Any "Webmasters" on the board?

[Horse]

I've been fighting with our webmaster for over a month on this.

It only happens with IE. Yes, I know it doesn't with FF.

Here lies the question:

Why does acrord32.exe OR acrobat.exe launch in the background (check your task list before and after you hit the page and when you close IE) when you hit this page:

Dallas County Home Page

There are links on the page ref: pdf files, but I don't see in the source why acrobat launches just by hitting this page.

When you exit IE, Acrobat/Acrobat reader is left resident in memory and reeks havoc on some machines @ shutdown. But this is a by-product of the original flaw....why does that page launch acro in the background when using IE?

I left page code back @ frames :laugh:

Prize pack for a code solution.

 

[mysterea]

Hey Mark,

So I did a little bit of messing around..
This is on a Windows XP SP0 install, hardware specs shouldn't matter. Adobe Reader 6.0.1.
I want to show you what happens on this machine when I hit that page with the following browsers:

FireFox v 1.5.0.12

Internet Explorer v 6.0.2600.0000

Here's what my task manager looks like with a pdf open:

That being said, since I'm not 'up to date' this may be a different 'testbed' than what you're looking for. It's extremely possible that this issue only happens with one version of Internet Explorer, or Windows (less likely)

Either way, I hope I've narrowed down the issue, if you need any more tests etc give me a shout.

Cheers,
Rob

 

[moki]

I checked the code -- there's nothing embedded in the HTML code that needs a PDF viewer to display.

My only guess is -- and this is truly disgusting if accurate -- would be that IE parses the HTML code, sees there are some PDFs linked to, and launches acrobat just in case you click on one of them.

It's gross, but I've seen worse from IE. It is quite bad as a standards-complant browser.

In any event, I don't see why a process left running would have any impact on shutting the computer down? Sounds like there might be an issue with the configuration.

 

[JHolmes763]

I notice the same thing happening with IE7, but no idea why. The only guess I have is along the lines of what moki said. IE7 is probably prefetching the links on the page and preparing to have Adobe Reader ready for you if you happen to click on a link. Firefox does prefetching, too, but maybe not for PDF files?

I ran Fiddler, an HTTP debugger for IE7, and it confirmed there are no hidden requests for PDF files. You see every request for the .js and .gif files, even an SSL connection to another site, but no PDF...

I loaded some other pages that linked to PDF files in IE7, but none of them loaded AcroRd32.exe.

---John Holmes...

 

[Horse]

The vast majority of the machines are running xp sp2 and IE6 with all updates.. We've avoided IE7 as it's not been fully tested with a bajillion online apps. Yes there is a config problem on a few machines and we're fixing them as they're reported.... but I still want to know why this page launches acrobat in the first place on our machines dernit :laugh: (it launches on all of mine @ home as well)

The parsing thing... I've thought about that... and if I send IE to another site with pdf links...it's not launching acrobat.

The CIO decided to push group policy forcing the home page... so simply changing where the machines are pointed to ... is not an option.

Thanks for the input guys.

 

[Wurm]

I checked the code -- there's nothing embedded in the HTML code that needs a PDF viewer to display.

My only guess is -- and this is truly disgusting if accurate -- would be that IE parses the HTML code, sees there are some PDFs linked to, and launches acrobat just in case you click on one of them.

It's gross, but I've seen worse from IE. It is quite bad as a standards-complant browser.

In any event, I don't see why a process left running would have any impact on shutting the computer down? Sounds like there might be an issue with the configuration.

That is exactly what is happening... and when you go to shut off your Windows XP computer, it cant shutdown the AcroRd32.exe and you get a error message that you have to click on before the computer can shut itself off.

This happens with both XP SP2 and IE7 as well. I've never had the problem while using Seamonkey (Mozilla)

And Horse, its not just that website, its any website with .pdf links. And the thing that will really drive you nuts is that it doesn't happen every time.

 

[Horse]

Yeah, the error comes from good ol' Dr. Watson which was in turn caused by acro. Oh well, the best I can do is try and convince him to send pdf links off to other pages and clean up the home page. Yeah right...this guy's behind a locked door somewhere in the county and doesn't have his phone number published in our listings. Smart feller. :sign:

 

[preembargo]

I have to use that site everyday, pm me his name and I may be able to get you some contact info.

 

[StogieFarts]

Silly question but one I haven't seen addressed yet. Are you running the latest version of Adobe on your system? I know it seems not likely to be an adobe problem if this behavior only happens in IE, but it could also be that newer versions of Adobe address this issue with the browser.

 

[preembargo]

It still happens with Adobe Reader 8 installed.

 

[sonuvabum]

It seems to only be an issue with the Reader, not the Standard Adobe Acrobat product. I use Standard 6.xx and have not experienced this problem.

I monkeyed around with some settings in the Reader (Edit>Preferences>Internet), and there are some check boxes that determines the behavior of IE and Acrobat when IE is opened (Display in Browser / Fast Web View / Speculative Downloading). It looks to me that your only options for mitigating this problem lie in these settings. I'm pretty sure these are hive settings because the system ususally asks for a restart after making these changes. Also know that once a PDF is clicked on, you are back where you started with ACRORD32 processing then lingering after IE shuts down. Naturally, loading PDF's will become considerably slower with these setting changes.

I doubt this helps you much, but it seems to be more of an Adobe prob than an IE prob. I did read one place where Adobe will close on it's own after a few minutes. This problem was evidently brought to Adobe's attention but they don't seem to have done anything about it.

Gary

 

[tkoepp]

I have had a issue with Adobe crashing the system until the Acrord32.exe was killed.. found out it was all the temp files killing it.

Goto the Window\Temp, and D&S\localuser\localsettings\temp forlder and run >> erase acr*.tmp

Dunno if that helps but it works.

 

[AVB]

I haven't seen anything that would cause Adobe to load myself but you do have a few items that if cleaned up might help.
I don't see either of these on the page but it is in the script.

<!--span class="style13"><a href="media/foreclosurenotice.pdf" target="_blank"></a-->


<!--
<div align="left">
<p><font color="#333333">IN THE HEADLINES:<a href="media/burnban.pdf"> Dallas County Burn Ban </a> </font> </p>
</div>

 

[slowhand]

Two things are happening. The web page is obviously requesting it (I see several scripts in the code where it possible could be contained) but if you don't have access to that, nothing you can do there. However, since it as an active-x control, you can prevent it from loading - no problem -

Go into tools - options and then to manage add-ons under the programs tab. Find the acrobat program under active-x controls and select disable. I just tested it on IE7 and acrobat no longer loads when visiting your page where it previously had.

Edited to add - your page loads a bit quicker now. Enjoy.

 

[moki]

Two things are happening. The web page is obviously requesting it (I see several scripts in the code where it possible could be contained) but if you don't have access to that, nothing you can do there. However, since it as an active-x control, you can prevent it from loading - no problem -

Go into tools - options and then to manage add-ons under the programs tab. Find the acrobat program under active-x controls and select disable. I just tested it on IE7 and acrobat no longer loads when visiting your page where it previously had.

Anyone using Active-X in their HTML pages should be fired immediately anyway.