210093 - Acrobat 6.0 plugin erratic behavior (display, save); plugin is unremovable

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 147309

(Core Graveyard :: Plug-ins, defect)

Description

[Mitchell Gusat]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.4b) Gecko/20030507
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.4b) Gecko/20030507

Acrobat 6.0 installs correctly - itself and its browser plugin, with the default
settings to *enable* browser plugin operation (no initial option given by Adobe).

Problems and severity:
Moderate 1a. Preference settings changed via CTRL+K inside Acrobat have no
impact; enabled or disabled, the Acrobat plugin is always enabled in Mozilla -
it will intercept and display all pdf within the browser. 

Moderate 1b. Editing Mozilla's prefs for helper apps has no impact; I added,
deleted and edited the 'pdf' type with no impact. Plugin always enabled.

Moderate 1c. A zombie process AcroRd32.exe (30MB) remains active after the
closing all the files. This zombie was already reported in Forums.

Minor 2. Screen refresh (PgDwn) leaves garbage - rarely.

Minor 3. "Save a copy" may block w/o any apparent cause - always. [Possible
cause: the current pdf file isn't fully downloaded yet; neither is it reporting
its state -> frozen window.]

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. install Acrobat 6.0
2. try to disable plugin via ctrl+K, Internet settings
3. try to disable plugin via Mozilla's Helper apps for pdf
4. close all files and look for AcroRd32.exe process

Actual Results:  
Acrobat plugin is always enabled, independent of any settings in Acrobat and
Mozzila.

Expected Results:  
Disable the Acrobat plugin and --if so configured-- display PDFs in external
window (call external app.)

I read the Forums wrt. to Acrobat plugin and had prior experience with manually
removing the Acrobat5 DLLs from Netscape plugins; it doesn't help here. 

Power users in universities and labs commonly choose "external app. window"
instead of the limiting plugin. The plugin is unacceptable for demanding users,
because the plugin is (I) synchronous (can't have multiple pdfs downloading in
the background, all lauched from a single page), (II) wasteful of display area
(even on 1600x1200 TFT) and, (III) missing Acrobat's Reader full functionality.

Comment 1

[sbusch]

Using WinXP, and Acrobat 6 professional, I always hang when I click on PDF
document (1.4 20030612). I had 0 problems with Acrobat 5.

Comment 2

[David Jackson]

I see the same "hanging" behavior as comment #1 with Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U;
Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.5a) Gecko/20030630: i.e. load pdf into a browser
window and see only a blank Mozilla window.  Acrobat, not Mozilla, seems to be
the software that is hung.  Mozilla continues to respond, but Acrobat Reader 6.0
never gets to the point of loading its splash screen in the empty Mozilla
window.  Reader 5.1 works perfectly with this version of Mozilla as with
previous versions.  

Comment 3

[Tom Allen]

I am experiencing the same problems noted above with Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U;
Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 (and the latest Firebird build) on
a Windows XP Home (SP1) platform.

One additional observation: If I launch the AcroRd32.exe (Adobe Acrobat Reader
6.0) process with MSIE (6.0.2800.1106.xpsp2) then the process seems to "behave
better" with Mozilla (i.e., Mozilla doesn't hang)--even if MSIE is subsequently
closed (note that the AcroRd32.exe process continues to exist as a zombie with
MSIE as well as Mozilla). 

Also, if I launch Acrobat Reader 6.0 as a standalone application (this, of
course, launches the AcroRd32.exe process as well), the process does not hang
when I later open a PDF file in Mozilla. The difference is that closing the
standalone application kills the AcroRd32.exe process, while MSIE (like Mozilla)
leaves it running as a zombie. 

So maybe the hanging behavior has something to do with how the process is
created/launched. 

(Hope it's OK to post here. I'm new to bugzilla.)

Comment 4

[Tim Johnson]

I've got Moz 1.4 on Win XP. I installed Acrobat 6 the other day, and now
whenever I click on a PDF link, the Acrobat plug-in starts to load, sometimes
finishes, but the page is never rendered. Instead Moz freezes using a ton of CPU.

Comment 5

[pwinthrop]

Any news on this bug?  I'm running 20040519 on WinXP Home SP1 and I have the
same problems.

Comment 6

[jesse]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Using WinXP, and Acrobat 6 professional, I always hang when I click on PDF
> document (1.4 20030612). I had 0 problems with Acrobat 5.

Same issue here.  Using WinXP Pro and acrobat 6.01 pro.  running Mozilla 1.7

Comment 7

[Rob Jaworski]

I'd like to hear updates from the reporter(s) on how things work now that
Adobe's released Version 7.

Comment 8

[Ajay Gautam]

Nice. I am not the only one **** of at acrobat plugins. I came searching for a way to uninstall acrobat plugin for firefox. I would much rather prefer to launch the PDF download from download manager.

How do I get rid of the plugin.

Firefox freezes for a few minutes everytime I click on a PDF link (Intentionally or unintentionaly). Acrobat plugin sucks. Its overly bloated, installed without my permission, and I would like a way to get rid of the plugin.

Firefox works fine after the plugin had finished loading.

Ajay

Comment 9

[WADA:World Anti-bad-Duping Agency]

DUP of Bug 147309.