Reader 10.1.1 on W2k3 TS - process not closing

Report · Sep 28, 2011

Hi,

we use Adobe Reader X on our Windows 2003 Terminalservers with Citrix Presentation Server 4.0. Since we upgraded from Version 10.0.0 to 10.1.1 sometimes the process acrord32.exe is still active when user close the program. The problem is that the process is still running in the background and consumes lot of cpu and memory. We have to close it manually with the task manager. Proteced Mode is disabled, other configuration settings we didnt'd made.

Any ideas what can cause such problems?

best regards,

Sarge

Report · Jan 26, 2012

Another one here, very interested to hear if 10.1.2 fixed the problem for anyone?

Report · Jan 27, 2012

Over 2500 views of this thread, and no reply from Adobe! (and no surprise to me)

My experience with this company goes back to the 90's, when my graphic arts department used to collapse in a puddle of stress and unproductivity every time a new upgrade from Photoshop was installed (and crashed). The day I heard they bought MacroMedia (flash), I almost cried!

My conclusion is that they have such a legacy of sloppy code, with little regard to other software compatibility, that they CANNOT fix the problem with AcroRd32.exe, without going back to the drawing board and starting over with best practice and doing it right. Well, been waiting 2 decades for that to happen, and it's not going to happen, ever!!

That is why no answer, and why this problem persists through each upgrade. Reader 7 had this problem, maybe even earlier.

Report · Feb 16, 2012

I have had issues with Adobe Reader X hanging (not responding) due to a conflict between an antivirus program and the Adobe Reader X Protected Mode/Protected Viewer sandbox features.

Adobe has a recent(2012-01-09)KB article http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/860/cpsid_86063.html entitled "Protected Mode troubleshooting". There is a similar article (2011-09-12) http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/901/cpsid_90161.html entitled Protected View troubleshooting.

khwajakhurram replied to my query suggesting unchecking the default Adobe Reader X Preferences >3D & Multimedia> "Enable hardware rendering for legacy video cards" setting and this solves the issues!

What is surprising is that Adobe Reader X's 3D & Multimedia settings report that the alternative preferred renderer modes are either software or DirectX9 .....on a Vista machine with DirectX11.

The video card on this machine is definitely not legacy but a recent quality Nvidia produced card. That is also the case on the other machines with the issue I have reported.

I went a step further and I have found that performance is vastly improved by changing from the default preferred renderer mode of DirectX9 to the alternative Software setting.

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/860/cpsid_86063.html mentions that "certain configurations of anti-virus software that have not yet white-listed AcroRd32.exe" are "Unsupported configurations for Reader running in Protected Mode". Therefore I have also excluded AcroRd32.exe from virus scanning.

I am now able to use both Adobe Reader X's Protected Mode and Advanced Security without issue and performance is vastly improved. I am certain that your issues will also be solved.

notafan777 suggested that the problems are due to a legacy of sloppy code and this certainly seems to be the case here with these very odd default settings influencing performance to such an extent.

Report · Feb 20, 2012

Having just found this particular thread, I regret to add that I too am having this issue. I think however it would be good for all of us who are having the issue to compare our environments, so that we can try to find one or more common factors so that Adobe can (assuming they wish to) try to find the root cause and repair it. I am going to create a list of Questions and Answers - please feel free to use this to compare against your environments, and if you are willing - share your answers too.

Operating System: Windows 2008 R2 Standard

Acrobat Reader Version: 10.1.0

Citrix Version (Where applicable): XENApp 6.0

Problem Description: Closing Adobe Acrobat which has a document open makes it disppear from screen for the end user, however the process does not disappear, and Acrobat starts consuming high amounts of CPU time. The application needs to be killed from Task Manager or similar.

Problem Affects: Citrix users only - does not affect RDP

Location of Document: File server - accessed via a network mapped drive through a DFS Namespace

Antivirus Application: F-Secure Anti-Virus 9.20 build 16040

Additional Comments (if any): My users open documents through an application developed on Microsoft Dynamics. This application uses standard a ShellExecute to open the document - so it's effectively the same as double-clicking the file in Windows Explorer.

I would like to share a picture taken during a user session.

