Accessibility begins at home

I may have a 'smoking gun' -- you folks tell me.

Vista SP2 downloaded last night and installed this morning. Was hoping that 'something' got fixed so that thie problem would go away.

Good news and bad news.

Bad news first: While everything was still fresh, I turned on Magnifier, and then tried to open 6 PDFs using File>Open in Acrobat Pro 8.1.5. Got the same 'Content Preparation Progress' dialog from Acrobat, followed by the same 'Adobe Acrobat 8.1 has stopped working' from Vista, as before.So, I decided to try relaunching Acrobat (which, after this failure, was risking a hard system hang on SP1).

This time, on a whim, I first turned Magnifier OFF.

Here's the good news: Acrobat launched just fine, and to my surprise, opened the very same 6 PDFs that had choked it just moments before. No 'Content Preparation Progress' dialog this time -- just 6 open files, as God intended.

So I closed all 6 files, leaving Acrobat open, restarted Magnifier, selected the same 6 PDFs using File?Open, clicked [Open], and it's 'Content Preparation Progress' and 'Adobe Acrobat 8.1 has stopped working' all over again.

Here's some even better news: I turned Magnifier OFF again, relaunched Acrobat (!!!), and opened those 6 PDFs without a hitch.

Turning Magnifier back on turns the problem back on. I've replicated this 6 or 7 times in a row now.

Anyone else see a correlation here?

In case anyone who can decipher such stuff is reading, here are 2 Problem Reports from this failure mode. The first is from yesterday morning (running Vista Home Premium 64-bit SP1):

Date & Time 05/31/09 17:39
Problem Stopped working
Status More information available
Problem Event Name APPCRASH
Application Name Acrobat.exe
Application Version 8.1.0.137
Application Timestamp 46444c82
Fault Module Name MakeAccessible.api
Fault Module Version 8.1.0.137
Fault Module Timestamp 464447ab
Exception Code c0000005
Exception Offset 0005b1c1
Exception Data
OS Version 6.0.6001.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID 1033
Additional Information 1 fd00
Additional Information 2 ea6f5fe8924aaa756324d57f87834160
Additional Information 3 fd00
Additional Information 4 ea6f5fe8924aaa756324d57f87834160
Files that help describe the problem
Extra information
Bucket ID: 446549687

...and today (running SP2);

Date & Time 06/02/09 08:45
Problem Stopped working
Status More information available
Problem Event Name APPCRASH
Application Name Acrobat.exe
Application Version 8.1.0.137
Application Timestamp 46444c82
Fault Module Name MakeAccessible.api
Fault Module Version 8.1.0.137
Fault Module Timestamp 464447ab
Exception Code c0000005
Exception Offset 0005b1c1
Exception Data
OS Version 6.0.6002.2.2.0.768.3
Locale ID 1033
Additional Information 1 fd00
Additional Information 2 ea6f5fe8924aaa756324d57f87834160
Additional Information 3 fd00
Additional Information 4 ea6f5fe8924aaa756324d57f87834160
Files that help describe the problem
Extra information
Bucket ID: 446549687

To save myself some scrolling and squinting, I pasted these two problem signatures into Excel and entered a formula to compare the columns.

To the letter, all but TWO values were unchanged: OS Version (Duh) and Bucket ID.

Colonel Mustard, in the Study, with the Magnifier...

Additional observations:

Was able to get rid of the 'Content Preparation Progress' dialog by telling the Screen Reader to 'Only read the currently visible pages'.

HOWEVER -- am able to HAVE multiple PDFs (e.g., the 6 mentioned above) OPEN in Acrobat with Magnifier running -- PROVIDED that they are OPENED ONE AT A TIME. Selecting even two and clicking [Open] crashes Acrobat.

I tried duplicating your issue with my system. I'm currently running windows Vista SP1 with adobe acrobat 9.1 pro. I haven't been able to duplicate it yet. I am able to open multiple sessions of adobe inside the firefox browser and also adobe by itself. Also, I've opened multiple PDFs with the magnifier function set to ON. Of course, I'm opening these sessions one at a time. How do you open multiple sessions simultaneously? Can you elaborate? thanks

So there's a ray of hope that my issue with Acrobat Pro 8.1.5 and Magnifier [b]might[/b] be eased by upgrading to 9.1. That's an expensive "fix" for a problem with such an easy workaround -- and no doubt is the remedy Adobe would prescribe, but to date I do not see adequate benefit/cost to upgrade.

