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Sometimes Acrobat Reader won't show up in a browser. This lately happens to me when I click a Web page link to a PDF, time passes, and the browser status bar announces "Done", but no Reader is visible and the PDF isn't open. Or the browser freezes, the pointer-and-hourglass cursor shows up, clicking browser buttons does nothing, and I see no PDF.

This happens after I once succeeded in reading a PDF in the browser; the first time is okay but never again once I leave Reader and it exits, unless I reboot. When the browser freezes, invoking End Task is necessary, to exit the browser so I can start it again, but still Reader won't open.

Solution:

Use End Task (control-alt-delete) to end task for an entry like "Acrord32 [Not responding]" or simply "Acrord32" (your wording may vary with different versions of Acrobat Reader but don't end some other task that might have a similar name). Repeat. I found that I have to end task twice for one instance of Acrord32. The message saying nothing's responding, and asking if you want to wait and see what happens or end now, will appear after the second ctrl-alt-del End Task.

If the End Task list shows more than one instance of Acrord32, end task twice for each one. Thus, if you've tried to start it up four times and it's in the list four times, End Task 8 times.

I don't know whether you have to restart a browser after that or if you can use an already-open browser, but, whichever way works, then clicking a Web page's link to a PDF should open Reader and the PDF with no problem.

After that, you might have to repeat the process. When you finish with the PDF the second time around and Reader has supposedly left town, look in End Task and see if Acrord32 is still listed. If so, do the above procedure. If not, and if you start Reader again but it doesn't show its face, try End Task twice and you should be okay.

The above was based on my experience with a Win98SE Intel 64MB RAM Pentium II Compaq laptop platform running the Firefox 1.5.0.7 browser and Reader 5.1.0, which are the latest for Win98SE.

I may not have had the problem until recently. If so, I don't know why it started now.

AMD, the processor makers, mention this or a similar problem on their website. AMD says it has to do with a cache, and that it affects the plug-in, rather than the standalone Reader. My impression of past experience is that once I can't open Reader in my browser I can't open the standalone installation either, but I haven't tested that with regard to opening PDFs I've already downloaded.

Invitation: Please add clarifications, additions, corrections, and changes to this procedure.

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Nick