A common issue that is happening frequently at the moment is customers complaining that Adobe Acrobat PDF is slow to open or frequently becoming unresponsive. This can be in Acrobat DC, Acrobat Pro or other versions of the Adobe Acrobat series.
To assist everyone in self resolving this problem follow these instructions to solve the issue:
Step 1:
Actually Reboot! (every user swears they rebooted 10 times today already but its almost never the case when support checks the situation).
Some users do Shutdown but this does not work – You need to choose Power Button then ‘Reboot’ and check in your ‘Task manager’ under the performance tab that your ‘Up Time’ really is only a few minutes not over 7+ days.
You can also open task manager by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del > select Task Manager > Performance (left side square icon with heartbeat inside) > CPU (default) > check the ‘Up Time’ at the bottom.
Step 2:
Start by doing this test: Turn off the protected mode by going to – Edit > Preferences > Enhanced Security >Uncheck ‘Enable protected mode at startup’, Turn off the protected mode and uncheck the enhanced security > Click Okay and then Reboot the computer.
Note: Turning off the security may possess security risks, please turn on the security after testing.
If turning of the security works for you, please try to add the file and the folder path to the Acrobat whitelist.
Go to Edit > Preferences > Enhanced Security > Add file and Add folder path > Click OK and reboot the application.
For more information please look at the help page https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/protected-mode-troubleshooting-reader.html
Step 3:
If the above two steps didn’t work then check the free space on the hard drive (hopefully its at least an SSD) and make sure its over 20Gb.
Check ‘Task Manager’ again and make sure nothing else is causing a high CPU usage or high DISK usage or for any overheating with a tool like Argus Monitor
You could also try to disable any Anti-Virus or VPN service that might be causing an issue.
If all good checks out up to this point – try to do a clean Adobe install by following these instructions:
https://helpx.adobe.com/download-install/kb/uninstall-reinstall-acrobat.html
Download the ‘Cleaner Tool’ at the bottom of the page and let it clean off the Adobe install properly. Then reinstall.
