Adobe Acrobat 8.1 has stopped working.. Acrobat Reader same.. Vista..

[_LNail_]

I have installed Reader 8.1.2 and Pro 8.1.2. Pro doesn't even show a splash screen on starting up and goes straight into windows alert dialog that "Adobe Acrobat 8.1 has stopped working". "No known solutions are available".

Reader will show a splash on start-up and then go into the same windows alert dialog.

I've uninstalled and re-installed several times today. It was working fine last evening. Today it won't startup. There has been NO changes to the computer or software during this time.

Does anyone know of a fix or a workaround? Mission-critical machine here.

lnail

[Bill12]

Be sure that the AcroRd.. task is not running in the task list and try again with Acrobat. It may be that there is a conflict with both Reader and Pro. There is no need for Reader, particularly when you have the same versions. Adobe does no recommend the combination -- it appears to be a result of the parts that are left resident as tasks in the background.

[_LNail_]

Bill. I've been running Reader and Pro on the same machine for over a month now with no issues, and this was out of the blue.

[Bill12]

Any way, have you tried to find the AcroRd32 task running in the background. If it is there, disable it and try using Acrobat again. You may look to see if any other strange tasks might be running that might be a problem.

If you reinstall, you need to use the MS cleanup utility after the uninstall and also delete the folders that the installation was in. This gives the reinstall a fresh chance to come up. Be careful as you might run into registration issues with multiple installs of Acrobat. I assume you have tried a repair. They renamed this option in VISTA to something like Programs or such. I am not at a VISTA machine right now and do not remember.

[_LNail_]

Bill,

There is no such task running. I have tried the "Repair" option from Add/Remove Programs on Pro.

I have uninstalled Reader again and left Pro on. When opening Pro, I get the error that the program has stopped working and Windows says that it is caused by Reader. Any thoughts?

L Nail

[_LNail_]

solved

[Bill12]

Solved how? Please let us know.

[_LNail_]

Bill,

It took calling into Adobe Customer Service. Long story short.. A corrupted plug-in AND a permissions issue was causing the problem.

It took uninstalling the plug-in and Acrobat and Reader, deleting some folders, reinstalling Acrobat and then reinstalling the plug-in, and all in a new user account, to get it fixed.

Now I can go back to work.. Any questions, just let me know. I learned a lot just by the questions that the CS guy asked.

lnail

[Bill12]

Great that it worked, though it sure does not sound like a simple solution. Bill

[_Mycah_Mason_]

It would be very helpful if the solutions weren't so vague. Can you please provide the information on how you specifically addressed this issue?

I have several users (Acrobat and Reader 8.1.x) that are having this same problem. It's causing a lot of wasted time and frustration.

It sounds to me like this is something wrong with the software. It doesn't seem likely to me that several different users would have this problem if it weren't a problem with the software that needs to be fixed.

Anyway, it would be really helpful to have some steps to try. It looks like I have about 30 different plug-ins and I don't want to have to try going through them one at a time.

Thanks

[_LNail_]

Mycah,

Pressing the shift key when double clicking on Acrobat or Reader will disable any plugins or extensions. If it starts up, then you know it is a plugin or extension. If it doesn't, then there is something more wrong. It could be the permissions, which can only be fixed by a complete uninstall.

I had done several uninstall/re-installs, to no avail. But MY problem was that I wasn't deleting the plugin as well, nor was I deactivating in between installs, which is what caused the permissions issue.

My suggestion. Press the shift key and open Acrobat. If it doesn't open, uninstall Adobe from Control Panel -> Programs & Features, then navigate to C:\Program Files\ and delete the Adobe folder (this will stay if there are any third party plugins) or move it to your desktop. Reinstall Acrobat and any plugins. This should work for you.

lnail

[_Mycah_Mason_]

LNail,

AWESOME!!!

I was able to get it working after disableing the plug-ins by holding the shift key. Thank you.

However, can you provide any other recommendations? I haven't loaded any plug-ins, I have a completely out of the box install for both Reader and Acrobat which means that there is a problem with one of the plug-ins that are installed by default.

How do you figure out which plug-in is causing the problem?

How do you disable plug-ins one-at-a-time?

Any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated. You've already helped me a bunch though:) At least I can provide this to people as a work around for now.

Thanks again,
Mycah

[_LNail_]

try installing them one at a time OR it may have just been a corrupted plug-in. Reinstalling them may be all you need.

[_Mycah_Mason_]

I can't find any information about how to uninstall plug-ins. I've tried moving the files in the "plug-ins" folder but Adobe still loads them.

