"Invalid Annotation Object" error

[_Diane_Serafin_]

I'm using Windows XP Pro (SP3) on a 2.66 GHz, 2 GB RAM computer, and while working in an Adobe Acrobat 9 document, I had just saved the file (CTRL+S) and the document froze and I got a Windows error box that asked if I wanted to send an error report, which I did. When I opened Adobe again, it asked if I wanted to open the last file which didn't save correctly, which I did.

Then when I proceeded to work in the document and tried to highlight a sentence I was going to delete, I got an Adobe Acrobat popup box that said "Invalid Annotation Object. OK" but no matter how many times I clicked on "OK," the box kept popping up and wouldn't go away. I tried saving a copy of the document, but the same box was in it and wouldn't go away. I couldn't even work in the document to extract pages or anything else. Huge problem!

Does anyone know what can I do to resolve this problem? (This happened on a Saturday when Adobe phone support is not accessible.)

[BigAlgae]

Thanks brennao.  This worked for me in a 467 page document with 2 bad pages.

I originally extrcted as single pages, but scrolling through 467 pages looking for missing numbers just wasn't working.  Buy doing it in batches of 100, then 50, etc. I was able tto narrow it down pretty quick.

[junexp]

On 3/24/2015 same problems, after Adobe Acrobat 9 pro. crashed while I added text boxes.. When I opened Adobe again, Yes to open the last file which didn't save correctly, then "Invalid Annotation Object" errors on my .pdf file of 96 pages

- first, I had to acknowledge/click the OK button until all " invalid annotation objects" error pop-up windows are gone

(for my file with 96 pages, i had to hit the OK button more than hundreds times - need patience)

- then found out (later) that what I did turn out to be the same steps as following post by davidsdomingo in adobe.forums

  -------------------------

davidsdomingo May 28, 2009 1:39 PM (in response to (Holger_Wulf))

Here is a technique for identifying all the pages that have invalid annotation objects on them:

1. Document > Extract Pages ...

•Select the checkbox for "Extract Pages As Separate Files"

•Set the destination to a 'dedicated' folder that won't contain any other files -- that way, you can simply delete the folder when this process is done.

•Click OK.

2. During the extraction, click OK in all the message boxes that appear.

3. After the extraction, look in the destination folder to see which pages are missing. Those are the pages that have invalid annotation objects.

From this point you can try to delete the objects, or simply delete and replace the pages, or implement a different solution. Hope this helps someone.

-------------------

- after extract the 96-pages file into individual files into a dedicated folder, only 95 got extracted and page 1 was not/can not be extracted.

- I then combined the 95 good extracted pages into a new file name .pdf

- then inserted a good page 1 without error (from the file that was saved previous day, prior to all the changes I made on the corrupted file), re work on page 1

- delete the bad file.

Hope this helps someone.

[stephen2936]

This error appears repetitively for no reason; I have read the messages in this thread.  Is there no-one at Adobe who would like to investigate this problem.  I have already (re)installed Acrobat 8 with a view to stepping back till this and other instability problems are solved.   Help please Adobe!

Stephen Grime

[DLMoshak]

Hello,

I've discovered a really quick fix if you happen to have MAC hardware at your disposal:

If you have a Macintosh handy, and you open the offending file with the Macintosh "Preview" applicatio...you can then "Save as" to make a new copy of the file .pdf.

This new file can then be sucessfully opened with Adobe Acrobat Pro (on either Windows or Mac) and the "Invalid Annotation Object" error is now gone. No loss of data and no loss of previous annotations was observed.

Good Luck.

-Damian

[Pepe?]

Please see DLMoshak "really quick fix" above--post #20

wow! great fix! After scouring forums til my eyes were bleeding I just tried your "open in Preview and save" fix. It worked! THANKS! (I had a 75 page document/catalog with and index that contained about 500 (no kidding) links to destinations that I did not look forward to rebuilding!)

Afterthought: I see that my "saved from Preview" document has had all the "Destinations" removed. The links still work but future editing will be limited. Although I suppose I can just edit my original and then save it through preview again...

