Reader won't Launch, The app won't Launch

[johnAGyldén]

I've been searching for answers on this for 2 days now. My Acrobat Reader DC app won't launch, as in after I click the executable it loads for a second then nothing. Nothing in the task manager, nothing at all. It just won't launch, Tried reinstalling, restarting computer, nothing happens. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

[teddyd40786348]

I’m going through the same and adobe is not helping At all. It happened on there May 14 th update. I have over 1,000 endpoints that can’t open pdf files. This is disturbing

[Kshakti]

Hello teddyd40786348 and JohnAGlyden,

Sorry for the inconvenience caused.

Please create the following registry and verify:

At the following registry key [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\DC\Privileged]

create dword bEnableProtectedModeAppContainer and make it value 0

Please relaunch your Reader and verify if its able to launch now.

Confirm to me once you experiment this out.

This is a security preference, so ideally it should be enabled to protect Reader from exploits and vulnerabilities.

If your are able to launch Reader after disabling the registry value, I would like to get to the root cause of this issue after enabling the registry back . It could be due to some configuration in your system or some antivirus software conflicting.

Thanks,

Shakti K

[larryh11]

I tried uninstall, reinstall, the cleanup app, reinstall, but nothing worked.  It still took several minutes to open any PDF document after version 2019.012.20034 was installed.

After I added the registry key you recommended, files opened immediately, just as they use to before the mid May upgrade.

[teddyd40786348]

That worked. Thank y’all

[Kshakti]

Hi teddyd40786348,

Thanks for testing this out.

As Run in App container preference which we made OFF by the registry key option is a critical feature from security perspective, so Run in App Container should be made ON, so that this issue can be debug and fixed.

Can you please provide me with the process monitor logs in the case where Reader was not able to launch for you.

Steps to follow:

1. Launch Reader.
2. Goto Edit->Preferences->Security(Enhanced)
3. Check the checkbox Run in App Container and press OK to the preference dialog.
4. Close Reader. View that the registry key bEnableProtectedModeAppContainer is set to 1 in this case.
5. Open process monitor . Process monitor can be downloaded from Process Monitor - Windows Sysinternals | Microsoft Docs
6. Now try launch Reader . You will encounter the error as earlier faced by you.
7. Save the procmon logs as .pml file and send it across to me.

I have private messaged you my email details.

Thanks,

Shakti K

[teddyd40786348]

This worked on a couple machines but it appears that the registry keys are

different per user. Why is that? They all have the same version of

reader. So the registry keys you provided will not work because the keys

are not the same for each user which does not make sense.

On Mon, May 20, 2019 at 6:25 AM shaktikeshri <forums_noreply@adobe.com>

[Kshakti]

Hi larryh11,

Thanks for testing this out.

As Run in App container preference which we made OFF by the registry key option is a critical feature from security perspective, so Run in App Container should be made ON.

Can you please provide me with the process monitor logs in the case where Reader was not able to launch for you.

Steps to follow:

1. Launch Reader.
2. Goto Edit->Preferences->Security(Enhanced)
3. Check the checkbox Run in App Container and press OK to the preference dialog.
4. Close Reader. View that the registry key bEnableProtectedModeAppContainer is set to 1 in this case.
5. Open process monitor . Process monitor can be downloaded from Process Monitor - Windows Sysinternals | Microsoft Docs
6. Now try to open any PDF file . It will take time to open the file as encountered by you earlier.
7. Save the procmon logs as .pml file and send it across to me.

I have private messaged you my email details.

Thanks,

Shakti K

[johnAGyldén]

Tried it, but it didn't work. Any thing else?

[johnAGyldén]

Okey so armsvc.exe (Adobe Acrobat Update Service), has started in the background but does not seem to be doing anything. Otherwise I tried adding to the registry and the issue persists. The app still won't even start.

[GWNovak]

I have the same problem.  Using Windows 10, I uninstalled previous version and install latest.  Still unable to execute app.

I do not know how to modify my registries.

Thank you,

George Nowakowski

[Seyonne22667889mj44]

Hi I'm also having this issue where  I was using Adobe and then it suddenly crashed and now I can't open any Adobe pdf files I tried the register key but that still didn't work