Acrobat X Pro (10 and lower) won't start on Windows 7 (64-bit)

[Artsandbeauty]

Hello, does anyone know why Acrobat X Pro (10 and lower) won't start on Windows 7 (64-bit)? It just doesn't respond whether I try to open files with it or double-click to start the program. Re-installation and Repair doesn't help. I had the same issue with the previous versions of Acrobat on this computer. 

Thank you!

[cfoh]

It worked for me. thank you!

[jam_n_man]

this worked temporarily for about an hour and it wouldn't load again.   so did this fix again to loaded up fine.   need a more permanent fix.

[jam_n_man]

ok i finally saw the permanent fix after taking all day to look through this dang thread.

crossing fingers....  what an annoying issue!!!

[jelarv]

I had the same problem today (with the same OS) and used the "Cach.db" rename as a fix.

I'm curious to know if others had the same original installation problem I had, and if this may be the cause.  When you install a new version of CS such as CS6, it doesn't automatically uninstall the prior versions (unlike most other software applications).  So when you go to uninstall the prior version (CS5.5 in this case), it AUTOMATICALLY removes Acrobat (v10 in this case) because Acobat is part of CS5.5.  This requires Acrobat be reinstalled on its own. I'm wondering if the reinstallation is causing this problem.  When I installed CS5.5 I had to unistall v4.0 which also automatically removed Acrobat (v9 at the time).  While I didn't get this strange problem of the program not loading, I recall it caused problems with Acrobat updates because it assumed Acrobat had been installed separately from the suite and so it wasn't recognizing the CS serial number.

[EvAdobe1]

No, Jelarv ... that wasnt' my case because I bought upgrades from previous suites, so I never uninstalled any previous versions of any of my Adobe programs.

[Fritzismom]

Did the recommended procedure as per post 42 by staff. It seemed to work (we'll see how long). But what burns me, is that my CS5 also needs to be re-registered, and CS4 because it was an upgrade. CS6 is NOT an upgrade, so why this dance with license numbers of previous versions to fix an issue within CS6? Does CS5 need to be deactivated/reactivated as well?

[Little_Nicolo]

I tried the fix renaming the cache.db file in the Adobe PCD folder. It works, for now. I get a screen when I start it up which says: "You trial will expire in 32767 days. You can continue to use CS6 Design and Web Premium after your trial period by purchasing the software." And then the Buy Now, License This Software, and Continue Trial buttons. I am using the Continue Trial button.

Not for nothing - this is the fix I tried because the reinstallation options are not conveniently available for me. I do not have full access to everything on my machine. If I want the serial number I have to go and ask for it, and I won't get it. I will get the IT people putting me on a list to get my software (which mostly works) reinstalled at some point, in the future, when they get around to it, eventually, probably at 10 at night with no warning and without me there to guide them through the fussy points. Pay attention Adobe: not all your users can just reinstall everything whenever they like!

[LawrenceNYC]

I had the exact same problem...twice!  Amrita's instructions worked for me, at least for now.  Hopefully the problem won't resurface.  I tried calling Adobe for technical help and after four calls and THREE hours on hold they still couldn't get anyone to figure this out.  Amazing that after buying a product as "professional" and EXPENSIVE as Creative Suite 6 the technical support is so HORRIBLE  Adobe should be ashamed of themselves for outsourcing the technical support to a foreign country and then not training the staff or doing anything to make costumers satisfied or even get the products they PAID FOR working as advertised....sheesh.

[jjlr]

Adobe, GIVE US A BREAK. GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER. I ran into this problem today and started researching the solution. I can't believe a company as large as Adobe with software as sophisticated as CS can't get this fixed in a few moments much less many months.

Yes, today is the 30th day after I reinstalled the suite after a had disk crash. I'm still working on getting all my software back on my PC while trying to get work done day to day. We don't need issues like this taking up more of our time when you get a premium for your product. Many people using the product get $50 to $500 per hour or more for their time. I'm sure you're not going to reimburse us for lost time, so how about spending a couple hours fixing a few lines of code that checks for an activation expiration date. We pay a hefty price to purchase and update your software. Better yet pay me my hourly rate of $250 and hour every time I have to uninstall, reinstall and trouble shoot your issues that apparently your not interested in addressing.

This is bush league treatment of us as your customers.

Please send a quick and timely update to fix the problem once and for all.

