Adobe reader DC suddenly slow

[McMike1237]

2019.010.20098 on win 7 PC.

It has worked fine forever, recently it takes from an extra 30 seconds to a couple minutes to load a document.  It seems like it is freezing, or waiting for something to load or a response from some sub-task.  None of the buttons are responsive: can't scroll, can't print, etc.  Tasks like printing also take longer now; takes much longer for print dialog box to load and for the buttons to respond.  Any sort of tasks: export, share, etc seems to hang up for a beat before it initiates.

I didn't change anything on my end.

[AnandSri]

Hello McMike,

We're sorry for the trouble you had with Adobe Reader DC, are you experiencing the slow issue with all the PDF files or is it specific to one PDF file?

Repair Adobe Reader's installation files once from help>repair installation. Reboot the machine after repair and check.

Make sure you have all the mandatory and optional updates related to Windows 7 installed, check for the updates in Control Panel.

For testing purpose, navigate to Adobe Reader's Preferences from Edit>Preferences>Security(enhanced)>and disable 'Protected mode at startup' and 'Enhanced Security'> Click OK, restart the application and open any PDF file and check.

Note: Disabling the Protected Mode and Enhanced Security is only for testing purpose, please enable it back.

Let us know how it goes and share your observation.

Thanks,

Anand Sri.

[Jim - Country Transport]

This solution to change the Enhanced Security did not work for me.  I still have the same issue.

note:

I also reviewed other forums regarding 3d Mouse and I do not have that file working so it does not apply.

[AnandSri]

Hey Jim,

Thank you for sharing the details and sorry for the trouble, we have pushed updates of Acrobat and Reader DC in which the crash issue is addressed, please install the latest patch from the help menu>select check for updates.

Reboot the machine after installing updates and check.

You may also download and install the updates manually from DC Release Notes — Release Notes for Acrobat DC Products

Let us know if you experience any issue.

Thanks,

Anand Sri.

[HoundGirl]

I've been having exactly the same problem. Documents take several minutes to load (Windows 10 PC).

Just tried re-installing Reader, installer message says I have the most recent version already.

-Opening a file already on my device from File Explorer takes several minutes

-Same delay when either opening or saving a pdf opened from the web.

A lot of people seem to be reporting similar problems.

Thanks.

[Flustrated]

I used the repair tool on my Dell with Win10 and rebooted and that didn't work. I then took off enhanced security and :Protected Mode at Startup and that didn't work. This seems to have started with a Win10 updated. Any solutions?

[mustafa abdalrazeq]

Hello AnandSri  

i have the slow 3d pdf viwer problem after i did what you said the problem disaperd would u guide me to the solution of the problem keeping in mind im using an asus gl704gm-dh74 laptop 

[Prometheus]

Adobe, stick to readers and leave cloud computing to the experts like Dropbox.

[vdobhal]

Hi McMike1237,

In order to investigate further, we would like to profile your system using the Windows Performance Recorder to identify the performance bottleneck. It's a Microsoft profiling tool to record events. You can get more information about the profiler from the following links:

Windows Performance Recorder | Microsoft Docs

WPR How-to Topics | Microsoft Docs

The profiler is available for download at: Download Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (Windows ADK) for Windows 8.1 Update from Official Mi...

After Installing the tool.

1. Open Windows Performance Recorder and check the following option under Resource Analysis
   1. First level triage
   2. CPU Usage
   3. Disk I/O activity
   4. File I/O activity
   5. Registry I/O activity
   6. Networking activity
   7. Heap Usage
   8. Pool Usage
2. Performance Scenario: General
3. Start the Recording
4. Continue to use the Adobe Reader for the mentioned workflow (which creates the hang issue)
5. Save the file
6. Share the file with us using any file share utility (you need to zip the file before sending it, as it's heavy).

Note: This profiler also records system details like hardware and network information such as System Manufacturer, Computer name, Processor Speed, IP address etc.

This log would help us in finding the real culprit. Thanks in advance for the help.

Regards,

Vinod

[McMike1237]

Thanks for the reply.  I will try and find the time to run that test.

Frankly, I am pretty sure the temporary freezing of Adobe is due to it "phoning home" or some sort of similar behavior, where it is waiting for a reply from an external source.  It behaves exactly like a web page waiting to load, to finish loading a slow graphic pop-up/imbeded video.  Perhaps Adobe is contacting the cloud, even though I do not have cloud services set up?