[Guest]

Hi Thanks for your clear post. Its great solution....The problem is fixed.

[AcmeGV]

Is there a way to fix this issue and keep all of the annotations and status as one comment?  If I save out of Preview the statuses are placed as separate annotations.  (It is not an option to remove all annotations)

This problem seems to occur with PDFs that have annotation that contain key command symbols like ® or ©.

[JohnHodgsonLondon]

This worked for me. I had a corrupt PDF with annotations and 'invalid annotations object' message. I also had the original unannotated version. Used PDFXCview (google it, it's free) to export comments (Acrobat only exported comments upto the offending object, the rest were missing). Opened clean file in Acrobat, imported comments. Bingo. Job done

[prasadn56463734]

This solution given by Damian worked for me.

I am just using Adobe Reader for making my highlighting marking of a pdf document from some one else, which is a text book.

Even though this solution worked for me, I have to redo all my markings again since I lost all my previous markings.

Shame on Adobe Reader Developers.

[aowie1]

Im not sure of the details of the rest of everyone else's problems, but here is a similar problem + resolution I have found:

Problem:

Generated a PDF using Indesign and submitted it for a shared review. Comments were published by reviewers and as I went through to view them all, Adobe Acrobat 9.3.2 crashed. Upon reopening the file, whenever I rolled over comment objects or scrolled through pages, I would get the "Invalid Object Annotation" error. I could not just delete the comments or the document as they were very sensitive data. I could not extract the comments because the menu item was disabled...

Solution:

Because the file was created by me, the tracker defaultly opened the local version of it. But if you open the file via a browser from the server (using the link you sent for your shared review, or find it on the server) the errors will not appear. To restore your local copy, simply save (and overwrite) over your local copy fromt the one you opened in the browser.

It seems the errors occur locally only and in the process of the corruption, the PDF was unlinked and comments no longer sync.

Many of you wont have the luxury of doing this, as you aren't using a shared review via a server. But if you submitted this for review at all to others, it might be possible for you to contact those you have sent it to and have them send back the working copy for you to overwrite over your corrupted version.

[qzmufu]

1. Identify the pages with invalid annotation objects

2. Make a copy of the document

3. a) Delete the pages with invalid annotaiton objects from the original

3. b) Use "Examine Document" to remove all annotations from the copy

4. Copy the deleted pages back from the cleaned-up copy to the original

this way you won't lose all your annotations.

@ Adobe: Aren't you ever going to fix that issue? Seriously! Having such a major bug in your software for years tells stories about your products' quality!

[Larss1]

I have the same problem. As others discribe It seems to happen on scanned and OCR-runned files, in pages with line/arrow/typewriter annotation tools.

Both Pro and reader crashes. SumatraPDF can open the files but without annotations. I downloaded PDF-XChange Viewer, this thing can open the file with the annotations and I can save the file i have not tried to fix it so that can open it in Acrobat again.

I just cant belive this problem has not been fixed, its been around for years. Adobe blaims other software, but thats just bull. Apperently it can fixed from their side anyways. I've lost days and days on this bug.

[Prince-W]

Again, very annoying numerous pop-up "Invalid Annotation Object" errors. Try all steps above, reinstall Acrobat and the problem still exist. Wasting too much time on troubleshooting the unsolved problems.

Agree with qzmufu & Larss1, the problem was not solved for years.

Problem solved by using PDF-XChange Viewer, and may decide to purchase PDF-XChange Pro.

P.s. I was an Adobe supporter and never use any other 3rd parties PDF software before. But now, with all these disappointment had lead me to other PDF software which is less error, more reliable and not so costly as well.

[pub_ed]

DLMoshak has a good solution for Mac users. Another option if you don't have a Mac, and if you do have access to the orginal unannotated file, is to open the original and use the Import Comments function. This will bring in all of the comments except for the "invalid" ones and the new file will be fine. The only problem, of course, is that you lose the offending annotation, but at least you can save all of the others.