BTW, any company that outsources technical support to countries that don't speak the language of their customers, no matter what language that is, should not be allowed to sell their products in that country. I've spent more time training foreign staff than getting my issues resolved. This goes well beyond Adobe producs. Bring tech support back onshore. Your customers will be satisfied and you'll see the benefits in sales. One company that learned it's lesson was Diamond Resorts International, which I have timesharing with. After numerous complaints from nearly every timeshare owner, they brought their call center back onshore. What a difference it made for us as owners and I'm sure they spend a lot less time dealing with the complaints as do we.

[Amrita_Chakrabarti]

For all the users who have faced a problem where Acrobat did not launch after 30 days of serializing with a suite serial number, please execute the following workaround:

1. Make sure you are connected to the internet.
2. Launch a regular CS6 product other than Acrobat or Flash Builder (for example: Photoshop, After Effects, Premier Pro, InDesign, Flash Professional, Illustrator, Dreamweaver.)
3. Click on Help->Deactivate .
4. Deactivate the application. Quit application.
5. Launch a regular CS6 product other than Acrobat or Flash Builder (for example: Photoshop, After Effects, Premier Pro, InDesign, Flash Professional, Illustrator, Dreamweaver.)
6. Accept Eula.
7. Register trial by signing in. Let the app launch.
8. Quit and relaunch the app. Wait for UI to come.
9. Click on License This Software button on the UI.
10. Click on Sign in .
11. Serial number screen will come
12. Enter the serial number in the serial number screen and click Next.
13. Quit app and relaunch the app while connected on the internet .

After this if you launch Acrobat it will launch and run forever without trouble. In case you still face a problem , try relaunching the other CS6 app once more and then launch Acrobat.

This will fix the problem and if done correctly by following the steps,  you will NOT need to repeat the steps after 30 days

Please note:

1.Uninstall and reinstall will NOT fix the problem.

2.Deleting cache or renaming is NOT a solution as it will cause unintended side effects.

In case you face a problem like recurrence after 30 days, please send me a message so that I can help you get the steps corrected.

[sderene]

I started having a somewhat similar problem.  I have Acrobat X and CS5 installed on Windows 7 (64-bit) system.  My problem is that I cannot open pdf files from within Dreamweaver file menu.  I get the following error message: "unable to launch C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat 10.0\Acrobat\acrobat.exe. Please be sure that this application exists and that there is enough memory to run it." 

I certainly have the application installed and I am able to run the program if I start it outside of Dreamweaver.  I listed Acrobat X as the pdf editor in Preferences.  I also listed Acrobat Reader; when I chose that to "open with ..." the program seems to flash briefly and disappears.

I have tried the de-activate/re-activate suggestion in this thread, but that does not resolve this problem.

I'd appreciate any advice you might have.

Steve

[Guest]

Took me forever to find this thread. Like everyone else, CS6 just stopped working for me. Nothing would open. I ended up uninstalling and reinstalling the whole shebang. So I guess I'll have the pleasure of doing this all over again in a month and every month thereafter?

This is a perfect example of Adobe killing the patient to cure the disease. As a customer, I don't care one bit about YOUR issues with software piracy, but when YOUR issues with software piracy are foisted upon me because of your incapacity to effectively deal with them, then I begin to care and start looking elsewhere. I spent over 4 hours last night while in the middle of a project trying to figure out what the %&$@ was going on. Inconvenience doesn't even come close to describing my frustration.

Your quest to prevent a comparatively small number of people from using your software illegally is clearly more important to you than making sure those who are using it legally have a smooth and non-disruptive user experience. So here's my suggestion. To demonstrate to software pirates all around the world that you mean business, just lockup the program completely and prevent everyone from using it - YOU WIN! That'll show 'em. . .

[JXT946a]

I just had this problem for the second time.  The first time, I applied the instructions provided by Amrita Chakrabarti in the second post and it worked.  However, his statement that, "After this if you launch Acrobat it will launch and run forever without trouble," is apparently not true, since I am experiencing this again.

I can understand this problem happening with the launch of CS6 but it is now November and this is still a problem.  I have applied every update that's been offered and Adobe still hasn't fixed the problem.

I also find it disturbing that two Adobe employees chimed in with contradictory advice (whether or not to run the cleaner on a suite installation).

Come on, Adobe.  For the money I spent I expect much better.

[Rubicon04]

I've been running Acrobat 10 since CS6 came out. Never an issue. Until this morning. Found discussions on this BS. Looked at suggested fix and rejected. I'm not going to deactivate the whole suite just to fix Adobe's insult to its customers. Here's my fix.

