THE FAMOUS ERROR: There was a problem reading this document (15) - Thanks Adobe Engineering team

[mrmister1]

As a result of this error, I cannot delete pages in a big PDF file I have of 1032 pages.

The error, famous on the web and in Google, is:

there was a problem reading this document (15)

I hope I can find a solution for this, because I cannot delete the unnecessary pages inside the document which is driving me crazy.

Adobe Acrobat X has a very poor quality testing. In fact I don't beleive Adobe test their products, I think they just program them, label them as the finished product, ASK FOR A HIGH PRICE, OF COURSE, and release them to the market creating a lot of nightmares and headaches to the customer.

Adobe Acrobat X crashed several times when the files have flash content inside or formularies. The program, simply, is bad programmed with a very poor engineering inside.

As soon I find an alternative for PDF, I will switch, I promise, in fact I don't promise it, I SWEAR IT.

And if I dont find a solution for this I will put in my car a banner that says "DON'T BUY ADOBE ACROBAT, IS THE WORST PROGRAM YOU CAN FIND!"

I'm loosing days and days of work, this is costing me problems and money.

[Dave Merchant]

Sorry to hear you're having problems, but if Acrobat says it can't read a particular PDF file it's because there's something wrong with the *document*. It usually means it was corrupted during the last save to disk, or during a download from a remote server. If Acrobat can't open it, I very much doubt anything else will.

All Adobe products are extensively tested, through several phases, before release. The Acrobat X Family project involved 950 engineers, 3100 beta testers and 5 million hours of development work. Yes there will always be a few bugs which get through, as it's never possible to test every combination of hardware and software, but to say it's "bad programmed (sic)" is patently untrue and insulting to those involved in the program.

If your error was caused by a general file handling bug, these forums would be getting complaints from hundreds of thousands of users working with large files - and as you can see from the forum posts, we're not.

[mrmister1]

Yes, there is something wrong with the document. That is the defective programming the Adobe engineering team did. And please, allow me to explain you why it is defective. After you spend millions dollars in 950 engineers and 3100 beta testers, you can destroy Adobe Acrobat X easily just downloading a website rich in flash content. Some animated banners in the downloaded pages from the web, it's enough to destroy it.

Just go to a website where you have animated banners, and press Shift+Crtl+O to download the pages...

Save your PDF document and then try to work with it.

If the document has a big size, let's say 1000 pages approximately, and many of them have flash content... Adobe Acrobat X crash automatically just moving from one page to another.

As simple as that.

Is the most unstable program I've seen in all my life. And please, don't tell me it's my machine, because I've tested it in other computers. The same!

But there is more! yes

Forms fields also destroy Acrobat X

In a big PDF file having several pages inside with forms, just go to Tools, Forms and Edit, then in the list of pages try to delete the forms fields selecting them and pressing the Del key... crasshhhh Acrobat X die.

What kind of betatesters you chose to test your products? For sure are people that are working with light documents of 5... 10 pages and no more.

For sure are not people working extensively with Adobe Acrobat, as I do.

And what happens when Acrobat X crash miserably time after time? that the Error 15 comes, because the file becomes corrupted.

This is not serious.

Is this the kind of performance and stability that Acrobat provide to the customers? having the risk to lose important documents and data, due how unstable is the program?

You can tell me you hired NASA personnel to do this program, but customers need results, and crashing the program just pressing one key is not serious.

And talking about complains I don't want to remember the last update of the Acrobat 9 !!!

And you know what? a simple tool as NitroPDF don't crash!

Sadly NitroPDF is not an option for me, because I embed videos in the PDF documents and NitroPDF don't allow me that.

I am using Adobe Acrobat X because sadly I don't find another alternative, the day I find it, I'll switch for sure.

Or perhaps we can get a miracle, and your programmers could focus in what is IMPORTANT: STABILITY AND PERFORMANCE.

[toshitazawa]

I have the Mac OS version and encountering the same issue. While some files have been able to be opened after I toggled the Enable Enhanced Security within the Preference - Security (Enhanced) pane, some PDF files have not. 

As for your hypothesis that there's something wrong with the "document", I beg to differ as even though the document does not open with Acrobat Pro DC, the file does open with the Mac OS native PDF reader, Preview.

[MichaelKazlow]

As Dave said the document is probably corrupt. Now the question is what to do about it. First you can see if you have a version of the file on one of  your backups that is not corrupt. If not, since the file could be opened perhaps you can get around the problem by doing a save as.  If that doesn't do the trick you can try to split the file in half. If by deleting half of the file from a duplicate of the file. If that half of the file is good. Now do the same on the remaining half. You can try to do the same until you come to the page or pages that is corrupt. The pages that are corrupt will have to be re-created.

An alternative the takes less time, but doesn't necessarily yield an identical pdf is to print the pdf to a postscript file, then distill the postscript file. This new pdf file should not have the problem.

[Sandemaolando]

I got a similar problem but somehow it lets the documnet open. I saw this and I was like yah this is what I have been facing and the reason I came in here. I get scared sometimes it is a very importnat document that I need to open, eventually it opnes but after giving me that big box with adobe cannot open this document.....

I got to cross my fingers.

All the best.

I hope a tech guy comes in here to explain.

[gkaiseril]

More than Adobe products can create PDF files. So it is very important to know the program that was used to create the PDF or generate the PS file and what program was used to convert the PD file to the PDF format.

The PDF format has been publicly available for years and Adobe has even allowed the PDF Specification to be used as a standard by  the International Standards Organization  and it is now maintained by an international committee not controlled by Adobe.

It is possible to hand code the PS source file to create a PDF. There are public domain programs along with the source code for the program that can convert PS files to PDF files. MicroSoft has a Save as PDF feature in their Office program and OpenOffice.org has an export as PDF. A PDF can be corrupted by email programs or others trying to edit the PDF or perform repeated saves or save as actions.

So it is quite possible that Adobe is not completely responsible for all of the problem. Just be grateful that they report an error.

You might also want to contact the producer of the PDF about the problem.

[dave_m_k]

Good day,

I'm sorry to hear you are encountering this error.  As both Dave and Michael have mentioned, this error is file specific and usually the result of corruption introduced through a bad save.

With the document open, could you please open File > Properties and share what information is in the PDF Producer line?

Thank you,

David

[Phillycop76]

I get this message on most of my documents 90 to 98% I can open them on my other computers just not this laptop. I have reinstalled and followed the Adobe recommendations. This is the message I get-

"Adobe Reader could not open "example document name" because it is either not a supported file type or because the file has been damaged (for example, it was sent as an email attachment and wasn't correctly decoded)"