Collect logs when Acrobat/Reader DC crashes or freezes

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When Acrobat/Reader DC crashes, freezes, or hangs, you can create a process dump that helps debug the cause. The process dump is a snapshot of the application at the point when it crashes or freezes.

  • Crash - A crash is when the application or the system stops working and then closes.
  • Hang/Freeze - A hang or freeze occurs when either an application or the system ceases to respond to user inputs.

Collecting logs when Acrobat/Reader DC crashes

If Acrobat/Reader DC application crashes frequently, crash logs are required to help diagnose the issue. Crash logs contain information about what the app was doing preceding the crash. 

On Windows

You can collect the crash logs using any of the following methods:

After Acrobat/Reader DC crashes, the Crash Report dialog is displayed. Click Send Report.

Crash Reporter dialog on Windows
Crash Report dialog on Windows

If you don't see the Crash Report dialog, you may have selected an option to not show the dialog. To show the Crash Report dialog, follow the steps below and set the preference:

  1. Click Start > Run.

  2. Type cmd, and then click OK.

  3. In the command prompt, type the following command, and press Enter.

    REG ADD HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\CommonFiles\CRLog /v "Never Ask" /t REG_SZ /d 0

  4. Choose Yes, if you are prompted with a message  Value Never Ask exists, overwrite(Yes/No)?

Crash dumps are not enabled by default on Windows. Enabling this feature requires administrator privileges. Below are the steps to enable and collect Acrobat/Reader DC crash dumps. For more information, see Microsoft | collecting user-mode dumps, or contact Microsoft support.

  1. Quit Acrobat/Reader DC application if it's already running.

  2. In Start > Search, type RegEdit and press Enter. The Registry Editor is displayed.

  3. Back up the Windows Error Reporting key:

    1. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\
    2. Right-click the Windows Error Reporting key.
    3. Select Export and save the .reg file on the desktop.
    Backup the registry key

  4. Create LocalDumps key.

    1. Navigate to the location HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting
    2. Select the Windows Error Reporting key and create a new key named LocalDumps if it is not there already:
             1. Right-click Windows Error Reporting.
             2. Select New and then Key.
             3. Name the key as LocalDumps.
    Create LocalDumps registry key

  5. Create registry values in the LocalDumps key. Select the LocalDumps key and create three registry values as mentioned below:

    • DumpFolder registry value
            1. Right-click on the blank area on the right side and select New > Expandable String Value.
            2. Name it as DumpFolder.
            3. Double click it and enter %LOCALAPPDATA%\CrashDumps in the Value data field.
    • DumpCount registry value
             1. Right-click on the blank area on the right side and select New > DWORD (32-bit) value.
             2. Name it as DumpCount.
             3. Double click it and enter 10 in the Value data field.
    • DumpType registry value
              1. Right-click on the blank area on the right side and select New > DWORD (32-bit) value.
              2. Name it as DumpType.
              3. Double click it and enter 2 in the Value data field.
    Local dumps key

  6. Launch Acrobat/Reader DC and perform the steps to reproduce the crash. When Acrobat/Reader DC crashes, the crash dump file is saved to the %LocalAppData%/crashdumps folder with the software name.

  7. In Start > Search, type %LocalAppData%  and press Enter. Go to CrashDumps folder. Send the Acrobat.exe.dmp or AcroRd32.exe.dmp file to Adobe support.

On macOS

You can collect the crash logs using any of the following methods:

When Acrobat crashes, a warning dialog is displayed that says, “Acrobat Pro DC has quit unexpectedly.” The crash report is available to read immediately when you click the Report... button.

Acrobat crash

The Adobe Crash Report dialog is displayed after the above warning dialog. Click Send Report.

Crash Report dialog on macOS
Crash Report dialog on macOS

The Adobe Crash Reporter collects a log of what the application was doing preceding the crash. It uploads the information into a database that Adobe engineering team uses to analyze crashes and develop solutions. Adobe Crash Reporter is an invaluable tool that helps the Acrobat engineering team to track and fix the crash-related bugs.