[Guest]

This thread has been helpful. But exporting the comments and importing into a fresh PDF only preserves comments. Bookmarks are lost.

I have been having Error 14 repeatedly as well for no good reason. The affected PDFs were not emailed or sent over the internet, I do not use a 3rd party reader (though I use Evermap plugin), and the only annotation objects I use are highlights, comments, and the typewriter, headers.pre

Sometimes when I try to extract each page separately to identify the offending annotation, I get a "bad parameter" error right at the outset.

Error 14 arises whether Acrobat has or has not peviously crashed.

Upgrading to 10.1.2 does not help.

It happens on my desktop as well as netbook, both running on Win 7.

The affected PDFs were usually, but not always, created from Word.

I can't for the life of me figure out what's causing it.

Jay

[JimPonder19]

Ok folks, here's my go at it.  I had to delete the following to stop those stupid errors from randomly (or not so randomly popping up)

c:\documents and settings\<user>\application data\adobe\*.*

c:\documents and settings\<user>\apps\adobe\*.*

Make necessary adjustment for Windows Vista/7. 

I found that the annotations store something in the cache section in the user's area that causes this corruption.  I had no problem with the files when my users did.  I thought it was a rights issue at first, but after creating a new user and finding the problem went away, I figured it had to be in the user profile section.  Killing off these pieces fixed the issue for me.

I can't believe that this issue has been a problem for over 3 years and Adobe still doesn't resolve it.  Get on the ball Adobe.

-Jim Ponder

[bahl85]

If I have what you're trying to do correctly, you're trying to prevent losing the comments from a document that is corrupted/is giving you an error.

What I did, and worked successfully was, extract the comments from the 'currupt' document then import them into a working version of that document (maybe an earlier version). I don't know if this matters, but I'm currently running Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro.

How I did this:

From the program's tool bar at the top I selected Comments > Export Comments to Data File... > and saved to my desktop (or wherever you want). I then opened a working version of the document (doesn't matter if the pages matched up perfectly as the program figured it out) and imported them the same way. From the toolbar I selected Comments > Import Comments... and that's all there was to it.

Hope this helps some folks out.

[Alaino123]

I´ve never listened about this problem, but today this problem appeared on my computer, and i did this:

first, i tried to save into another document and i tried to modify the comments, but the solutions is easy, just click ok the message"Invalid Annotation Object OK" until this msgbox disappears, after this click on EXPORT and choose the option JPEG format, save your document and print it. That´s all.

PS: Just wanted to print my document, no modify it i hope this information could be good for you.

Excuse my english im still learning.

[Guest]

Here's a quick fix that let me see the document with all the annotations that were causing Acrobat 9 Pro to report the "Invalid annotation object" error.

1. Close the document and Acrobat 9 Pro.
2. Open the Chrome Browser (download if you don't have it installed)
3. In Chrome:
   1. Open the PDF document (e.g. Bad_Doc.pdf) that's giving you problems.
      1. It opens PDFs using a viewer that isn't from Adobe, and doesn't seem to hiccup over "invalid annotation objects", so ...
      2. You should be able to view all the annotations including the "invalid" ones!
   2. Print the document using the Adobe PDF printer.
   3. Save the printed version with a different filename (e.g. Good_Doc.pdf) than the error-causing one.
4. Open the printed version (e.g. Good_Doc.pdf) with Acrobat 9 Pro

[Stephan5E63]

What worked for me was File > Restore because I had the autosave function enabled. Lost minimal notes and bookmarks made on th file.

Hope this works 🙂

[Randy35908248a6v5]

This problem is documented all the way back to Acrobat 9 and maybe earlier. Acrobat 9 was released in 2008. That's 16 years ago. Is Adobe so proud of their product that they don't see a need to fix the recovery function? In my number of years of experience using various adobe programs, it has never once worked. May as well completely remove any form of document recovery. That might even make the software more stable. Adobe must mean Gong Show when translated to english. I guess Adobe is dead anyways, considering updates over the years haven't been bring much along the lines of improvements.