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Some help appreciated :)

IgloooNOR
Registered: Jan 22 2008
Posts: 7

Hi!

Some customers of the company I am employed,
in are experiencing some trouble concerning Adobe Reader 8.0 (std. edition).
They upgraded it from 7.x version and now when they try to open up
pdf files, they turn up blank. As if there are not anything in them.

First I thougt it possibly could be some software related on their end,
but when I tested a .pdf file,
on a test computer in my testing environment it had the same result.
Whenever I try to open up the same .pdf file in a version below 8.0 it works.
And I tried to download some other random .pdf to test a bit more,
but they work splendid.

I can also add that they have been using "Cutepdf Writer" from time to time and before that they used a application named "Uniprint".

And to use a rollback to a former version is out of the question.
I have tried to be in touch with customer support at adobe.
Trough mail and phone, but I could not dig up anything related.

I can also add they are using Windows XP SP2, along with citrix mainframe.
But the citrix is not the cause of this
(because then it would have worked in my testing environment).
So last chance for me, anyone here had experience with this problem before?
And I apologize for not giving so much info up-hand. But I am under strict company policies, so if you want more information. Ask a question, and I can see if I can dig up answers for you. :)

Very much appreciated
//Iglooo

My Product Information:
Reader 8.0, Windows
lkassuba
ExpertTeam
Registered: Jun 28 2007
Posts: 3636
Does the blank page occur when viewing PDFs in a browser? Can user's open a local copy of the PDF in their browser? When you updated from version 7 did you remove the previous version? Most often "if" conflicts occur it's in the web integration and PDFMaker macros when you have multiple versions of Acrobat installed. Here is a guide to several troubleshooting tips for this issue:
http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=328233&sliceId=2

Lori Kassuba is an AUC Expert and Community Manager for AcrobatUsers.com.

IgloooNOR
Registered: Jan 22 2008
Posts: 7
Hi, I have told the guys down at the Terminal Server department to take a look, and to perform a re installation of the software.

I will come back with their feed if it works / fail.

//Iglooo
IgloooNOR
Registered: Jan 22 2008
Posts: 7
Hi !

I can now say that it's not a conflict between two versions.
I have re-installed a TS server, and tried with different users(Only adobe 8.0 installed).
But it won't seem to work.

But any version below 8.0, e.g. 7.x is working splendid.

//Iglooo

EDIT: The PDF files that is.

I can add, that the distribution of Adobe 8.0 is custom made(trough the custom application to make mst files for Adobe Reader). But I don't think this is the case, since it is in use by other companies as well, and there it is working with no problems at all.

I am leaning more towards it can be a spesific software wich has been used to create the pdf files with.
As mentioned they have been using Cutepdf Writer and Uniprint.
I will look around and try to dig up anything related to those two softwares.

But I am curious, the file I have been given to trouble shoot with is a 7.0 document,
but when I have downloaded random pdf files wich also is a 7.0 document they work without any complications at all on the 8.0 version.
IgloooNOR
Registered: Jan 22 2008
Posts: 7
I'll just make a quick bump to see if anyone got anything on this subject?
I haven't found anything worthwhile yet.
lkassuba
ExpertTeam
Registered: Jun 28 2007
Posts: 3636
It is possible that the HKCR\AcroExch.Document registry key is damaged, is pointing to an obsolete version of Reader, or is pointing to a third-party PDF viewer (as you mention). Have you tried fixing this? Details for repairing this are in the technical note listed above.
Also, do you have any problems opening local copies of PDFs in your browser or just PDFs on the web?

Lori Kassuba is an AUC Expert and Community Manager for AcrobatUsers.com.

IgloooNOR
Registered: Jan 22 2008
Posts: 7
Firstly, thanks for taking time.
I am really appreciating it.
:-)

lkassuba wrote:
It is possible that the HKCR\AcroExch.Document registry key is damaged, is pointing to an obsolete version of Reader, or is pointing to a third-party PDF viewer (as you mention).
No, then it would have worked on a freshly installed VMWare image.
Wich it does not, sadly.

lkassuba wrote:
Have you tried fixing this? Details for repairing this are in the technical note listed above.
Also, do you have any problems opening local copies of PDFs in your browser or just PDFs on the web?
I have problems, whether I am opening them trough the web, browser or just opening them up on a local installed machine(the above mentioned freshly installed XP on VMWare, with Adobe Reader 8.1.1).

So the choices as to what is causing this, is more or less in my theory the PDF files themselves.
dthanna
ExpertTeam
Registered: Sep 28 2005
Posts: 248
IgloooNOR - What you are experiencing has little (nothing) to do with with your PDFs and has everything to do with the interaction of Acrobat/Reader 8 and CITRIX.

Between A7 and A8 Adobe revamped, to some extent, the rasterizer system in the product. The rasterizer is what takes the instructions contained in the PDF and transmits that information to the GPU (through the OS) on the running machine.

This decision was made to greatly increase the performance of rendering 'rich media' documents - beyond just fonts - on the target device.

CITRIX is nothing more than a fancy, schamcy, screen-screen scraping time sharing system. That being such, anything that is writing directly to the hardware is writing to the GPU of the video card of the box that CITRIX is installed on. As such, it is bypassing the scrape and redisplay that CITRIX provides.

Suggestion - dig through the Preferences - Specifically, Page Display and 3D. Turn of any items that may enabling hardware graphics accelleration and / or writing directly to the hardware. For example - Resolution - may be set to Custom - set it to System Setting., Smooth Text - Turn it off.

Under 3D - Preferred Renderer - Set to Software, shut off hardware rendering for legacy cards, etc.

It may take several tries to get it correct.

Hope this helps.

Thanks.

Douglas Hanna is a member of the Production Print Technology team at Aon.
www.aonhewitt.com

IgloooNOR
Registered: Jan 22 2008
Posts: 7
Thanks for the time and reply.

But as I have stated before, this problem occurs also on a freshly installed client, with only Adobe 8.1.1 installed, and that client has no connection nor installed anything related to CITRIX whatsoever.
So as you replied, will this GPU setting, etc. Still apply?
Or was that specific for the way between Adobe/Reader 8 & CITRIX?I will try the suggestions you posted on the same test computer.
And report back on how it goes.

Eventually, if you would have the time,
could I possibly send you a copy of the pdf file(EDIT* there are several in question, but only one would suffice)?
To see if you get the same problem?

//IgloooNOR

EDIT: Just in from a local test with a freshly installed machine(not a VMware image), and with 8.1.2 version. Problem still persists.

EDIT2:
So, a colleague of mine.
Came with this back to me, translated:
Visible-Application-OS-platform

Yes-Envince Document Viewer-Linux Ubuntu 7
Yes-Adobe Reader 7-Windows XP
No-Adobe Reader 8-Windows XP
No-Foxit Reader 2.2-Windows XP
No-Foxit Reader 1.3-Windows XP
No-Adobe Acrobat 8-Windows Vista Ultimate
No-PDF-Xchange 1.0-Windows XP
Yes-xPert PDF Reader 2.0.50-Windows XP
No-Haihaisoft PDF Reader 1.0.0.2-Windows XP
No-Sumatra PDF-Windows XP
Yes-PDF Reader 2.4. 0.0-Windows XP
Yes-CAD-KAS PDF Reader 2.4-Windows XP
Yes-Cool PDF Reader 1.0.0.64-Windows XP
Yes-Adobe Acrobat 7 Standard-Windows XP

EDIT3:
I am now positive that there must be a attribute in one of the Generic PDF writer software they are using.