Acrobat X Pro (CS6) works for a month or so, then won't open at all

[MF1080]

First off, know that I have had this problem for a few years, now.  Sometimes things seem to work fine, sometimes they don't.  Adobe refused to help me with this issue back when CS6 was supported, and now I'm just being tossed off to the forums to get help with what I suspect is an Adobe DRM problem.  I'll try to keep this civil, but I have had nothing but s**t customer service from Adobe for the better part of a decade, now, and my anger and frustration might show a little bit.  I also have no idea if I'm posting in the right place.  There are limited options to choose and I don't know if the one I chose matches my problem.

Here is the problem:

I own CS6 Master Collection.  Everything works perfectly except for Adobe Acrobat X Pro.  Acrobat will work without any problems for about a month or so, and then when I try to use it to view a simple PDF, the program just automatically shuts down and will not open back up again, no matter what I do.  If I double-click on a PDF on my desktop, Acrobat will not open (same goes for right-clicking and "opening with" Acrobat X Pro).  There's a loading wheel beside the mouse for about one second, but nothing happens.  Acrobat will not open up and I do not receive any kind of dialogue telling me what's wrong.

Nothing I do will get Acrobat X Pro to open up again.  I have to uninstall and reinstall Acrobat from my CS6 disks to get the program to work again.  As you can imagine, this is incredibly inconvenient and annoying, and I can't even guarantee that I'll have my CS6 disks with me when I'm out somewhere, which could totally screw me over.  This issue has happened to me on two different laptops, and on both Windows 7 and Windows 10.

Considering that this issue seems to happen about a month after I install Acrobat (I can't be sure, because I don't use it every day), I can only assume that this is some sort of DRM problem on Adobe's end.  There doesn't seem to be any reason that a program would do this unless there is something broken somewhere in the program's DRM.

This is the second Adobe product I have purchased that has given me problems with DRM.  I owned CS2 back in the day, and while the software would register properly on one 64-bit laptop, I was unable to use CS2 on another 64-bit laptop, simply because the registration wouldn't complete properly on that computer.  This forced me to buy the CS6 Master Collection, which is not working properly either.  And the sad part (which I mentioned above) is that I have had this problem for a long time, and I have tried to figure it out with Adobe in the past.  They didn't seem to care back then, and now they're just brushing me off to the forums.

So, what's up with this Acrobat problem?  How can I fix it so I never encounter this again?

I will provide more info if requested.

Thanks.

[try67]

First of all, Acrobat X is not compatible with Windows 10. However, it is compatible with Windows 7.

What's your current OS? Have you ever (successfully) activated the application? Have you tried running a repair installation?

Have you tried using the Cleaner tool (Download Adobe Reader and Acrobat Cleaner Tool - Adobe Labs ) and then re-installing it?

[MF1080]

Hi try67.  Thanks for the reply.

I am currently using Windows 10, but I encountered this problem on Windows 7 as well.  The fact that this problem has occurred on both Windows 7 and Windows 10 leads me to believe that the problem is not OS related.

I have successfully activated the application in the past.  When I first encountered this issue (a few years ago on Windows 7), Adobe told me that it might be happening because I didn't use Acrobat in the first 30 days after installing.  Since then, I have made sure to use Acrobat for a few days after installing, but clearly that didn't work for the last two times.

I will try your suggestions regarding a repair installation and this Acrobat Cleaner Tool, but I'm trying to figure out why this is happening, and how I can prevent this problem in the future.  I don't take my CS6 disks with me when I go anywhere, so this problem could potentially screw up my ability to get any work done while I'm away from home.  Adobe Reader doesn't have all the functions I need to get things done, so I rely on Acrobat for certain things.  I don't want to have to reinstall the program every time it stops working, because I simply won't be able to if I'm away from home.

Actually, I just checked out the Acrobat Cleaner Tool, and there was a big warning stating that I can only use this tool for standalone versions of Acrobat.  It should not be used on Creative Suites that contain Acrobat.  I will attempt a repair installation, although I won't know if that fixed anything for another month.

[YatharthS · Accepted solution]

Hi  Fowlski77 ,

Please refer to this article :- Doesn't launch after 30 days | Installed as part of a CS6 suite

Let me know how it goes.

Regards,

Yatharth

[MF1080]

Thanks, Yatharth!  The first solution in that article worked for me, and I can now use Acrobat again.

Are you able to shed some light as to what was happening here?  I tried running Acrobat as an administrator earlier today, and got this dialogue box:

"Fatal Error

Acrobat failed to connect to a DDE server."

I haven't seen this before, but this seems to confirm my suspicions that this problem is the result of a communication problem between the software and Adobe's DRM servers.

Thanks again for helping me solve this problem.

[YatharthS]

Hi ,

You are welcome.

For this error please try the solutions given below:-

Solution 1) (This error occurs when you have more than 1 process of Acrobat running)

1) Go to the task manager by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del

2) Go to the processes in Task Manager

3) End all processes related to Acrobat

4) Launch Acrobat again.

Solution 2) Open Acrobat navigate to Help menu & Repair the installation.

Solution 3) Check the file association on your system.

Solution 4) Navigating to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\acrobat\shell\open\ddeexec\application and changing the Key "AcroviewA11"  to  "AcroviewR11.

Regards ,

Yatharth

[MF1080]

I should clarify what I said.  I got that Fatal Error today while trying to troubleshoot what was wrong with Acrobat.  After trying the Acrofix that you suggested, I do not have this problem anymore.  I just thought it would be helpful to mention this dialogue box that I saw.

What I do want to know, though, is why this 30-day problem is happening in the first place.  Does Adobe happen to know why Acrobat can sometimes stop working after 30 days with CS6?  Is this just a problem with the software not being able to communicate to Adobe's servers?

Thanks.