Distiller opens and closes when launching certain applications

Report · Sep 27, 2016

Hello.

I'm experiencing an issue with our Adobe Acrobat 11.0.17 installation in regards to the Distiller component.

The issue I'm experiencing on the devices in our business is that when launching certain applications (e.g. IBM Personal Communications), Distiller opens and is visible for about 10 seconds and then closes itself.

I've tried to capture the events using ProcMon and I can see that it's acrotray.exe that somehow is being triggered to launching Distiller. If acrotray.exe is not running, then Distiller doesn't open either.

Have anyone experienced issues like this and know how to resolve it?

Thanks in advance.

Report · Oct 03, 2016

I've done some testing and happens even though I don't install Acrobat with our custom .mst file or even update it to the latest version so it's just a base v11 installation.

I've been informed by someone that others have had a similar issue and resolved it by "cleaning up some MSI registrations", but the details are unfortunately unknown at this time.

Any help or thoughts are greatly appreciated.

Report · Oct 04, 2016

Please see Adobe Distiller issue - Album on Imgur for a demonstration of the issue. As shown, Distiller opens and closes automatically when both launching and closing a certain application.

There's no "watched folders" configured in Distiller, so that shouldn't be the cause.

Thanks in advance.

Report · Oct 12, 2016

Hi MGeertsen,

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Basis on the screen recording i think you may be using Windows XP? is that correct?

Also, is this happening with all the applications or just IBM ones? Is that application have any integration with Acrobat?

Acrobat XI is no longer support on windows XP. It was support till 11.0.9 Overview — Acrobat and Adobe Reader Release Notes

Regards,

Tariq Dar.

Report · Oct 13, 2016

Hi Tariq.

No, it's a Windows 7 Enterprise SP1 64bit - it's just the classic theme that is being used

It's not happening with all applications that are being launched. The IBM application is just one where I can replicate the issue every time, but I have experienced the same issue randomly with other applications without (so far) being able to confirm for sure which one of the running applications that triggered it.

There's no integration between the IBM application (which is used for terminal emulation) and Acrobat.

Thanks.

Report · Oct 13, 2016

Hi

Thank you for the clarification.

Is it possible for you to disable acrotray.exe from startup programs and disable from services tab as well using MSCONFIG system utility? Only for testing purposes.

And try to reproduce the behavior. Once done you may turn the setting back to your default.

Regards,

Tariq Dar.

Report · Oct 17, 2016

Hi Tariq.

As mentioned in my original question: "If acrotray.exe is not running, then Distiller doesn't open either".

However, just preventing acrotray from launching would be a workaround and not really a solution.