Acrobat 10 won't start anymore

[hbax450]

Love how you spend thousands to get the latest software from Adobe, and then when you simply need to open a PDF file right before a presentation, the application won't open.

Found one discussion that advises to uninstall and the reinstall.  Seriously?  And I need to download Adobe's special "the regular uninstaller process does not work so use our alternate" tool?

[federico platon]

I am on Windows 7 64 bit (not sure if everyone else is on a PC too)

I have had this problem arise today, I have 2 start up disks with two installations of the CS6 Design Suite with Acrobat X Pro fully updated, on both the problem has surfaced, Acrobat does not start or open any PDF anymore.

I have read and trued deleting cache.db on one installation, I went thru all those windows and had to retype serail number. And it worked!

But only for a few time, it open once, a second time but sometime later I opened a PDF and a few seconds later Acrobat suddenly cloed down, no erroe wahtsoever appeared. and then no more.

I went to the other installation and updtaed and launched Adobe Applicxation Manager, it says I have some applications (illustrator,....., but not Acrobat X Pro), installed, OK. I installed again from that windows Acrobat Pro X. When finished it states that and asks for launch now, perfect, i clicked there but nothing happens, i 2 click some PDFs and nothing happens.

So I am stuck there too.

Should I call Support or is any authorized voice telling us why it's happening, how it can be solved or if we have to wait for some kind of patch or update. Meanwhile I will try to uninstall it and place back Acrobat 9.

[pexi100]

Hei!

Same here! In my Sony Vaio laptop (win 7 64 bit) Acrobat X stopped working today (No error messages). It was installed (10.5.2012) in part of Master Collection CS6. I did repair installation, but it didn't work. Quite strange, that all these cases happened about one month after installation!?!?

Pekka Nurmela

[TheBitBug]

Is everyone hitting this at about 30 days after install?  I just checked my install date and this happened for me at the 30 day mark.

Where I'm going with this is, if it is at 30 days, is it some kind of bug with their licensing rights.  i.e. it thinks it in in trial mode and at 30 days (end of trial period) shuts itself down?  I'm trying to find the commonality here.

I think it is obvious at this point no one from Adobe is monitoring this feed.  I'm going to suggest that everyone contact support and tell them about this feed and how many other people are experiencing this.

[CyndiJ]

I just got off the phone with Adobe tech support. Mike was able to help me. He thought that the problem had something to do with a conflict between my stand-alone version of Acrobat 10 and the intgrated version that came with my upgrade to CS6 and one that was in CS5.5. He wasn't sure why it started when all of yours started since I upgraded several weeks ago. He took a look at this forum and he is looking into it. He said that although these forums are moderated, if something like this goes wrong, it is better to call Adobe support rather than relying on a moderator to spot a problem.

We uninstalled the standalone version and reinstalled it as part of the suite. He did delete the files in C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Adobe PCD\cache

This will cause the suite to ask for the serial numbers for the upgrades and for supporting products. After several times of providing that infromation, shutting down the machine and testing that all the products worked, Acrobat is working after several restarts and a total shut down.

When we uninstalled the stand-alone product and went to the installer for CS6, only Acrobat was shown as needing to be installed. That was good.

He feels that there is a conflict between CS5, CS5.5 and CS6 instances of Acrobat. Again, he doesn't know why, but he will find out. He was very knowegable. Uninstall Acrobat and reinstall as part of your suite. So far, so good. If this doesn't work, call them.

[TheBitBug]

Nice job CyndiJ!  I'll give it a go and post results.

While I don't have a stand along version of Acrobat, I do have Master Collection CS4 on my system.  I jumped from that to CS6 and left CS4 on my system.  You and Mike may have hit the nail on the head with the two versions of Adobe Acrobat conflicting with each other, although I'm not sure why it was fine for the first 30 days of my using CS6.

[WernerPMuc]

Unfortunally the problem also exists on a clean installed computer with design and web premium cs6. Acrobat X will refuse to work after about 30 days...

[timeshiftingnz]

Same problem here.  Clean install of Win7 x64 and Creative Suite Design Std CS6, no stand-alone or prior versions.  That was exactly 30 days ago today, and now Acrobat will no longer load.  I tried deleting the C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Adobe PCD\cache\cache.db file and re-did the serial number etc on launching Acrobat, but as soon as I reboot it no longer works again...

