Error accessing online Help content in Acrobat X

Issue

When you access Help in Acrobat X, you receive the following error: 

"Online Help content cannot be displayed. Verify you can launch your web browser and have access to the Internet."

Solutions

Solution 1: Make the Help contents available offline.

  1. Install the Adobe Community Help Client (CHC) from  http://www.adobe.com/support/chc/chc-5i/en_US/AdobeHelp.air.

  2. Choose Start > Programs > Adobe Help.
  3. Open the Preferences dialog box in the CHC.
  4. In  the Download Preferences pane, select Adobe Reader X.
  5. In the Local Contents pane, select Using Adobe Reader X under Download/Update.
  6. Follow the instructions in Disable Internet access from CS5 Community Help Client for system administrators (cpsdi_84992) to install the offline Help content.

The CHC updates the helpcfg files first, after the initial installation of CHC. Close and restart the CHC client once or twice to get the Acrobat/Reader X Help downloading option to work.

Solution 2: Access online Help directly in a browser.

Go to http://help.adobe.com/en_US/acrobat/pro/using/index.html. The 'en_US' part of the link takes you to the English Help file. Replace this locale with a different locale to go to that language version of the Help. For example, to go to the French version of the Help, replace en_US with fr-FR (http://help.adobe.com/fr_FR/acrobat/pro/using/index.html).

You can find a list of available locales at C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\HelpCfg. The folder names in the HelpCfg are the names of the locales.

Solution 3: Download the PDF version of the Help.

Download the PDF version fo the Help from http://help.adobe.com/en_US/acrobat/pro/using/acrobat_X_pro_help.pdf

See above for how to obtain different language versions of this PDF. For example, to go to the French version of the Help, replace en_US with fr-FR (http://help.adobe.com/fr_FR/acrobat/pro/using/acrobat_X_pro_help.pdf).

Solution 4: Windows Only - Registry Fix (for 10.1.4).

Update to Acrobat/ Reader 10.1.4 and create the registry entries mentioned below. Enabling the registry forces Acrobat/Reader to open the default Help page on the system browser when it can't access the Adobe Help server. As an example, if Acrobat/Reader Internet access is blocked by a proxy server, it opens the default Help page in the system browser (that could have the proxy setting and can access Internet). It doesn't pop up the network error message. A downside is that Acrobat/Reader no longer can show the network error message. It has a limitation detecting whether the Internet access is blocked by a proxy server or a real network problem. If it's a real network issue (for example, cable disconnection), the browser shows a HTTP 404 error.

 

Acrobat.
32 bit Machine
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\10.0\FeatureState] 
"3179427"=dword:00000001
64 bit Machine
 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\10.0\FeatureState]
"3179427"=dword:00000001

Reader.
32 bit Machine
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\10.0\FeatureState]
"3179427"=dword:00000001
64 bit Machine
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\10.0\FeatureState]         
"3179427"=dword:00000001

Additional information

Acrobat X uses a new Help client to display the Help contents. If this client is prevented from checking online, it returns an error.

An authenticating proxy can block the Help client. Currently the Help client is not compatible with authenticating proxies.

 Adobe

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