I don't think that it was due to a bad install, I've tried reinstalling about 5 or 6 times (including older versions 8.0 and 8.1.1). Of course there is a possibility that the file is corrupt, but it opens fine when I shift-click to launch Adobe so I don't think so.

b How do you uninstall plug-ins?

I think if I could just uninstall the plug-ins one at a time until I find the problematic one I'd be golden.

Thanks,
Mycah

[_LNail_]

uninstall Acrobat from Add/Remove Programs. Whatever is left in the C:/Program Files/Adobe/ folder is third party. Move that Adobe folder over to the desktop. Make sure it MOVES as opposed to being copied.

Create a new user w/ admin rights. Log out of current account into NEW account. Reinstall Acrobat. Try starting and using. Let me know how that goes.

L Nail

[_Mycah_Mason_]

Sorry, maybe I haven't been clear.

I haven't installed any 3rd party plug-ins, the only ones that are there are the ones that come with Acrobat/Reader. Is there a way to uninstall these?

I will try your steps to uninstall and reinstall with a different account. Hopefully that will work.

UPDATE: I had someone else try the opening the file with Reader 8.1.2 and it worked fine. Maybe it's a video card driver problem, I'm looking into that as well.

Thanks again,
Mycah

[_Aandi_Inston_]

>r. Is there a way to uninstall these?

Move them out of the Plug_ins folder. Don't rename them in there,
don't put them in a subfolder of Plug_ins.

You may want them again, so maybe make a folder called "Disabled
Plug_ins" and put them there.

Aandi Inston

[_Mycah_Mason_]

Thanks for the reply Aandi.

I've tried this method to uninstall the plug-ins, but whenever I have any of those files removed from the "plug_ins" folder Reader complains that there is an invalid plug-in and it shuts down.

Also, I've tried LNail's recommendation of uninstalling and reinstalling under a brand new user account with admin rights and still no luck.

Oh well, thanks for all the help though.

-Mycah

[_Nathan_Daniel_]

Running Vista - find the Acrobat.exe file and open up "Properties". Select the "Compatability" tab. Check the box in the Privilages area to "Run as Administrator".
With this you should be good to go.

-Nathan D.

[_Mycah_Mason_]

Nathan,

THANK YOU! That fixed it!

Such a simple fix ...I figured it would end up being something like that:) I don't know why I didn't of that myself, I did figure out that you had to install it using "Run as administrator", but this never crossed my mind. Anyway, thanks again for the simple fix.

-Mycah

[_Nathan_Daniel_]

No problem - since upgrading to Vista that's ALWAYS been the problem with EVERYTHING! (:D - or so it seems).

[_Mycah_Mason_]

Nathan,

After trying this solution, it seems that it is not without one problem: You can't open files on a network share. You have to copy the file locally before opening it.

Have you run into this problem? I hope you have a solution for this too:)

Thanks,
Mycah

[_ALVARO_RIOS_]

Dear Nathan
I have the same problem.
OS Vista 32 bits
Adobe acrobat 8.1

When I started the application appear a windows screen with this message:
"ADOBE ACROBAT HAS STOPPED WORKING.
Aproblem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available"
I already did your suggestion:
"Running Vista - find the Acrobat.exe file and open up "Properties". Select the "Compatability" tab. Check the box in the Privilages area to "Run as Administrator".
With this you should be good to go.

-Nathan D. "
But doesn't work.
Please help me to solve this situation.
Thanks. Alvaro

[adfadfadfaafaf]

Hopefully, the following solution works for you guys.

1. Go to C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat8.0\Acrobat\, repeat the procedure suggested by Nathan_Daniel.

Outcome: the problem is still there.

2. In the folder, move subfolders "plug_ins3d" and "plug_ins" somewhere. In my case, I moved them to Desktop. (I didn't delete them, in case they will be needed in the future).

Outcome: the problem's gone. You can run Acrobat without any problem.

3. Disable the option that is done in step 1.

Outcome: no problem. You can still run Acrobat without any problem.

Conclusions:

1. reinstallation might not be necessary, nor is enabling the option in step 1.

2. This problem should be caused by some misfunctioning plug-ins, as suggested in the past posts.

3. Make sure you have Admin rights to manipulate the folders "plug_ins3d" and "plug_ins". If they are not allowed to move, restart your computer and run Vista in safe mode (I never tried this, but it should work).

[_zipitup_]

Same here, Working fine one day, then not the next. Tried as admin, compatabilty options etc - stil will not get passed Acrobat 8.1 Has Stopped Working Message.....Any idears anyone??? (seemed to remember that this may have had a recent update - or not? )

(Vista 64 Bit)

cheers

Mark