Acrobat failed to connect to DDE Server

[CMeisinger]

I have a user who is unable to open any PDF's using Acrobat Reader X he has the latest version and is using Wind

ows XP SP3.  When he tries to open any PDF he gets the error "Acrobat failed to connect to

DDE Server" any help with this is much appreciated!

Thanks,

Chris

[TheShea]

I am getting a similar error - and I wasnt working with a PDF - I was using Filezilla to transfer files and two identical DDE erros pop up seemingly randomly - I will try and figure out how to replicate the error.

I dont seem to have any problem opening a PDF normally tho - I have Reader X and recently installed 9 Pro.

[JeffyVinters]

Take the updates. That should fix the issue.

[TheShea]

Been observing the error for a while and I regularly get two of the errors pop up for no seeming reason whatsoever.

The Error occured durring a spybot rootkit scan.

eight times

in the.

hklm software classes - keys.

Left the machine alone to watch a movie and eat after that scan - and the error occured 27 times!

Hasnt been happening so much in the last two weeks.

I did notice that even tho I ran the 'check for updates' thing and it says there are none - that there are several updates available here at adobe - so I am downloading them and isntalling them manually. I will report if the error recurrs after the updates - seemes to have worked for Peter.

Check the version of Acrobat you have and it should be 9.5 - if not - something is stoping the update.

[AllDayDev1]

Hi Shea,

Note that the 9.5 update is a full installer, which means you could uninstall your existing installation of Acrobat or Reader 9, and then just install 9.5 directly.

I know there are sometimes issues when you have to install a base version, and then update it (e.g. 9.3 > 9.4 > 9.4.1, etc.), and not having to do so usually mitigates installation-related problems.

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=10&platform=Windows

[TheShea]

Yo Carey! ( guess what I gots - An Acrobat 9 Pro ACE )

Well, I have reader X installed.. but that is neat to know. So the troubleshooting path here seems to be..

1. Verify update status of the software.

2. Verify that active security policies are not interfering with the software.
3. Check if the problem happens in another user profile.

Hehe, we have two different scenarios here actually.. in my case the error is simply appearing. I dont have to be using PDFs or have either Reader or Acrobat running - which means the fast laucher / acrotray software is capable of generating the error. In other cases certain PDFs are failing to open, and in others the entire system is not launching..

Here is a thought - since the DDE naming conventions were changed in the Acrobat X would it be possible that the error is arising from having 'nonsanguine' versions of Acrobat and Reader? Say you have acrobat 8 but you recently installed Reader X - the behind the scenes program naming conventions are now different, but the systems are attempting to use the same resources. Perhaps this is the reason the problem is occuring? Obviously some sort of permissions issue is involved.. or changing security policies wouldnt do anything.

@All - is anyone experiencing the error with Acrobat X and Reader X installed?

[Guest]

I'm pretty peeved. This "security update" pops up scaring you into installing the update to 9.5, only to find out that a) Adobe Pro doesn't work anymore b) reinstalling this 9.5 update again can't even  select my version of Adobe 9 to update agaain (probably b/c its already updated) c) Adobe version 9 and older owners have to pay extra to chat with somebody to find out what the hell happened.

I'm running an older Mac 10.4.11  Could this have been the reason that this 'update' can't run on my machine?  I'd just linke to turn back the hands of time.

[TheShea]

Something obviously went wrong durring the installation of 9.5 - running an update is certainly not *intended* to stop you from using the product. What the hell happened is there was a permissions or resources issue - or a software conflict on you system when you ran the updarte. That is what the hell happend Ksub

You could speak with Apple care and they would probably be able to get you through the uninstall and reinstall of the software - which is most likely what will have to happen at this point. You should also ask them about basic preventative system maintenance. I assume you were getting the DDE server error and this is what prompted you to run the update?

Intruiging.. its happening on both Mac and Win - well - You *were* getting the DDE error prior to or now that you have installed the update?

Do you have Reader X?

Message was edited by: TheShea

[Guest]

No I don't have Reader, b/c Acrobat does everything reader can do. I just uninstalled and reinstalled my "older" Acrobat 9.0 so things are back to normal.  I'm going to ignore all call for any "updates" on my Acrobat

[ConnieVanceKingery]

I am having the exact problem. or when I try to open, it goes to the "buy Adobe screen" and will not allow me to open, unless I open in another tab!

[GDT-IT-Dept]

We have been getting the "Fatal Error: Acrobat failed to connect to DDE Server." message for quite some time without any consistent way of making the error happen.

We have six VM Citrix servers running Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard v6.1.7600.1, Microsoft Dynamics SL v7.0 Feature Pack 1 - Professional Version 7.03.40312.01 (7.0.0.0), Adobe Acrobat Standard X v10.1.2.  We use Kaspersky AV 6.0 for Windows Servers for our Endpoint Protection.  Users use Citrix to run Dynamics from their local machine and when creating PDFs with BullZIP PDF, it will open PDFs in Acrobat Standard.

