6 Replies Latest reply: Sep 10, 2014 1:39 AM by HaydnWVN RSS

    Protected Mode Performance Issues

    floydwall Community Member

      Hello,

       

      Starting around the first of this month we started receiving reports of workstation performance issues. We quickly identified Adobe Reader as the culprit. The issue is that the two processes, AcroRd32.exe, do not end when the application is closed. We've seen examples of these processes taking 20-50% of CPU utilization.

       

      This issue is occurring in both Adobe Reader X and XI.

       

      We found no correlation in regards to system updates/patches and when this issue was first reported.

       

      After much troubleshooting, we determined that disabling the 'Protected Mode' feature "solves" the issue.

       

      My question: have any others encountered this issue recently? Any other suggestions outside of disabling this feature? (Our security team is, understandably, hesitant on rolling this "fix" out on a larger scale).

       

      The workstations impacted are all running Windows 7 64bit.

       

      Thank you all in advance for any assistance.

        • 1. Re: Protected Mode Performance Issues
          Anoop9178 Adobe Employee

          Hello,

           

          Please enable the 'Protect Mode' again and collects the protected mode logs.

          Then, based on the logs place a 'Custom Policy' file in your environment and then check the issue.

          Please refer to following link to collect logs and creating custom policy:

          3   Protected Mode — Acrobat Application Security Guide

           

          Regards,

          Anoop

          • 2. Re: Protected Mode Performance Issues
            floydwall Community Member

            I've enabled 'Protected Mode' logging and have a log file to review.

             

            There are numerous STATUS_ACCESS_DENIED entries - how is one able to determine if the access restriction is a legimate function of 'Protected Mode', or if it may be the cause of the symptoms I've described?

             

            Thank you

            • 3. Re: Protected Mode Performance Issues
              Kshakti Adobe Employee

              Hi floydwall,

               

              Please send me the process monitor and Protected Mode broker logs.

              You can send me them as a private message.

               

              Steps to take process monitor logs:

              1. Download process monitor from Process Monitor
              2. Launch Reader and enable protected mode at startup. Close Reader
              3. Launch procmon.exe
              4. Now reproduce the issue.
              5. Save procmon logs as {anyname}.pml file
              6. Send the saved log file to me.

               

              Thanks,

              Shakti K

              • 4. Re: Protected Mode Performance Issues
                pwillener CommunityMVP

                I'm not sure if Private Messages allow attachments; also procmon logs can be very large.

                 

                Better use this method http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1408375 and send the link via PM, or post it here in the forum.

                • 5. Re: Protected Mode Performance Issues
                  aric911123

                  Any update on this issue?

                   

                  I was having the same issue.

                  Win7 64-bit

                  Adobe XI

                   

                  Disabling the 'Protected Mode' feature solved the issue for me. However, I do not want to keep that feature disabled.

                   

                  I did try the ReaderMessages fix that was discussed on other forums. One thing did notice was that if.....

                   

                  1) I deleted the ReaderMessages file in the C:\Users\<username>\AppData\LocalLow\Adobe\Acrobat\11.0 folder

                  2) Ended all adobe reader processes

                  3) Opened Adobe reader (Which recreates an empty ReaderMessages file)

                  4) Shut down Adobe Reader before it added content to the ReaderMessages file (10 to 15 seconds)

                   

                  .....the issue would not occur. It wasn't until the ReaderMessages file was populated with new content after application start-up that the error will occur when the app is shutdown. Essentially, if you can reader your doc in 10 to 15 seconds you won't have an issue.

                   

                  Thanks

                  Aric

                  • 6. Re: Protected Mode Performance Issues
                    HaydnWVN Community Member

                    We are experiencing this problem also, a couple of machines affected - Windows 7 32bit and 64bit out of a workgroup of 65.

                     

                    Reader XI with all updates.

                     

                    Have made the Readermessages change and testing it now, these couple of users only see the problem once or twice a week on average.

                     

                    Will do the above steps if things continue and collect the procmon logs.