Getting error that Adobe is already running following apply of 23.003.20284

Report · Sep 06, 2023

We have a web based document management application that has existed for many years. For PDF documents stored in our archive, we view them by handing off the document to the browser to be displayed by the browser's default PDF viewer. This is typically Acrobat Reader. All of a sudden last week (with no changes to our application software), 3 unrelated clients reported that their users were getting the following errors when displaying PDF documents in our application:
There is a problem with Adobe Acrobat/Reader. If it is running, please exit and try again. (507:507)

(sometimes it is 523:523)

The problem occurs on the 2nd display of a PDF. The first one works fine. Also there are other odd anomalies about this problem. Like if you minimize the side bars of the PDF that is being viewed, the next view will not get the error.

I have also noticed by looking at task manager during the problem workflow, that there are 2 Adobe Acrobat processes running under the MS Edge process when i display the first PDF. But then when I display the second one and dismiss the error that comes up, the 2 Adobe Acrobat processes popup as standalone processes--not within the browser's process. Then if I try to display a third PDF, 4 new Adobe Acrobat processes popup as standalone processes.

This problem seems highly correlated with the release of the optional update 23.003.20284. There is a curious entry in the release notes for the 20284 level:

4424220: SAP screen goes blank on opening 2nd PDF after few minutes

My application has nothing to do with SAP but the description has that coincidence of talking about some type of problem viewing a second PDF document.

Any thoughts on why this might be occurring or if anyone else is experiencing similar behavior, please chime in !

Report · Sep 08, 2023

I have continued to do more testing related to the problem reported in this thread. As I suspected, I cannot reproduce the problem with version 23.003.20269. But as soon as I upgrade to 23.003.20284, i can easily reproduce the problem.

As best as I can tell from my testing, the problem seems to be due to changes in how the Acrobat sub-processes within the browser are closed out.

In 23.003.20269:

1) Display a PDF in a browser frame within our application

2) In process explorer, I see 2 Acrobat Reader 32 bit processes plus a handful Adobe AcroCEF processes under the Microsoft Edge main process.

3) When the frame is closed in our application, those processes seem to remain for 30 seconds before they are closed out. When the second PDF is requested in our application, we close the frame and start a new one. This happens quickly and it appears that because the Acrobat processes are not run down, they are reused by the browser. This all works and has been working for probably 20 years.

In 23.003.20284:

1) Display a PDF in a browser frame within our application

2) In process explorer, I see 2 Adobe Acrobat processes plus a handful Adobe AcroCEF processes under the Microsoft Edge main process. Yes, this is one difference. The acrobat processes seem to have a different name.

3) When the frame is closed in our application, those processes seem to close out right away vs. the 30 seconds before this happened in the vreious acrobat level. When the second PDF is requested in our application, we close the frame and start a new one. This happens quickly and it appears that because the Acrobat processes are run down or being run down, there is a window where the attempt to open the new PDF fails presumeably because the processes are stll running down. So they can no longer be used but they also block another instance from starting.
And as mentioned before, when I display the PDF, I do not get the Adobe toolbar in my testing which is fine. But if I hover over my document, I get the Adobe icon to click on to expose the toolbar and sidebars. If I do that, the pattern changes. When I clear the frame and move to a new document, I see the Acrobat processes drop and 2 new ones are created but I don't get the error. Something about clicking to expose the toolbar/sidebar seems to effect the timing of this problem (but does not change the basic change in behavior that in the previous level it took 30 seconds to run down but now it is immediate).

Report · Sep 13, 2023

Hi Alan,

By any chance did you come to a conclusion or solution regarding this?

I've been facing the same issue and have recently installed the 23.006.20320 build, to no avail.

Have had to install PDF Creator24 as a stop gap, given that our patching cycle automatically updates Adobe Reader when we install the last good know version, 23.003.20269.

Report · Sep 13, 2023

No, I have not come to any conclusion or resolution. We have had a limited number of our client end users report this, so it has not reached a critical stage yet. Within our application, we have some potential mitigations as well which on a limited scale can help users get around this issue. But if it becomes more widespread amongst our users, we are going to face a more difficult situation.
As I have been working on this issue, I keep thinking that my situation cannot be that unique and somewhere on the great big internet others would be complaining. But so far, you are the first to chime in and I can't find any other threads or posts talking about this.
This is my first post to this forum. I was hoping that maybe Adobe monitors this forum in some way and they might jump in but nothing so far as you can see.
If you have any other technical details about what you are experiencing, that might help connect some dots.
Thanks !