This was happening when we had Acrobat Standard v9 as well.  We tried uninstalling and reinstalling Acrobat to see if that would fix it, but no joy.  We tried upgrading to Adobe Standard X to see if that would fix it, no joy.

Reading on these threads, to turning off Protected Mode,  The instructions say to Disable Protected Mode, you go to Edit > Preferences > General and deselecting Enable Protected Mode at startup.  However, when I get to that window, there in no check box for this.

Any other thoughts?  We're going crazy...

[Guest]

I can't say for sure this will solve your problems

But we solved the problem today for a customer, by simply starting the two services on the machine:

Network DDE DSDM

Network DDE

In that order.

I hope that helps.

[artank]

In Adobe Reader XI (probably also in X), the option Enable Protected Mode at startup is located in Edit > Preferences >Security (Enhanced). It seems that in my case it was necessary to untick Enable Enhanced Security to get rid of the error message "Fatal Error: Acrobat failed to connect to DDE Server."

[BrentZact]

this worked for me on my fresh first time install of adobe cc on a new machine that included acrobat pro dc

[johnt58065029]

I got a new  computer with Windows 10 in January.  I downloaded my Adobe cS6 with Acrobat 10 Pro.  Since then have had to download to Adobe software 3 times to get Acrobat working.  Randomly, in the middle of a "save as a pdf" from Illustrator, the acrobat quits working and I get a Fatal Error, Failed to connect to DDE server message.  i am not a computer tech, and I can't understand half of what is on this forum, just would like some simple, detailed help in getting the stupid program to work so I can open my files and hopefully avoid uninstalling and then reinstalling the entire CS6 package.  Please.

[streffj27037157]

Hi,

Just thought of contributing to this post as I had the problem of "fatal error no connection to DDE server" I read a lot and non of the post gave me a solution.

My error started when I did a update of Windhows, and it was only after I did a search for the keyword "DDE"  with the tool called Agent Ransak (that is really great!) I found out that there was a few "install.res.1028.dll" (from 1028 to 1042) coming from a VCI_Red.MSI update (and all that is related to it), I deleted them and Adobe Acrobat DC started working again normally.

You can find these "install.res.1028.dll" (from 1028 to 1042) normally in c: / system.

Hope it works for you, as this drove me crazy for a few weeks.

[iepias]

Hi, I have problem in combining multiple files into single pdf. It seems to be hanged forever and finally pops an error window "Fatal Error - Acrobat failed to connect to a DDE server". Does anyone know how to solve it??

Acrobat version: 9.5.2

Windows 7

[Test Screen Name]

Do you have something called "Symantec Endpoint Security". I just did a search and found some mentions that this stops stuff from working.

[iepias]

No, I didn't. Finally I uninstalled and went back to Acrobat Pro 9.0.0 and it worked fine. So I suspect that the problem is due to some problem in version updates.

[Guest]

Here is the situation:

The user will be fine opening and printing to PDF. 

Suddenly: When opening a PDF or attempting to print to PDF the message:

"Fatal Error - Acrobat failed to connect to a DDE server"  I have users experiencing the exact same message only in Citrix (never on a local machine).  The issue is intermittant.  We are using Adobe Acrobat Professional 9.5.1.  We do not have Symantec Endpoint security enabled. Back leveling to 9.0 is not an option.

Any suggestions would be appreciated!!

[YuvrajShinde071]

Hello,

We were successful to resolve the issue for Acrobat X by navigating to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\acrobat\shell\open\ddeexec\application and changing the Key "AcroviewA10"  to  "AcroviewR10.

try to change the similar key for Acrobat 9.

Please export the registry before making any changes to it.

If you face any issues, contact our chat support  at http://helpx.adobe.com/contact/

Thank you,

Yuvraj.

[ScottBonacker]

The suggested solution of modifying the registry key worked for my installation as well - Win7x64, Acrobat Pro XI 32bit

When initially installed the upgrade from X there were no issues. Then installed PaperPort 14 and began having trouble where the Nuance product insisted on being the primary app for PDF's in MS Office products and IE9.

Resolved that by repairing the Acrobat XI installation.

Then found that could no longer double click on a PDF and open it, or drag the file to the Acrobat window and open it. Could only open a PDF file from within Acrobat XI.

Editing the registry key as described resolved the problem of not being able to directly open a PDF.

[sachaweb]

Changing the registry key was not an option for me as it was already ending with R10, not A10.

Any other suggestion?

Could this have to do with installing PDFill (PDF manipulation software)? I installed it recently but it didn't cause problems until now.

Greetings,

Sacha

[Mizvickey]

That was the fix for us!  Thank you, Yuvraj - Great Job!

[debr73558017]

This fixed the problem.  Thank you.

[melindabelle]

Changing the registry key worked for me! I had almost decided to just uninstall it, but I use it too much. Thanks!