Terrible Customer Support/ Who am I supposed to even talk to?

Report · May 04, 2020

Good afternoon,

I am an absolutely infuriated SCCM administrator at my wit's end. I created an acrobat support ticket last week and have since been bounced around to and from one department to another, from one incompetent buffoon to the next. None of these tier 1 "support specialists" seem to have even an intermediate grasp on the English language, or there is simply no accountability. So sadly, even though I am in a large enterprise and we have enterprise support, I am back to asking questions at stupid forums. How hard is it to talk to a back-end specialist who understands both English and enterprise deployments?

Here is a description of my issue, I hope to god that I can get a call back from someone competent on this. I have literally exhausted every resource at adobe technical support and adobe enterprise support. Even when I start off every call with "Are you a back-end specialist who understands system center automated deployments and scipting," they say yes, then I describe my issue for ten minutes, they tell me they're "sorry and understand my frustration," and continue to transfer me in a never-ending loop.

I also receive no responses to the many details that I have put in my ticket - none.

Issue:

I push down acrobat reader (19021200588) via script and System Center Configuration Manager. I use the Acrobat Customization Wizard DC to remove browser integration, disable upsell, turn off all adobe services, and I run the following script: setup.exe /w /REMOVE=ReaderBrowserIntegration /q. It works fine and installs without turning on the Acrobat DC Internet Explorer add-on. However, about two months ago, 5 or 10 people per week simply had their Acrobat add-in turn back on, which gives the user error 523 523. This makes it conflict with our preferred paid PDF reader, Nitro Pro. I have been unsuccessful in determining the root cause of this and need to speak with an enterprise support specialist. More details can be found in my ticket

Case number ADB-12764450-S0X8

I don't know how this type of customer support is acceptable for any type of organization, let alone the inventor of PDF's and leader in the PDF industry, you can absolutely afford to hire competent people.

If someone from adobe who knows what they are doing can look at my ticket and reach out to me, I would greatly appreciate it. I would also like a link to a customer satisfaction survey.

Report · May 05, 2020

There’s no tech support for free products. That’s it. If someone contacts you claiming to be from Adobe they will be a scammer because Adobe don’t do that. Still someone here might have an answer.

Report · May 05, 2020

Nobody called me, I called both Acrobat support and acrobat enterprise support. If that is the case, I don't know why I wasn't told that when I initially created the ticket. We do have users in our environment with the Creative Cloud Suite, and we do have users with Acrobat Pro, so we are a paying customer. I have seen the issue that I am talking about on multiple forums with no resolution. People come on and say "Oh, just reset this and reset that." Cool, but I need an enterprise solution that I can push to everybody. Every single tech I spoke to ensured that they could help me with my problem, even when I specifically explained my issue and asked them if they were still qualified. Every time I asked to be escalated to another tier or a manager, I was simply transfered to another person in another tier 1 department. They literally transfered me from Tier 1 consumer support to billing, to enterprise support for creative cloud, just back and forth and back and forth. Why wouldn't the Creative Cloud customer support tell me that? The fact that they are so incompetent that they don't even understand what they do and don't support is even worse.

Report · May 05, 2020

Hi Matthew,

Can you please clarify a few points and provide a bit more info?

1. "I push down acrobat reader (19021200588) "

Was it single language English (other language?) or MUI? Did you create AIP for this and patched it with 19021200588 patch?

What is the current Reader version on the problematic systems? How this version got installed? You did not specify if you disabled Updater with Customization Wizard. Do you deploy updates yourself or let Updater install updates automatically?

2. You mentioned - "I use the Acrobat Customization Wizard DC to remove browser integration"

I did not find this option in the CW DC. Please describe what you did in details. What was your expectation when doing this? For example, did you expect some files not being installed?

3. From your description it looks like you did not want to install ReaderBrowserIntegration feature. Can you please point me to the official documentation that confirms that this is supported with Reader deployment and application functionality?

4. How did you come up with the command line you used with Setup,exe?

This command line does not seem correct. REMOVE is not MSI switch (and certainly not Setup.exe switch); it is MSI Private Property that should not be used with '/'.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/msi/remove

/w switch does not look familiar.

Also, if you removed Browser Integration using CW, why try removing this feature on the command line?

I may not be able to help with application functionality, specifically error 523, but it needs to make sense from deployment stand point.

Please enable verbose MSI logging on the systems where you plan to test changes. It will help to have MSI log file while investigating installation issues.

Report · May 05, 2020

Hi Leo. X,

I read your response to the OP and you didn't answer this question: "Are you a back-end specialist who understands system center automated deployments and scipting,"

Are you able to answer that above and if not can you make it clear whether you have those type of specialist(s) working with Adobe?

Report · May 06, 2020

The installer works, it went out through the entire organization just fine. It was months later, after it was installed, that this issue kept popping up. I realize that /REMOVE=READERBROWSERINTEGRATION isn't an MSI switch, but they must have coded it into the MSI, here is the documentation: https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/AdminGuide/cmdline.html#browser-integration

I want to note again that I do not have a problem with the installer. Users have had this version of Acrobat since October or November of 2019, and these issues have just started cropping up. I think it may be a Windows update or something like that pushing down, but I have no way to confirm the root cause, as acrobat crashes do not show up in event viewer.

Report · May 06, 2020

These are all the modifications that I make to the MSI.

Report · May 06, 2020

Based on your answers, it looks like ReaderBrowserIntegration feature is not removed and all it's files and registries are still present. I have not seen anyone tryig to remove this feature from installed Reader for at least 15 years. Most likely enterprise document has it as a sample of how to remove any feature post deployment. I'll check with the author when I have a chance.

Back to the 523 error. Did you search this forum for a solution? I will try to find someone from Reader team who might know what to do with 523 error, but can't promise there will be definitive answer.

You mentioned that Users are still on the last year version. Is there a reason you do not install latest update? Can you try to install latest update on the User system with 523 error and see if it helps?