Acrobat 10 Standard - Unable to Save

[DavidatKSB]

Greetings,

One of our users is having troubles saving some PDF documents in Acrobat 10 Standard. When the save button is pressed, Acrobat will sit and think about it for a couple of minutes but eventually spits out errors such as "The document could not be saved. The file may be read-only, or another user may have it open. Please save the document with a different name or in a different folder." or "The document could not be saved. Bad file handle.” It occurs quite sporadically but often. Sometimes the errors cycle on the same document. I have checked the documents and they are not read-only and another user does not have the same document opened. It also occurs whether the user has the files on a network drive or on their local desktop.

Any suggestions?

Regards,

David.

[Bill12]

This is more common with files on networks, but you addressed that aspect and said it worked. However, you may have an issue with Acrobat not being up to date. Have you installed the updates? AA X is currently at 10.1.8.

[DavidatKSB]

Thank you for your reply and I apologise for my late reply. The Adobe Forums refused my login last week citing problems.

Yes I have already updated Acrobat to the latest version of 10.1.8 prior to seeking assistance.

[CtDave · Accepted solution]

Any time a file browser (e.g., Windows Explorer) has focus on a file or the directory/folder the file resides in you can expect the message you describe. Same if the file browser is in "preview" mode for the folder/directory the file browser has focus on.  If some other application is "touching" the file(s) (an example might be a database application) you can expect the message you describe.

Be well...

[DavidatKSB]

Brilliant, that appeared the be the issue. The user started using the preview function in Windows Explorer and by turning off the preview pane it allowed the file to be saved as per normal.

Thank you for the assistance.

[mightypile]

I'm experiencing the same problem as the original poster, but with Acrobat XI Pro. CtDave's explanation matches my assessment of the problem.

I cannot rename, save, save as, or delete a file that has been in a preview pane in the last several minutes. This is a huge problem for me as I manage hundreds of pdfs in File Explorer. After trying to delete dozens of duplicate or old-version pdfs, I typically end up with a Windows dialog with dozens of "Try Again" messages to work through while I try to remember in my head which files are cued to be deleted once Acrobat removes its greedy hands.

Can anyone tell me if I can change a setting and ask Acrobat to preview-pane a file as read-only without maintaining a file handle? That fix alone would save me hours of headaches. If I want to put dibs on a file, I'll open it properly. There's no need to lock a file every time I single click it or right-click it in Windows Explorer. There is also no need to require me to turn off file preview. They ought to be able to work together without issue.

Thanks

[CtDave]

The issue is with the file browser configuration and how the OS interprets / establishes file availability; it is not something under the control of Adobe Reader or Acrobat.

Be well...

[19bill45]

The problem is with the preview pane in windows.

See here for explanation

Take a look at this, it explains how to deal with this situation:

http://khkonsulting.com/2014/01/who-is-hogging-my-file/

[Sean Murdock]

I'm having a similar problem, but on a Mac. I'm using Acrobat 10.1.16 on an early 2009 iMac. Whenever I create a PDF I automatically do a "Save As" because it often reduces the file size. I would just re-save to the same folder and click "OK" when asked if I wanted to replace the existing file. Now -- and only about 70% of the time, and I can't figure out why -- I get this error message:

The file may be read-only, or another user may have it open. Please save the document with a different name or in a different folder.

The file isn't read-only; there are no other users; and the file isn't open anywhere else. I'm doing the same thing I've done thousands of times before. The only solution is to save it to another folder, and then re-save it to the original folder -- where it over-writes the original with no problem!

This only started when I upgraded to El Capitan. It's extremely annoying because this is something I do dozens of times a day. Kinda surprised that the problem has been known for over 6 months and Adobe hasn't provided a fix. Anyone?

Sean

[wcn_dave]

I have this problem too, however have not got preview turned on, and am trying to do "save as" to a completely new file.

I now have a document with a LOT of form fields filled in, that I cannot save.

I won't be able to shut down my computer until I find a solution to this, so it would be great if Adobe could tell me how to fix it ASAP.

Thanks

Dave

[lawrencem16888263]

I am having the same problem on my iMac, Adobe Acrobat Pro DC, cannot save files. The problem occured after I "downgraded" from Big Sur back to Catalina.