[pexi100]

Hei!!

As I wrote yesterday, that Acrobat X Pro stopped working in my laptop (win 7 x64). Today back in home, I opened my desktop machine (win 7 x64) and guess what?... Same thing happened on that computer. CS 6 MC was also installed 10.5.2012. Repair installation didn't help. Hope Adobe get this fixed really soon!!!!

Pekka Nurmela

""Hei!

Same here! In my Sony Vaio laptop (win 7 64 bit) Acrobat X stopped working today (No error messages). It was installed (10.5.2012) in part of Master Collection CS6. I did repair installation, but it didn't work. Quite strange, that all these cases happened about one month after installation!?!?

Pekka Nurmela""

[dave_m_k]

Hello everyone,

Could you please try the following steps based on your operating system:

Windows:

• Uninstall Acrobat (either as a stand-alone installation or as a component of your Creative Suite installation)
• Run the Acrobat Cleaner Tool to remove any remnants of the application.
• Reinstall Acrobat X through either your CS6 installer or the Adobe Application Manager (Creative Cloud subscribers)

Mac:

• Uninstall Acrobat (please check both Applications\Adobe Acrobat\Uninstall and Applications\Utilities\Adobe Installers for available Acrobat uninstallers)
• Run the CSCleaner Tool and Remove Acrobat.
• Reinstall Acrobat X through either your CS6 installer or the Adobe Application Manager (Creative Cloud subscribers)

-David

[obmet]

I installed Acrobat X with the CS6 Design Suite.

Can I still use the Acrobat Cleaner Tool?

There is a note on the tool which says:

IMPORTANT: This tool is not for use with any Creative Suite Products including suites that contain Acrobat.  It can only be used with standalone versions of Acrobat and Adobe Reader.

[TheBitBug]

I am no authority on this stuff, but you may wish to look at this other thread for what I tried, that so far in hour 3 since I did it, is working....

http://forums.adobe.com/message/4493065#4493065

[obmet]

I tried TheBitBug solution.  It has been working for an hour even after a couple of re-boots.

[TheBitBug]

Excellent! I hope it keeps working for us!  I will post right away if mine craps out again, but I've got my fingers crossed.

[dave_m_k]

Hi TheBitBug,

Thank you for sharing the solution that's working for you so far. We really appreciate it!

We haven't been able to reproduce this problem internally which is why the troubleshooting steps I proposed were so generic in nature.

-David

[obmet]

Could you respond to my post number 34 please David?

[TheBitBug]

You are most welcome.

FYI from what I have gleened in this thread and the other thread, the issue appears to be happening on, or around, the 30th day after install leading to specualtion it has something to do with the licensing rights, possibly with respect to the end of a trail period.  I don't know if you already looked at my screenshots above in this thread.

If Adobe hasn't already looked at the issue in light of a possible 30 days after install issue, this might be a path to attempt to replicate.

Good luck to all!

[saranas]

Hello there,

I had the same issue on the 30 day mark. I followed your instrauction to deactivate PS, reopen it, and reactivate the program with the serial number. It worked!! It took care of Acrobat that was not opening and I couldn't open pdf either. Thank you!! And I hope that this won't become an issue that we have to deal with every 30 days:-)

Once again, thank you.

[Guest]

Having the same issue. It's been about 30 days. Acrobat X Pro (part of CS6 Master Collection) running on Windows 7, 64 bit. The programme just stopped opening files today, June 22nd, the programme is completely unresponsive.

[SixRavenD]

My mileage was 35 Days not 30 for Acrobat Pro X

[timeshiftingnz]

Yes it did work for me thanks!  I didn't quite follow that order though, I ran the cleaner, uninstalled CS6 with remove preferences checked, and then reinstalled everything.  The cleaner does remove a CS install of Acrobat, and while the CS6 uninstaller still thought Acrobat was installed, it did completely remove CS6 ok.

Hopefully I'm not back here in 30 days time!

Thanks,

Matt.

[pexi100]

Hei!!

Well, I did uninstall, run acrobat cleaner and installed X Pro back from CS6 MC discs.Acrobat is running fine again, but I think this is just a workaround, not the solution. I hope Acrobat team finds easier fix for this problem...

