusted site fix now.

Report · Oct 18, 2016

Downgrading to 11 helped me resolve the issue. I noticed that on affected machines windows is never releasing the adobe tasks after generating a pdf. When we run a pdf 2 tasks show up and even after closing the IE window those tasks stick around. On non-affected and reverted machines once you close the report window those tasks are ended. Not sure if this has something to do with it or not.

Report · Oct 19, 2016

Has anyone tried the following: Edit>Preferences>Page Display>Page Content and Information>Show large images [must be checked]? This happened with me both in Reader and Acrobat XI. Checking the box corrected the problem.

Report · Oct 19, 2016

Yes we have tried the preferences images trick. Unfortunately it did not resolve the issue for us. Right now we have found that unchecking IE requires server verification in trusted sites while the website is listed in the trusted sites seems to stabilize the issue.

Report · Oct 19, 2016

The show large images fix was tried by us and it didn't work.

We've tried the trusted sites fix on another customer and it works so far. So that's a total of 3 customers. Is anyone else trying this?

Report · Oct 19, 2016

I am not sure that its been mentioned in this thread before but in my office we noticed that it may be related to a windows update (at least for W10) that happened on or around the same day that the DC update dropped. KB3194798 dropped around the 11th and all machines in the office that has both the Adobe and Microsoft updates seem to be affected. One system that only has the adobe but not the microsoft patch has not encountered the problem. maybe that will help to reproduce at least for windows 10 cant speak for w7.

Also as far as replicating we were able to replicate using local pdf's on our machine. Save the file open IE11 go to file -> open -> all files find PDF and open it a couple times and for us eventually it doesnt open and provides the grey screen no website necessary.