In the above image, you can see that there are 4 instances of AcroRd32.exe - 2 parent/child instances, and therefore 2 documents open. The document which shows no utilization is the one the user is currently viewing. The one with 49.25% Utilization is a document they have closed. Upon my request, the user has closed the document they are still viewing, and now it looks like this.

If the user quits the parent application (Microsoft Dynamics NAV Client) the problem is not rectified. Clearly, the problem affects documents which are closing.

The PDF Document in question is created from a Scanner, and is 1 or more pages of graphics (no text, fonts or anything else fancy). Since I am able to open and close the document without errors (via RDP I might add), I don't believe this to be a document related issue.

Process Explorer doesn't show anything out of the ordinary - in fact I cannot disginguish the stack between a document that's still open and a document that's been closed and "hanging".

Process Monitor on a "hung" thread shows absolutely nothing - no file, registry, network or thread activity. I had to turn on Process Profiling to get it to show anything.

I have blocked access to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\10.0\AVGeneral\cRecentFiles for the same user above. I have killed all instances of Acrobat, and asked the user to try to open a document again and close it - which they did - and the problem appeared to go away but was back the very next time they opened a document.

Report · Feb 20, 2012

Hi all,

We installed the new version (10.1.2) during the weekend, on all of our TS servers, and yesterday was the first time in about 5 months we haven't had to force close a single adobe process, what a relief! We haven't done any extensive testing in terms of what other things this new version breaks; its adobe, i'm sure there is something, but as far as we can tell it has resolved OUR issue.

Good luck to you all, hope the new version works for your situations as well.

Still no reply from Adobe... you guys are muppets.

J

Report · Jun 13, 2012

We're having the problem where Adobe Reader uses all of a CPU core when a user is closing the program but the .exe file is still running in the background.

We're running 10.1.3 and have been using that since it was released but the problem just recently started. It's running on top of Windows 2008 SP2 with Citrix XenApp 5.0 installed and using DFS.

The trick with denying the user access to the "cRecentFiles" don't seem to solve the problem.

Anyone who knows a way to solve this?

Report · Jun 14, 2012

We have just recently started seeing this problem since updating from 10.1.2 to 10.1.3. It is happening on some of our Win7 Enterprise workstations. The problem isn't consistent, however. It doesn't happen to all users on a workstation. Also, it doesn't happen in all instances when you use the app. For the users that do experience the problem, it happens as follows (at least, so far):

The app will function properly if: you open a PDF by double-clicking it; or when opening from SharePoint, selecting 'Read-Only' when prompted.

The process will hang if: you open Reader first and then browse to the document using 'File ... Open'; or when opening from SharePoint, selecting 'Edit' when prompted.

Maybe this will help someone in troubleshooting. I've tried all the above and also tried deleting some of the files from the problem user profile folders to see if that would help, but so far, no good.

Report · Jun 21, 2012

If you have Adobe processes (AcroRd32.exe) showing in the task manager after you close the Acrobat Reader that use up a significant amount of processor speed. This is what you can do to fix it.

Basically the file that is used by the welcome screen (ReaderMessages) has become corrupted (that file is located here on Windows 7 C:\Users\%UserProfile%\AppData\LocalLow\Adobe\Acrobat\10.0.) Deleting that file did not help on a long term basis, but by disabling the welcome screen it bypasses that file and will close normally. Unfortunately Adobe does not have a built in way to disable the welcome screen but you can disable it by making a small addition into the registry.

1. Open the regeidt and navigate to
1. a. HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\10.0\FeatureLockDown

2. Add the a key with the name
1. a. cWelcomeScreen

3. Add a DWORD value to that key
1. a. bShowWelcomeScreen = 0

It should look like this when your finished

The welcome screen should not show when you open Acrobat Reader, and when you close the window the process should close with it. If this fix does not work for you, there might be something else causing your problem.

Report · Jun 22, 2012

If I were to ever have a firstborn, I would owe him (or her) to you. The reg entry worked perfectly. Thanks for the help!

Report · Mar 27, 2015

Your trick work for us
Thanks a lot mate you are the star!

Report · May 22, 2013

I was having this problem under Windows 7 and Adobe Reader 11. Boilermaker Nation's solution above seems to work under Adobe 11 too and for Reader.

Report · Jul 02, 2013

I had the same problem with Adobe Reader 11 and Windows 7 Professional. Boilermaker Nation's solution worked for me. Why doesn't Adobe fix this?