Pekka Nurmela

[AllenCobb]

@David

FYI, Acrobat X Pro stopped working for me about 34 days after installing CS6 MC. It was fixed by uninstalling BOTH the separate entry in Programs and Features, AND the entry in CS6 installer, and then reinstalling from CS6 installer.

Allen

[TheBitBug]

To ALL:

This thread ->http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1021632 Post #9 appears to be the quickest work around I have seen to date.  I do, however, fear we will all be back in this boat again in another 30 days.

[rforgaard]

David and Everyone: I was able to successfully fix this Acrobat problem on my computer using the solution discovered by Jimbo7777 and suggested by 818g and more recently by TheBitBug.  It's a fast fix, and does NOT require uninstalling/re-installing.  For convenience, here is the fix:

• Start up Photoshop (not Acrobat)
• Help/Deactivate
• Close Photoshop
• Start up Photoshop or Acrobat (it is now running in trial mode)
• Go through the activation process giving the serial number again
• Acrobat runs fine now

COMMENTARY: I agree with Jimbo7777 and TheBitBug that this is most likely a problem that will recur every 30 days, which means you will need to do the above procedure again 30 days later (unless an Adobe fix is forthcoming before then).  It appears that Acrobat, unlike the other applications in CS6, stops working after 30 days (which is the duration of the CS6 trial period) even though the whole CS6 suite has been activated and is not in the trial period.  Hopefully, this gives Adobe enough information that they can reproduce the problem.  See also "ANOTHER NOTE THAT MAY BE RELEVANT," below.

DETAILS OF MY SITUATION, in case it is helpful: I am running 64-bit Windows 7.  I was previously using Master Suite CS5.5.  On May 14, 2012, I purchased an upgrade to the downloadable version of Master Suite CS6.  I uninstalled all Adobe applications on my computer, and then installed and activated Master Suite CS6.  It has now been 35 days since I installed CS6, and today is when I discovered that Acrobat would no longer start.  I don't think I've had any need to use Acrobat during the past 5 days, so that is probably why I am seeing this problem 35 days after installing CS6, rather than 30 days.

ALSO: This exact same problem with the Acrobat in CS6 is being discussed not only in this thread, but also in this thread and this thread of the Adobe forums.

ANOTHER NOTE THAT MAY BE RELEVANT: After installing and updating Master Suite CS6, the Acrobat icon appeared in my Windows tray some number of days later, telling me that I should let it update Acrobat to version 10.1.3 to fix some sort of issue.  I said yes, and let Acrobat update.  (I know that 10.1.3 was released back on April 10, but I guess that latest version of Acrobat didn't make it into the official Master Suite CS6 release in May.)  Anyway, I wonder if that automatic update to 10.1.3 caused this problem with Acrobat, where it (silently) refuses to run 30 days after installing CS6?

I hope this helps someone!

[tjhb]

Randy,

I've got a lot out of this thread and the others on the topic.

forums.adobe.com/thread/1012839

forums.adobe.com/thread/1021632

forums.adobe.com/thread/1021670

To the best of my knowledge, the issue manifested for me 29 or 28 days after installation (14 May to 17 June, possibly 16 June).

My first reflex had been to roll my machine back to a known good image, made just after activating CS6 (and CS5). But in this case, of course, that didn't fix anything. Acrobat X still closed a fraction of a second after it was launched. (Same with Distiller, worse for me.)

On your last point--whether the 10.1.3 update is relevant. In my case I installed the 10.1.3 patch just *before* I activated CS6. That doesn't rule it out of as a culprit of course.

My assumption is that Adobe's new provision for Creative Cloud licensing (which requires "internet access"--i.e. phoning home every 30 days) was incorporated in all release products. I wonder if in Acrobat the licensing system makes the wrong judgement about whether the licence is fixed (a suite) or subscription (cloud). (As if someone omitted a "break" expression after the first condition in a switch statement.)

This is a good, respectable bug--one that only makes itself known after a certain period of time. Just the sort of thing we should expect in a new product. Completely unlike the permissions bugs elsewhere in the suite--which might make a reasonable person hang his or her head in vicarious shame.

Tim