Report · Dec 07, 2023

What does the PDF Creator24 do as far as a workaround?

Report · Dec 07, 2023

And, we are on Adobe Reader v23.006.20320 and are now experiencing these same error codes (507:523) and general symptoms: loads on very 1st PDF displayed, but then errors on every additional. Killing tasks in Task Manager seems to have no effect; neither does amending the security settings in the Preferences (Security) panel. Only a reboot of the workstation clears the error, but it comes right back with the 2nd PDF displayed in the application's viewer window.

Report · Sep 14, 2023

We are having the same issue here. Typically getting a 0:521 error, however. We also have a long standing program we use to view documents that are uploaded into it. This is happening when the user is clicking into the second document. She can click ok and go to a different document and then back and it then shows up. It happens every couple of documents she opens until it freezes the program entirely, forcing her to restart. I've tried updating and it throws more error codes (507, 523, 521). Tried repairing to no avail. Tried uninstall and reinstall. She can't even get into any documents now. This is a big issue.

Report · Sep 15, 2023

@Lisa32296403ry5e -- Can you confirm that your problem is with version 23.003.20284? Can you remove that version and install the prior version (23.003.20269)? This will help show that there is a change in behavior in 20284 level that is having negative impacts. It may also give you a mitigation for the time being. I have no experience with the Adobe versions and how they get auto updated or not, so I don't know how easy it is to prevent the auto update from 20269 to 20284.
As for your error number being different, I have seen different error numbers at different times.
As for the freezing up, I have not been able to reproduce this reliably but it has happened to me in my testing. And my client has reported this behavior as well. This does seem to be another impact of whatever changed in in the 20284 version.

Report · Sep 15, 2023

Yes, we have multiple users having issues with 23.003.20284 however now I am also getting this error with the version 23.003.20320. Our users were able to view these documents with the previous version with no issues. Right now we have a workaround for our users. They can access these documents through a browser version of the application. Seems to be an issue with just this single application. I also have a ticket in with this vendor to see if it is something on their side.

Report · Oct 11, 2023

Also having the same issue here with version 23.006.20320 on some of our applications that utilize Acrobat... Reverted to 23.003.20269 and that fixed the issues thanks to this thread. Unfortunately there's a vulnerability on this version (CVE-2023-26369) so we would like to have these issues resolved asap.

Report · Oct 12, 2023

@David30224518a9ec Thanks for updating this thread to let us know you are experiencing this issue also. Unfortunately, I have checked with my company and we do not appear to have any support contract with Adobe. Therefore, I am unable to open a support ticket. I had hoped that maybe enough people might post to this thread that Adobe might take notice but that does not seem to have happened,
If you or anyone on this thread that is experiencing this issue has the ability to open a support ticket with Adobe, I would be glad to collaborate and provide the details that I have found during troubleshooting.

Report · Nov 07, 2023

So our company wont let us go with this option but this might help you.

In Preferences -> Security (Enhanced) -> "Run in AppContainer" <- remove the tick
((THIS WILL reduce the protection offered by ACROBAT)) I dont know if this will work for you but on Home use this worked for me.

Report · Nov 08, 2023

@Adam33451367mrmd Thank you so much for taking the time to provide some input on this issue. I tried your recommendation on a system where I can reproduce the problem. And, unfortunately, it did not resolve the problem. I had previously tried some other security related settings that had been mentioned in other forum threads for similar problems and had no luck with those settings either.

Report · Nov 08, 2023

This work-around didn't work for us either previously. I put in a ticket with our core system and they said it was an issue with the current update and that it would be resolved with the next update. They updated the core yesterday and it now works with no issues. I don't know if it's a specific program that you're having issues with or if it's with all of them, but it's worth a shot putting in a ticket with them. It could just be that their software update version is having issues with the newest Adobe update.

Report · Dec 07, 2023

We have been having the same problem and found that installing the 32-bit version of Adobe Reader solved the problem for our document management software.