FAMOUS ERROR: There was a problem reading this document (8)

[AffordableParalegal]

There is a discussion of this issue two years ago with no answers/soluitions. 

The problem results from working with a new form.  After adding fields and filling in the form the size of the file balooned to 9 MB.  I needed to add one more field so I was going to go into edit mode but I had to save the form. I got this error message instead. 

Discussions in the forum here had 7 replies and ended two years ago with no further discussion.  This is by the way while using Adobe version (10.1.8).

I have a work-around that worked. I sent the document using the SENDNOW feature and then once I received the email with the form attached I was able to save the file. I have nio idea why it worked but it does.  No one suggested this and obviously no one without an account at Adobe can do this but it is a partial solution.  No one has opined on the cause or any other correction so I hope this helps.

[Dave Merchant]

The reason there's no single solution is because error 8 is a totally generic message - it simply means there is something corrupted in the PDF file's data. Could be any one of thousands of possible causes.

As a side note if a PDF form suddenly grows to a huge size, it invariably means that you've chosen a typeface for one of the form fields that's equally enormous. Arial Unicode is the prime culprit on Windows - unless you need the full international code pages, swap to Helvetica instead.

[AffordableParalegal]

Thanks Dave, but I referenced the previous links because that is all information made known.  In my case the Helvetica was the only font used however, I reduced the size in certain fields to make it more readable in some of the fields. What I have not seen is an explanation for why you can send the file via Adobe's SEND NOW feature and receive a file that can be saved.  Something must get stripped out that was causing the problem but, as you point out, it could be anything of thousands of things.

From what I saw, there were people having this problem as often as 80% of the time.  None of them stated they tried doing this. SHAME on Adobe for allowing this bug to continue for two years with no solution (other than the one I found).

[Test Screen Name]

SendNow doesn't strip out anything when you send a PDF. So clearly the problem is that the email is damaging the file. This can be caused by email programs themselves, by virus scanners or company's autosignature systems, or a variety of other causes. That email is a bad way to send files - because they can get damaged - is well known, famous even. 9MB is certainly too large for most people to email, it can cause severe problems to send large attachments to some people.

[AffordableParalegal]

Thanks for the continued reply Dave.  However, just so we are clear, using SEND NOW eliminated the problem. 

The file was corrupt before I sent it vian Send Now and after I sent it I was able to save the file. I have no qualms whatsoever with the email send; it was the fact that after creating a form from a form I received (I was not the originator), filling in data, and reducing font sizes, that the modified Adobe Form became, in essence, unusable because it would not allow me to save it.  After I emailed it, I was able to save, edit, make corrections, save it again and print it out.

[Galaktican]

Thank you AffordableParalegal for your workaround.  Unfortunately, that did not work in my case.

Even Adobe personel has to admit it seems silly that I can open the file, but, when I make a change and try to save it the error says Adobe can't read the file.

I can't recreate this document, it was supplied to us.  What should I do?  Print to paper, rescan, reOCR and recreate all the bookmarks?

When I attempt to save this pdf as a "Press Ready PDF" I get "The file 'PreflightLib.dll' is missing or corrupt.  Does that change anything at all?  Does that give another clue?

I'm using Adobe Acrobat XI - 11.0.5

[AffordableParalegal]

Might have something to do with original format of document. In my case it was my document that I saved and wanted to modify but it would not let me.

Interestingly Adobe first said it was "caused" by the email process but that made no sense because the error was before I sent the document and had nothing whatsoever to do with email prior to my emailing it.. So the help Adobe provided was a crude attempt at confusing the situation but I can assume they just hadn't had their java beans that morning.

Once I did email it, the document became editable again. Why this happens is apparently not understood by Adobe (nor me) so, I am sorry, but I have no other information to add

[andrejcook]

It is now March 2015 and I just realized from the thread above that this issue was already posted two years ago. So I have to assume this bug is apparently over 4 years old…  WOW, and I am shocked that Adobe is still ignoring this is a generic problem with what is supposed to be the international standard for electronic documentation. How many millions of dollars do you still need to make to get a developer to look at this and fix the issue forever?

I have followed the instructions above to see if I could resolve my situation but nothing worked for me as described. I even tried saving my file as a word doc to see if could save my hours of work that way. Even though it doesn't give me an error it also doesn't save the word doc to the location specified. It does absolutely nothing, not even an error message. What I really don't understand is why when I initially created this form two weeks ago it worked completely fine at the time , but yet when I now re-open the exact same document and added more fields it fails to say with error (8).  This bug has no logical reason for appearing. I even removed the same fields added, just to see what would happen. Still getting the same error. Doh. I even removed certain field values which had spaces between them thinking that it might resolve the problem but the issue remained.

PLEASE PLEASE Adobe can you allocate some of your Creative Cloud Cash (CCC) and get this issue resolved for everyone so we can continue to enjoy your software. Clearly the form editing in Adobe Acrobat 11.0.10 does not work. There are a ton of information about this on Google so I am just amazed at the bad press this is creating for you. Do you not care?  Help us out already.

Thanks,

[cobrion1]

Here's a work around:

Print as PDF

(Properties, dropdown menu, choose PDF/A)

Print

Save

[briank052403]

Ok, this topic is old, but here we go. I got the (8) message and here's how I worked around it. Got to File- Export- Image- jpeg. Save the jpegs to the desktop (assuming you have more than one page). Go into Adobe and select TOOLS. Then select CREATE. Drag all of the pieces into Adobe, follow the prompts, then save it as whatever file name you want.

[Aldis5C49]

In our case there was concern of saving also comments which were added to the document which was downloaded from system who prepares reports in PDF.
Our solution was saving as optimized PDF and it saved whole documents without error.

[Lisa27440125qr7k]

Here we are, 9 years later, and I had this happen to me today. The pdf was sent me from a trusted outside person. I googled to find a fix and came across this post. After reading through this thread, I went back to my pdf and decided to do File, Save as Other, Optimized PDF, on the next screen, I didn't change anything, just clicked OK. It saved and when I go back to open it, it opens. Be interested to know if this works another time for someone. 

[kuhnami]

I recently had this error on a government form and the only thing I could do was to digitally sign the document (I had been trying to print so I could physically sign). Try doing a digital signature in Adobe.

[davidl56516759]

It happens to me all the time. Maybe there really is a bona fide reason, maybe not. But it should be concerning to the United States that the standard for all of its documents, and the global PDF standard, has such an error. Adobe runs the signing certificate trust system... how does that reconcile with this persistent error? And saving as or pulling pages from the PDF into a new documentL: that is ridiculous and insulting. Let's say one has a 500 page PDF with bookmarks? I would surmise that what we are seeing here is the begining of the end of the PDF format. Or of America's flagship standard. This error has plagued me for so many years. And yet no* other PDF editor suffers that same error: none that I have used. 

[Shannon321395462vmu]

Thank you for this solve Lisa.  This worked for me.

[Deb3000]

October 2023, Adobe Acrobat Pro 2020. Same problem! I used to get this occasionally with older versions and now, the newest version.

I have a 5603-page document that has many bookmarks and hyperlinks. It was saving fine. Now it won't save any. way. I. try. to. save. it. I certainly do not want to print to PDF, export to JPEG or Word, or anything else. I can't send it via email, primarily because it's too big, and secondly because you can't send the PDF before you save it first, regardless, that errored out. 

Then, it said, there is an error, I couldn't read all of it because Adobe just closed. Which was a good thing, because when I opened Adobe back up, it asked if I wanted to open a recovered file. Well, of course, I do. So at that point, I was able to save it as a different name.

So that was Adobes, save a document that won't save, process.