Outlook crashes when interacting with PDF attachments.

Question

I'm an IT professional, and I've noticed in the last few days that several clients in different environments on different versions of windows are having this issue. They are all using Office365 (which would be Outlook 2016.) When they view an email in the preview pane (or open the email in its own window) as soon as you click on the attached PDF file outlook turns white and freezes. I have to manually close out of Outlook through Task Manager. I have tried updating Acrobat Reader, Windows, and Office 365 all to their most recent versions, as well as completely uninstalling and reinstalling all of the applications (save for windows.) I've even created a new outlook profile for the users experiencing the issue but it's still happening. On some of the affected machines safe mode will allow it to open (and then I tried eliminating all add-ons) but still have the issue. On others the issue still occurs in safe mode. It has occurred on Windows 10, 8.1, and 7.

Anyone else running into this issue, and have you found any solutions for it?

Answer 1

Hello MINISEA,

Have a good day. Thanks for your post in forum.

Regarding your description, for this issue, kindly try to fix the issue kindly try to fix the issue by repairing Outlook data file. Because sometime if the data file is corrupt or damage, outlook may be freeze. So, kindly try to repair outlook data file and check the result. For repairing outlook data file, kindly refer this detailed article: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/repair-outlook-data-files-pst-and-ost-25663bc3-11ec-4412-86c4-60458afc5253

**Note:**Before repairing outlook data file, kindly take backup of outlook data file, see How to back up an Outlook data file.

If the issue still persist, for further help, I need to collect below information from you.

1.               Could you please provide us detailed screenshot of your outlook desktop client version? For knowing outlook version https://support.office.com/en-us/article/what-version-of-outlook-do-i-have-b3a9568c-edb5-42b9-9825-d48d82b2257c

2.               Does this issue happened with all PDF attachment or specific PDF?

Regards,

Darpan

Answer 2

Hello MINISEA,

If you need any other information or help, please feel free to contact us with updated result.

Regards,

Darpan

Answer 3

Online repair of office has been done, as well as completely uninstalling and reinstalling. Also uninstalled Reader, same thing.

Answer 4

Office 365 is not OL2016

Adobe Reader is not required to read pdf attachments, Office 365 can open/create pdf docs natively

You would need to state what com add-ins are shown, whether active or not.

In the meantime you can uninstall Adobe Reader and then repair Office 365