Windows 11 bluescreen error "unexpected kernel mode trap" when opening PDFs from server in Adobe Acrobat?

Question

On network machines running Windows 11, when opening certain PDFs stored on a network server in Adobe Acrobat, the Windows 11 machine will immediately bluescreen :( and display the error message "unexpected kernel mode trap". The machine must then reboot. Not all PDFs cause this issue, only 1-3%. The PDFs don't seem to share any characteristics other than being created on a Mac. The issue has not occurred for any other file type.

This error will not occur in the following scenarios:

• If the same PDF is opened on the Windows 11 machine in a program other than Acrobat.
• If the same PDF file is copied onto the local machine before opening.
• If the same PDF is opened on another network computer running Windows 10.

I have tried:

• Updating Acrobat
• Updating Windows 11
• Checking for any driver updates.

Recreating the problematic PDFs seems to solve the problem, but I'd like to avoid these random reboots. Any insights would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Hi, I am Dave, I will help you with this.

Please check to see if your PC is producing any minidump files, I will check those to see if they provide any insight into a potential cause of the system crashes.

Open Windows File Explorer.

Navigate to C:\Windows\Minidump

Copy any minidump files onto your Desktop, then zip those up.

Upload the zip file to the Cloud (OneDrive, DropBox... etc.), then choose to share those and get a share link.

Then post the link here to the zip file, so we can take a look for you.