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How to disable Adobe Updater on Mac

2008, March 5 - 09:09 — müzso
Whenever I open a PDF in Adobe Reader 8, the Updater kicks in in the background and most of the time it would never exit. I just opened a PDF (no problem there) and after I quit from Reader, I wanted to trash the PDF file. However Finder told me no go since some app is holding on to that file. It turned out to be the shitty Updater. Enough is enough, I turned to Google to get rid of that.

I've found two solutions:
  • You can use the Adobe way described in one of their knowledge base articles. For me it worked to edit the ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Updater5/AdobeUpdaterPrefs.dat file and disable automatic updates.
  • You can disable the execution of the Updater (by the Reader application) alltogether. Go to your Applications folder in Finder, right-click Adobe Reader and open the "Get Info" dialog. Uncheck the Updater plugin in the Plugins list and you're all done. This is the best option if you just want to disable Updater for the Reader app.

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2008, March 6 - 23:40 — Greg Haines (not verified)

I am so sick of Adobe Updater!

Thanks for the tip. Adobe Updater is ridiculous!

2008, March 30 - 04:33 — müzso

Adobe Updater consumes 100% of the CPU capacity

After reading various posts on the topic, it seems to me that some versions of Adobe Updater consume all system resources (both CPU and memory) if they cannot connect to the update server. This can be caused either by firewall settings or other network configuration problems. Eg. I have experienced the issue, when I had a proxy set up in my network preferences. In my case it was a PAC file (Proxy Automatic Configuration) and it worked in Safari, but Adobe Updater seems to have problems with it. Anyway ... disabling the proxy settings Adobe Updater tried and succeeded to connect to the update server directly and the 100% CPU utilization issue was gone.

2008, June 2 - 21:27 — __Tango (not verified)

Proxy was the problem

I had a .pac file setup as well. Removing it made the problem go away.

Unfortunately, i need my proxy file most of the time.

I found this article at adobe: http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=331931

It basically says that the updater doesn't work with an authenticating proxy, however i'm not using an authenticating proxy. I'll investigate more and see what i can come up with.

Thanks.

...alex...

2009, January 27 - 08:42 — tsooname (not verified)

Proxy exception

Thanks for this article! I put an exception in the proxy settings to bypass the proxy for adobe.com. Works like a champ now.

2009, January 28 - 01:21 — müzso

Re: Proxy exception

You're welcome. Smiling

2008, April 2 - 01:54 — goldenbear (not verified)

Thanks for the tips

The subject line says it. Smiling

2008, April 20 - 18:42 — RJ in Toronto (not verified)

You are my hero for the day!

That pesky Updater has been a thorn in my side for months now ... thanks so much for the invaluable tip!

2008, April 20 - 20:21 — müzso

Re: You are my hero for the day!

You're welcome. Smiling

2008, May 17 - 22:18 — Tanya Matson (not verified)

Adobe Updater

I just purchased CS3 Standard. My problem is every program I open (Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign) automatically opens the Updater and every time the Updater unexpectedly quits and I get an error message. I can hit "ignore" and move on, but it's just something I have to go through each time I open a program.

I tried trashing the updater but it keeps reinventing itsself. I tried a repair install. No go. An uninstall and reinstall of all the software. No go. Downloading the CS3 Clean script and wiping clean the Adobe files at both level one and reinstall and level two and reinstall. Nothing.

The Updater just keeps coming back with the inability to open but keeps on trying.

Anyone else have this problem???

Tanya

2008, May 18 - 10:21 — müzso

Cleaning preferences?

It's not enough to remove the Updater app itself. Did you clean up the Updater preferences too?
There're two instances of it:
  • system wide preferences at /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Updater5/*
  • user preferences at /Users/<your_user>/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Updater5/*
You could try this:
  • remove all adobe apps with their own uninstaller (if any)
  • remove Updater at /Applications/Utilities/Adobe Utilities.localized/Adobe Updater5
  • remove Updater's prefs from the two locations mentioned above (including the Updater5 directories)
  • install CS3
  • start a CS3 app (eg. Photoshop) and if Updater starts and no visible window is displayed, then wait til Updater fails and exits
  • start Updater from Photoshop's menu (Help / Updates) manually, this should bring up the Adobe Updater window (and the Updater is shown as a separate app in the Dock)
  • select Preferences and uncheck the checkbox "Automatically check for Adobe updates" in the top-left corner
Hopefully this solves your problem.

P.S.: not all of the above steps are completely necessary, but without knowing exactly what's going on on your Mac I could only come up with a complete procedure

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