Of course I could be wrong.

[NorthernExposures_com]

So from experience dealing with this several times in both the Legal and Medical fields the culprit has always been a 3rd Party Adobe Plugin. If you go to the C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat 2015\Acrobat\plug_ins folder look for 3rd party plugins like the NetDocs ndAdobe.api. I forget the names of previous ones but moving the file out of the folder resolves the problem. The API needs replacing with an updated one. Hopefully, the 3rd Party company is on the ball with Adobe Acrobat Updates (which they rarely are). Removing the file solves the slow component of the issue but then your 3rd Part App with Adobe Acrobat integration is wrecked. Hope this helps.

Happy hunting

[steve7891]

Disabling Enhanced Security fixed the long startup delay for me with the latest version of Reader DC on my Window 7 PC. I also found that enabling Enhanced Security would not result in long start up delays as long as I added my Documents folder and other folders where I store documents as trusted paths and checked the two boxes for trusted documents and sites under the Enhanced Security option.

[vdobhal]

Hi steve7891

Thanks for reporting the issue. In order to investigate the issue further can you pls. provide us with some logs from your system with Enable Protected Mode at startup' and 'Enable Enhanced Security' turned 'ON' in the Preferences.

Following are the steps to generate the procmon logs:

• Download Procmon from https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/procmon ,
• Launch procmon.exe.
• Set the below filter in procmon

• Do the required steps/workflow and save the logs in the end.

Pls. provide the above logs to us using a file sharing utility.

Thanks in advance,

Vinod

[Jim Garrison]

I have captured a procmon trace for the hang problem.  Please send me a private message so I can send you a link to a Google Drive upload of the trace.

[vdobhal]

Hi,

We have released the latest update for Reader today with version no. 19.012.20034 having many performance and stability fixes. Pls. update to the latest version and let us know if the problem persists.

Thanks,

Vinod

[techatp75599763]

Hello Vinod,

I have an end-user with this same issue.  Adobe Reader takes minutes to load even when executing from the Start Menu.

We are at Version 2019.012.20034.

The machine is Dell Optiplex 7050, Intel Core i7-7700 CPU @ 3.6GHz, 16GB of RAM. Running Windows 10 1809.

Thanks,

James

[vdobhal]

Hello James,

Pls. provide us the proc mon logs for the issue from the affected machine.

Following are the steps to generate the procmon logs:

• Download Procmon from https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/procmon ,
• Launch procmon.exe.
• Set the below filter in procmon

• Do the required steps/workflow and save the logs in the end.

Pls. provide the above logs to us using a file sharing utility.

Thanks,

Vinod

[vdobhal]

Hello techatp75599763,

Pls. provide us the proc mon logs for the issue from the affected machine.

Thanks,

Vinod

[vdobhal]

Hello Jim Garrison​,

Could you pls. let us know if the issue is resolved at your end with the latest update?

Thanks,

Vinod

[gracer10806311]

Hi Vinod

I am having the same dreadful speed problems in opening a PDF, paging down a PDF and printing a PDF.

I use Win10 and just Adobe Reader - fully patched . I have found no relevant Adobe solution posted in six months so have simply altered the PDF file association to PDF Architect and all the above now work instantly.

Bye Adobe.

[vdobhal]

Hi steve7891 ,

Could you pls. provide us the procmon logs in order to investigate the issue in detail.?

Thanks,

Vinod

[childrensclinic]

My problem is that Reader opens a PDF, and after a few seconds, it freezes up for 10-20 seconds, but then functions normally. This happens on files of any size. I found that, if you open any PDF and keep it open, then the slow open problem does not occur for subsequent files. So, I open a dummy PDF and keep it open, all day. This makes Reader well-behaved.

[Jaime_Chandra]

I can report similar issues with Adobe running slow on a Dell Optiplex, but specifically hanging on file close, which is really weird. All software is up to date.

[LenCastelli]

I can report same problem with Adobe. Opening pdf works well, once open, calls javascript to open second pdf and screen goes unresponsive for most of one minute, then subsequent opens are fast as usual. Checked for updates. We have several machines in our office running the same javascript-powered pdfs and only one machine is experiencing the problem.

[leejay90210]

I had same problem, several minutes for pdf to open whether from explorer or opening from programs.

Switched off Enhanced Security in preferences, problem solved!