LiveCycle Designer ES4 crashes on Preview PDF

[mouslander]

I am running LiveCycle Designer ES4 sp1, with Acrobat DC and Windows 10. I can preview a pdf in LCD but it will eventually just crash. This is regardless of whether it is a file I've worked on or a brand new file. I believe I can reproduce it by switching to Preview PDF (first time it works fine), go back to design mode then back to preview PDF and it crashes. If I switch to Reader, I can work with files without a crash.

The message is:

Adobe LiveCycle Designer has stopped working

A problem caused the program to stop working correctly.

Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available.

I tried removing the AppData but that did not solve the problem.

UPDATE:

I have uninstalled Acrobat DC 3 times, cleared the AppData, removed fonts, however the problem still exists.

[radzmar]

I noticed exact same problem: Designer ES4 sporadically crashed under Windows 10 when switching the second time to the PDF Preview. Maybe it won't get fixed by Adobe as Designer ES 4 is older than Windows 10 and already has found its successor in AEM Forms Designer 6.x. Anyway, you should file a bug Feature Request/Bug Report Form .

[mouslander]

Thanks. I contacted support on it. I am just surprised that Acrobat DC crashes but Reader DC does not. I have not used AEM. how does it compare or replace designer?

[mouslander]

I think I may have figured out the problem. I went back to Acrobat XI from Acrobat DC and it also works without issue. Only DC seems to be the problem. I think it has to do with Acrobat checking to see if it is the default app. If that is checked to always check then it crashes LCD. I think this has to do with LCD and Acrobat DC not popping the message up properly within the Preview PDF window. I can't go back to DC right now so I cannot test my theory.

[radzmar]

At my end it happens on Windows 10 Pro with LCD ES4 and Acrobat XI. So it may not be only Acrobat DC.

[mouslander]

Currently I am using ES4 SP 1, Windows 10 Pro and Acrobat XI and it is working perfectly. I finally talked to Adobe Support and they said they would try to troubleshoot it for me but I have been tied up on a project and cannot switch back.

[michaelr4006269]

I have the same issue.Can you please explain how did you make it work?

[MinusZero]

I use ES2 and have periodic crashes for no reason.

I did discover a way recently though that makes it always crash.

In the form i am working on I have multiple pages with a mix of master pages. I have found that when i select multiple pages (with different master pages) by holding the control key, ES2 crashes.I was trying to make the pages hidden.

Took me years to see that.

[michaelr4006269]

The problem is solved by making Adobe Reader default for PDF view,however now the image on the top of the file is not shown.

[Mark_Strassman]

I can confirm this solution 3 years later. I don't know why I had this problem all of a sudden. It's not like I ever uninstalled Reader, and this issue just occurred. It is working now!

[MinusZero]

Pro doesn't play nice with reader though. I use the reviewing system and reader messes everything up.

[patrickc7338421]

Using Task Manger to end the acrotray.exe *32 and the previewing again worked for me.

I did not have to uninstall Adobe DC Pro.

[m_tirpak]

I've tried everything suggested in this string and nothing has worked. I still have the same problem. Crashes on the second preview attempt.

[ScottDM]

See my thread on preview problems. Are you using a network drive?

[m_tirpak]

@ScottDM Perfect, thank you.

[visioned]

Hi Radzmar,

You said that Adobe as Designer ES 4 is older than Windows 10 and already has found its successor in AEM Forms Designer 6.x, but this software is only to be used on large server environments. I don't use the Adobe Livecycle Server ES4 but design standalone smart pdf forms. I use Adobe Livecycle ES 4 (32 bits) on Windows 10 with Adobe Acrobat DC. Repeatingly Adobe Livecycle crashes now since the latest Windows update of last week.

Why is Adobe don't fix this terrible bug and let them made a 64 bits version for the time being until the end of life date for Livecycle ES 4 in the year 2023. This crashing is annoying. It will come up when previewing a pdf in Livecycle.

Why is AEM Forms not in a sort of lite version to continuing designing like Adobe Livecycle (interesting for small companies or companies and organisations who don't have a livecycle server edition or don't have the budget for that. I agree that AEM Forms is good for responsive html5 forms. I agree to that.

What do you think?

Please let me know.

Regards,

Ed Boon

Visioned.net

Forms architect

[jimm81164199]

I'm in the same boat. I have no server situation. I simply create interactive and dynamic forms with javascript snippets on objects. I haven't used LiveCycle for at least a few years (Win7/Acrobat Pro9) but picked it up again recently (same Adobe but now Win10). I tried to "PDF preview" and I keep getting an empty error message with nothing but a question mark and it crashes. No preview.

So...I right-clicked on the LiveCycle icon and chose "troubleshoot compatibility", then "try recommended settings". It applied Windows Vista SP 2 settings and I tested.  Preview now works and it then asked if I wanted to save the compatibility settings for LiveCycle, which I did.  It now successfully previews all of my PDFs from design screen.

[mattheww5225191]

Worked!!!!!!!!!! Thank you Jim!!!

[jmcgillen]

Matthew, just saw this today. Happy it worked for you! It can be maddening trying to hang on to old software in new OSs but that's what I will always try to do first!

[martynd4832568]

I also had this problem, but it only started a few days ago. Got my IT group involved, and they re-installed Adobe Reader XI on my machine, with the latest updates also installed. This was set as default reader, and it worked - I'm up and running again!

I was running Adobe DC 2017 - this is the one that went bad. They also tried DC 2019 - didn't work either. Using Windows 10 Enterprise.

Hope this helps.