I'm running Win 64 with CS6. Uninstalled Acrobat 10 via Control Panel. Restarted machine. Then ran a drive sweeper and registry cleaner. I saw all the prior Acrobat registry entries being deleted. Restarted machine. Ran registry cleaner again. Clean. Reinstalled Acrobat 10 from my CS6 disk. Program installed, and ran as 10.0.1. No issues. I used update link within the program, and it indicated 10.1.2 was being installed, but it was actually 10.1.4. Acrobat 10 came up fine. I ran the registry cleaner again, and some old stuff popped up again. Nuked. Restarted machine. 10.1.4 version now lauches and operates normally. Will see how long this lasts.

I did use the Application Update Manager, before I did all this and it did not show Acrobat 10 as installed. It showed XI version ready for upload.  Is screwing up version 10 Adobe's way of fooling us into updating to XI and paying all over again for a program we already own?  I smell a rat at Adobe. Even Quark has more respect for its customers than Adobe.

[MoneyBelt]

If you start Windows Task Manager and then end the "acro"bat processes (there's often several), Acrobat will open.

[cmowry84]

So I think I came up with a solution to this one..

C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Adobe PCD\cache\cache.db is an SQLITE3 database. So I wrote some python code to just swap the AcrobatPro from "expired" to "valid".

Here is the code:

import sqlite3

value = 'valid'

subDomain = 'AcrobatPro-AS1-Win-GM{|}ALL'

db = sqlite3.connect('cache.db')

c = db.cursor()

c.execute('''UPDATE domain_data SET value = ? WHERE subDomain = ?''',(value,subDomain))

db.commit()

db.close()

[dcnewrick]

As an update to artsandbeauty's original message in 2012 it is February 2015 and we are experiencing exactly the same problem. Our thanks to artsanbeauty for raising this serious problem.

We have had this problem recur today on a Windows 8.1 Intel i5 processor machine with 8gb RAM and no known issues other than this one. A PDF file is opened in Acrobat Pro, it stays on-screen for around 20-30 seconds, then Acrobat pro closes without any error message or warning and will not open any documents or visibly load up again despite selection individually. No error messages appears, no response is given by any Adobe suite of programs to suggest what may be causing the problem.

This is now the third time this has happened since installation in August 2014 with a full licence as part of an Adobe suite and appears to be an on-going situation which seems unlikely to change.

The 'repair' facility in Programs and Features stopped working with error code '6' and closes without carrying out a repair. We will not, as standard and strictly observed policy, under any circumstances disable an anti-virus program to install or un-install a program - please provide a solution that does not require several work-hours or huge resources.

[Andrew_Russell]

Thanks for this fix.  It worked:

Doesn't launch after 30 days | Installed as part of a CS6 suite

Acrofix.zip

But, "Dear Adobe Staff", Patches are a poor substitute for Prevention!  

I've had no end of recurring monthly issues when I go to open PDF's with Acrobat Pro over the last year (Approx. Aug 2014 - Feb 2015).  Please perform a Risk/Controls Review and a Root Cause Analysis to pinpoint the points of failure in your User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and Regression Testing practices.

I secretly suspected "Creative Cloud Paradigm Shifts", as my licensed versions alternate between:

1. Quietly not working.  (Double clicking PDF's doesn't launch anything - Installer built-in repair options do not remdey)
2. Trial Launch screens that show 32,000+ Days remaining in Arial Bold.  (Aug 2014 to Dec 2015)
3. Trial Launch screens with two-digit flip counters  like minutes on a 1950's analog clock (Jan 2015 - Feb 2015)

I don't know how many times I've entered my key -- only  to have my registration data discarded, see the app return to Trial, or do nothing when I open a PDF.  I could dismiss an occasional issue as circumstantial, but even as an end-user, it's not hard not see the Pervasive Pattern of Launch Issues which has emerged over 2014-2015.

Whatever the problem, I hope the competing Adobe maintenance teams  (Traditional Acrobat & Creative Cloud Developers) can stop stomping over each others updates, file watchers, and software versions.  Adobe needs to step up their "Regression Testing" game.   I suspect it has something to do with an internal Adobe paradigm struggle between "Creative Cloud" licensing and remnants of the traditional "Master Suite" license holders like me.

It would be nice if installed Adobe Applications just "Kept working" since I paid a premium Nuisance Fee to buy the software outright and "excuse myself from all the hassles of Creative Cloud Versions".

I know I'm probably becoming a dinosaur, but I just want to buy my software outright, so I don't have to worry about leasing fees and credit card expiration. I deal in cash and prefer to live debt free -- which likely a foreign concept to younger developers, users without savings to purchase premium software, cloud advocates, and designers who like subscription-based models for recurring residuals.