Protected mode extremely slow

[jguidera]

Have noticed that all documents opened in protected mode is pretty much useless as acrobat is so slow you can't even scroll through pages.  Am going to have to turn off.

[Amal.]

Hi there

We are sorry for the trouble. As described, the application is slow when you open the PDF in protected mode.

Would you mind sharing the version of the Adobe Acrobat DC you are using? To check the version go to Help > About Adobe Acrobat and make sure you have the latest version 20.12.20043 installed. Go Help > Check for Updates.

Is the file is stored on a shared network/drive, please try to download the file to your computer locally and then try to open it with Acrobat DC and check.

For testing purposes: Please try to turn off the protected mode. Go to Edit > Preferences > Enhanced Security >Uncheck 'Enable protected mode at startup', Turn off the protected mode and uncheck the enhanced security > Click OK and reboot the computer. 

Note: Turning off the security may possess security risks, please turn on the security after testing.

If turning of the security works for you, please try to add the file and the folder path to the Acrobat whitelist. Go to Edit > Preferences > Enhanced Security > Add file and Add folder path > Click OK and reboot the application.

For more information please look at the help page https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/protected-mode-troubleshooting-reader.html

Let us know how it goes.

Regards

Amal

[jainsandeep]

Hi,

Are you facing the issue only while scrolling PDFs or scrolling in-general for e.g. in Home? Second, Is the issue slow scrolling or not able to scroll at-all?

Do you have any third party plugins installed? If so you may check if removing them fixes the issue as they may have compatibility issues with Protected Mode.

And last, are all your documents exhibiting the same behavior? or is there a certain of set of PDFs that have this problem?

[Rocky_2000 · Accepted solution]

We experienced this on 2 windows 2016 Citrix servers, users on one of the servers were experiencing this issue but the users on the other server were not.

When I looked in add remove programs one server had 'Adobe Acrobat DC (64-bit)' and users logged into this server had the issue but users on the other server with 'Adobe Acrobat Reader DC' did not have the issue.

For me the resolution was :

uninstall the version that had the issue 'Adobe Acrobat DC (64-bit)

and then rather than downloading the program again from adobe.com as you would normally, google adobe reader offline installer

install the offline version of reader DC - it installs in a different way

and after it is finished check add remove programs which should show a different name in list and the issue should be resolved.

For offline installer I downloaded from here:

https://get.adobe.com/uk/reader/enterprise/

[Rocky_2000]

Additional note, Reader just updates itself back to the 64 bit version after you install the 32 bit version.

Get around this by disabling the adobe update service and also the Adobe Update Task Scheduler Task.

I also added the below reg key which removes the 'check for updates' button under Help to stop users from clicking update which would reinstall the 64 bit version. This appeared to be purely a Citrix/Server 2016/Adobe issue so I hope Adobe release a version which fixes this issue for the 64 bit version soon.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Policies\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\DC\FeatureLockDown]
"bUpdater"=dword:00000000