My issue [b]isn't[/b] with Acrobat Pro 8.1.5 being used as an add-on or plugin by a web browser, although 8.1.5 does [b]not[/b] support being used by a browser or Quicken (and will tell you so) if the Acrobat application happens to have an open dialog. Why Adobe doesn't delegate such inherently read-only tasks to AcroRead.exe instead of Acrobat.exe is beyond me.

I'm not certain I understand what you mean by "multiple sessions," which suggests to me multiple instances of the Acrobat [b]application[/b] running concurrently. I have never seen more than one instance of [b]Acrobat.exe[/b] in the Task Manager process list, or more than one Acrobat entry on the Vista Taskbar (unlike, say, Excel, Word or IE).

Having multiple open PDFs in Acrobat isn't the issue -- it's whether those PDFs were opened [b]one at a time[/b] (which still works for me) or opened [b]together[/b] (which does not).

Specifically, if I try to open two or more PDF files by:

1. Choosing [b]File > Open[/b] from the Acrobat Pro 8.1.5 application menu, then selecting multiple PDFs in the [b]File[/b] dialog (by Ctrl+clicking filenames or checking the boxes next to them) then clicking the [b][Open][/b] button; OR2. Selecting multiple PDFs in Windows Explorer and pressing [b][Enter][/b] or right-clicking and choosing [b]Open with Acrobat 8[/b]...

...then I get the 'Acrobat 8.1 has stopped working' dialog.

Interestingly, just now as I was checking whether this behavior had changed, Acrobat managed to launch (via method #2 above) and open 2 PDFs just long enough for me to check the [b]Window[/b] menu and see two entries -- before the Data Execution Prevention balloon emerged from the System Tray announcing that Acrobat 8.1 had been shut down.

hehe we all love microsoft :) ... i use (at home) ultimate vista 64 bit with acrobat 8.1.6 and have no problems but i agree with you that it would be a very expensive "workaround" if you have to upgrade to solve that problem.

Actually, I give a lot more credit to Microsoft for admitting shortcomings in their products (and trying to DO something about them) than I do to Adobe.

The Help file for my 9-year-old Microsoft mouse is more helpful (full of thorough explanations, well-indexed and keyworded, with links to related topics) than the 'Complete' Help for Acrobat 8.1.6.

Typically you have to know the EXACT terminology used by Adobe or your searches come up empty. Example: 9 hits for keyword 'underline' but ZERO hits for 'underscore' (not even so much as a 'for underscore see underline' glossary entry). Given all the printing/pressroom terminology thrown around by Distiller, you'd THINK that there would be SOME mention of a term Google finds over 10 times as likely (13.4M hits vs 1.2M) to be found near 'printed' as 'written'...

The Help files and Knowledgebase Adobe offers are anemic by contrast to Microsoft's. One could make the argument that MS products REQUIRE such extensive support, and there's some merit to that argument -- but the fact remains that Microsoft chose to roll up their sleeves and PROVIDE it, whereas Adobe did NOT.

I used to be more impressed with what seemed relatively bulletproof-by-design Adobe apps, but Acrobat Pro 8.x shattered that. Even on XP it did NOT assign Adobe Reader as the default PDF viewer, so Acrobat Pro's single-mindedness would NOT interfere with, say, Quicken opening a PDF attachment while Acrobat had an open dialog.

Now, with Vista HP64 running on a quad core CPU, Acrobat 8.x STILL cannot manage to do more than one thing at a time -- and where 8.1.3 used to just be stubborn, now 8.1.6 crashes (which may be as much Vista's fault as Acrobat's -- but that's the pletform Adobe's writing for, so DEAL with it, folks!

GOOD NEWS! Between Acrobat 8.1.7 and the various VIsta updates, no more crash when opening multiple files.

And one of Acrobat Pro's aggravating features (Quicken won't open a PDF attachment if there's an open dialog in Acrobat) can be used to WORK AROUND the "cannot access the file because it is being used by another process" Catch-22 in Quicken:

1. Open (and LEAVE open) an Acrobat dialog (File > Open will do fine);
2. Open the Quicken transaction with the PDF attachment;
3. Smile as Quicken explains that it cannot open the PDF (because of the open dialog);
4. Click [Delete] on the Attachments dialog. Bye-bye!

Beats the pants off opening Task Manager and killing the Acrobat.exe process (which was the published workaround)!