Report · Jul 29, 2014

The same problem shows on a standalone PC with Win8, 64bit with Adobe Reader 11.0.07. The registry-modification from Boilermaker Nation did not changed the behavior, so where is a solution????

Report · Jul 29, 2014

Here is a fix for me:

Consuming CPU-time after closing Adobe Reader

Maybe it fits for someone else.

Report · Apr 13, 2015

Another way through the closing process of loading system. There is then no need for any changes to the registry, parameters or settings Acrobat Reader. Batch script prepared by default closes Acrord32.exe process and to this end has been designed, but the script can be used to close as any other process too burdensome system, which was suspended when the script calls to the appropriate parameter. If this parameter contains a long name with a space, you must enclose the parameter in quotation marks. Inside the script, to the beginning of the several parameters can be determined, for example. Time of suspension, the time of re-checking, or where the report is to be created (LOG). The script closes all processes meet the criteria for any user, of course, not the system that can not be closed. Can be useful on the server, the work of many users. The script is optimized in order to minimize itself burdened processor.

Thank you for the opportunity to share this.

My other interests: www.widzenia.com

Copy the following text from "@echo off" and save it as a file Batch (extension .BAT) with any filename that You want.

=======================================

@echo off

REM Automatic closing Acrobat Reader or other process parameter specified in the call, which too much high the CPU

REM Preparing: Artur Zgadzaj other interests: www.widzenia.com

REM ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SET REPEAT_TIME_VERIFICATION_[seconds]=7

SET IDLE_TIME_[seconds]=5

SET LOG_FOLDER=C:\UTIL\LOG

REM # # # # CHECKING OR IS STARTED AS ADMINISTRATOR # # # # #

FSUTIL | findstr /I "volume" > nul&if not errorlevel 1 goto Administrator_OK

cls

echo ************************************

echo *** RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR ***

echo ************************************

echo.

echo Call up just as the Administrator. Abbreviation can be done to the script and set:

echo.

echo Shortcut ^> Advanced ^> Run as Administrator

echo.

echo Alternatively, a single run "Run as Administrator"

echo or in the Schedule tasks with highest privileges

pause > nul

goto:eof

:Administrator_OK

SET WD=day

if "%~1"=="" (SET Close_Process=AcroRd32.exe) else (SET "Close_Process=%~1")

MD %LOG_FOLDER% 2>NUL

Setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion

:again

cls

echo Automatic closing %Close_Process%, which are charged to the processor too ...&echo.&echo.

FOR /F "tokens=2,7,8 delims=," %%A IN ('%SystemRoot%\System32\tasklist.exe /v /FO CSV^|find /I ^"%Close_Process%^"') DO (

SET PROC=%%C

SET PROC=!PROC:"=!

FOR /F "tokens=2,3 delims=:" %%s IN ("!PROC!") DO (SET PR=%%t

if "!PR:~0,1!"=="0" (SET /A PROC_TIME=%%s*60+!PR:~1,1!) else (SET /A PROC_TIME=%%s*60+!PR:~0,2!))

if !PROC_TIME! GTR %IDLE_TIME_[seconds]% (

SET PID=%%A

SET PID=!PID:"=!

%SystemRoot%\system32\taskkill.exe /PID !PID! /F

SET B=%%B

SET B=!B:%USERDOMAIN%\=!

SET B=!B:%COMPUTERNAME%\=!

SET Process_User=!B:"=!

if not "!DATE_WD!"=="%DATE%" ((FOR /F "tokens=1" %%W IN ('POWERSHELL GET-DATE -format dddd') DO SET WD=%%W)&&SET DATE_WD=%DATE%)

echo %TIME:~0,8% ^(Hanging: !PROC:~-5!^) !Process_User! >>"%LOG_FOLDER%\%DATE:-=.% ^(!WD:~0,3!^) Close_%Close_Process%.TXT"

)

TIMEOUT /T %REPEAT_TIME_VERIFICATION_[seconds]% > nul

goto again

Report · Nov 17, 2017

I'm running the latest Acrobat Pro DC on Windows 10 and have the same problem. Tried all the solutions mentioned in this post and hoping it works. The problem seems to be intermittent and I'm afraid I'll have to make the same modifications to the rest of my art dept's installations.