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Participant
November 5, 2019
Question

Acrobat Reader stealing focus from full screen applications (games) for no apparent reason.

  • November 5, 2019
  • 3 replies
  • 3353 views

An app was randomly and misteriously taking focus from my games, my games would minimize and I would have to alt-tab back to them. The event doesn't happen often, but it's still annoying. I think it only happens once per windows boot.

 

I found tool, to help my identify when programs switch focus. It would print the Process ID, Full Path, and Time for each focus switch on windows. Then you would wait for the event to happen, note the time, and look at the log for the closest timestamp. (Program from HappyDriod.com/focus)

 

After running it in the background for a few sessions, I identified Acrobat Reader as the culprit. I didn't open Acrobat Reader to begin with, it was closed, and has been closed for that windows session until that moment in time. And which game I'm playin

 

The line would look something like this:

3368:C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat Reader DC\Reader\AcroRd32.exe | Tue Nov 05 09:14:18 2019

 

My guess is it's opening to check for updates. I checked for updates manually and it seems to be fully updated. This is my version: 19.021.20049

 

I'm currently running Windows 10, version 1903, build: 18362.449 (64-bit)

Nvidia Drivers: 436.48

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3 replies

Participant
August 9, 2021

Here in Adobe Reader, i think i can open and read the full documentation of Minion Rush Mod APK without hurdle. Thanks for such an awesome tool.

December 9, 2019

I can confirm this problem with 1 Windows 10 Home x64 PC and 2 Windows 10 Pro x64 PCs (these were new builds).

Focus is lost after 5 to 10 mins from boot if a full screen game is running (only appears to happen once per boot, but always happens within 5 to 10 mins).

Focus loggers do not appear to correctly identify what has taken focus during these events (SearchUI is usually identified).

Disabling Acrobat auto update did not appear to stop the issue, uninstall seems only solution.

December 10, 2019

I can definitely confirm this.

 

It cost me 3 hours to find out Adobe Reader was the culprit. After each boot, games were minimized 1-20 minutes, and only once. 

 

With process explorer I managed to find out that AcroRd32.exe was responsible for stealing focus.

 

I have tried so many other things, only uninstalling Acrobat worked.

Participating Frequently
December 10, 2019

New release is out today-

https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/ReleaseNotesDC/continuous/dccontinuousdec2019.html#dccontinuousdectwentynineteen

If you do not have latest version installed yet, you can try manual check for updates from Help menu.

Please let us know if issue is fixed after installing latest version.

Participating Frequently
November 10, 2019

Also happening on Win7 Ultimate as well.  Uninstall is only fix for now.