Note: Do not confuse the Adobe Crash Reporter with either the Apple or Microsoft crash reporters, which do not send any information directly to Adobe.

If you don't see the Adobe Crash Reporter dialog, you may have selected an option to not show the dialog. To enable Adobe crash reporter, do the following:

 

  1. Cmd + click the Acrobat/Reader DC application icon, and choose Show Package Contents.

  2. Choose Contents > Frameworks > AdobeCrashReporter.framework.

  3. Cmd + click the alias named AdobeCrashReporter, and then select Show Original.

  4. Double-click Adobe Crash Reporter.
    Note: It is a red A app icon. Do not confuse it with the black AdobeCrashReporter UNIX executable file.

  5. Choose Always Show This Dialog, and click Done.

     

The crash report can be found in the Console application.

  1. Open the Console application. Go to Application > Utilities > Console.app. Alternatively, you can type Console in Spotlight and press Enter.

    Mac Console

  2. In the left-pane, click User Reports, and then click the crash report you want to view. All the files end with .crash extension. The filename includes the name of the crashed application and the date. The details of the crash report are available in the right-pane.

    User reports

    A. User Reports B. File name C. Details 

  1. The diagnostic reports are located at ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/. To open the folder, type the location in Finder.

  2. Send the Acrobat/Reader DC related log files to Adobe Support.

Collecting logs when Acrobat/Reader DC hangs or freezes

If Acrobat/Reader DC application hangs or freezes frequently, application dump files are required to help diagnose the issue.

On Windows

When Acrobat/Reader DC hangs or freezes, create a dump file to save program information. The dumps are useful for further debugging the issue. Take two to three dumps at different time intervals when the application hangs/freezes so that it captures the complete snapshot while it is in the unresponsive state.

  1. Open Task Manager. You can right-click an empty area of the taskbar, and then click Task Manager or use the keyboard shortcut CTRL + SHIFT + ESC.

  2. Click the Processes tab, and then find the Acrobat/Reader DC process. For Acrobat Professional/Standard, the process name is Acrobat.exe, and for Reader it is Acrord32.exe.

  3. Right-click the Acrobat/Reader DC process, and then click Create Dump File. If you are prompted for an administrator password, type your password and click Continue.

    Create process dump

  4. The Dumping Process dialog will display the location of the dump file once it is created. Note the location and click OK. The location of the dump file is \Users\{UserName}\AppData\Local\Temp.
    If you are unable to see the AppData folder, see how to show hidden files and folder in Windows.

    Dumping process

  5. Compress the created .DMP file to .zip or .rar and share the file with Adobe Support using Adobe Document Cloud or a SharePoint location.

Note:

For more information, see how to create a user-mode process dump file in Windows.

On macOS

  1. Go to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor.

  2. Click on the Acrobat/Reader DC process you need to sample. Click the gear icon, and then click Sample Process.

  3. Wait until the sample is created. Save the document on your desktop.

  4. Open Terminal by going to Finder > Applications > Utilities > Terminal. Type the command:

    sudo spindump -file ~/Desktop/spindump.txt

  5. The spindump.txt file is saved to the desktop. Collect the sample file in step 3 and the spindump.txt file and send to Adobe Support.

Send detailed information to Adobe

The following information is required when you submit the logs to Adobe Support:

  • Provide a detailed description. If you can consistently reproduce the problem with specific steps, list the steps in detail. Even if exact sequence of steps is not known, provide as much detail as you can about what you were doing when the problem occurred.
    For example, what operation were you performing when the problem occurred? What type of document were you using? Did you recently use any plug-ins? If the problem is specific to a particular file, feel free to share the file via Adobe Document Cloud, Adobe Creative Cloud, Dropbox, or some other file sharing service and include a link to the file in the problem description.
  • Include your email address. Engineering team might want to contact you to collect more information, or the team can notify you of a fix or a workaround via email.
  • Always send crash reports to Adobe. There is a preference in Acrobat to Always send crash reports automatically to Adobe.

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