Greg's Technical Blog

Adobe 9 freezes Internet Explorer 8

Recently I have been working with a client who utilizes a web application from Ameripath called Physician Web Portal.  This portal is used for reporting results of patient tests in PDF format.  The PDFs are viewed within the browser when the report is opened.  I encountered a problem with the application on a new laptop that I setup for the client where viewing the reports would freeze IE8.

Relevant system details:
Windows XP Pro SP3 (OEM installed)
Internet Explorer 8 version: 8.0.6001.18702
Adobe Reader 9.3.0

I spoke with the Ameripath's support team and they initially told me that the application was not supported in IE versions later than 6!  However, after further investigation, I received a call back and I was informed that an upgrade had added support for IE7, 8 and Windows Vista/7.  This meant there was something wrong with the laptop in question.  After successfully testing the Ameripath application on my own laptop (XP Pro SP3, IE8, Adobe 9.3.1)  and successfully testing the application on the Ameripath tech's system (SP3, IE8, Adobe 9.2) I was lost as to why this new laptop was causing me problems.

Other steps taken:
-reset IE8 to full defaults
-disabled all IE8 add-ons/extensions

When tweaking settings in IE and Adobe didn't help I decided to fully uninstall Acrobat 9.3.0 and reinstall it.  After I uninstalled Acrobat 9.3.0 I changed my mind and installed 8.2.0 instead.  I found the MSI for this at this link. Once I had Reader 8.2.0 I launched the Ameripath web application and to my great surprise it worked flawlessly!  Thinking that maybe the initial 9.3.0 install had been damaged, I upgraded from 8.2.0 to the 9.3.1 package.  After restarting and retrying the application IE8 again froze when viewing the PDF report.  I also considered uninstalling IE8 but was not able to do this because it was installed as part of SP3 at Dell.  I wanted to roll back SP3 as well but found no efficient way to do that either.

So... the final fix for this issue?  Uninstall Reader 9.3.0 and install 8.2.0.  I haven't tried incrementally upgrading to see how close to version 9 that I can get.  I just don't have the time or the patience to do that!  I cannot determine why the Ameripath application works with IE8 and Acrobat 9.3.1 on my system but does not work on the client's system.  The only difference is that the client's system had OEM installs of Windows XP, SP3 and IE8.  My system has been slowly updated over the years as these updates have come out.