Could you please provide us the permission of the OOBE folder.

You can run the 'ls -l ~/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe' command on the terminal to check the permission.

I have tried that, even using the root user. Nothing changes.

Had you tried below steps-

Quit the Acrobat and update the permission of the OOBE dir using the below command:

sudo chmod 777 ~/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/OOBE

After permissions are changed, try again to activate the Adobe Acorbat.

When trying to start the newest version of Adobe Acrobat 2017 for Mac OS on Catalina after logging in with the Adobe ID the Adobe Licensing Application hangs.

I also have the problem, none of the described steps worked for me. When is the May update coming exactly? Currently, Acrobat, which I bought for a lot of money, is completely useless to me.

Please quit the Acrobat and update the permission of the OOBE dir using the below command:

sudo chmod 777 ~/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/OOBE

After permissions are changed, try again to activate the Adobe Acorbat.

I have ran the command in the terminal (logged onto root), here's what came up:
total 8
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 6 19 Apr 15:03 .adobelicnotification
drwxr-xr-x 4 root wheel 128 29 Apr 18:51 AcroCef
drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 96 30 Apr 19:24 Acrobat
drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 96 19 Apr 15:05 LogTransport2CC
drwxr-xr-x 5 root wheel 160 19 Apr 15:05 OOBE
drwxr-xr-x 4 root wheel 128 19 Apr 15:05 RTTransfer
drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 96 19 Apr 15:05 Sonar
drwx------ 2 root wheel 64 14 Apr 2010 Updater6
Hope this is ok

@dkeenan922 could you please provide us the permission of the OOBE folder.

You can run the 'ls -l ~/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe' command on the terminal to check the permission.

I have tried all these steps and nothing works.

Hi All,

We are addressing this issue in the coming May release. Till then please switch to the below workarounds:

1. login into the root account and license the Acrobat from there.

2. Run the Acrobat as a superuser: sudo /Applications/Adobe\ Acrobat\ 2017/Adobe\ Acrobat.app/Contents/MacOS/AdobeAcrobat

3. Quit Acrobat. Delete the OOBE folder by navigating to /Library/Application Support/Adobe/
Launch Acrobat and sign in.

Had the same problem, hours with trying, got almost crazy! The sudo method helped, thanks to krikelpit!

MacOS Catalina 10.15.4. Same issue of blank screen on "Adobe Licensing Application", which started without data migration or system change a week ago.

After a frustrating week, I found this article and tried all three means:

1) "For that, you need to open the terminal and run the following command: sudo /Applications/Adobe\ Acrobat\ 2017/Adobe\ Acrobat.app/Contents/MacOS/AdobeAcrobat"
--- Did not solve the issue. A bunch of responses in Terminal but still get blank window.

2) "Quit the Acrobat.
Delete the OOBE folder by navigating to /Library/Application Support/Adobe/
Launch Acrobat and sign in."
-------- Did not solve the issue

3) [By Jeff in GA]
" had to create a "root user" account, then log out, log back in as "root" and finish the installation (i.e., license application) from there. I think that's the only way around the glitch in Adobe's install."
----------- issue went away.

Big thanks to Jeff in GA!

Please help us with the below information:

1. Acrobat version installed on the machine
2. Permission of the ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/OOBE
3. Steps to reproduce the issue

The procedure described here only leads to another hanging window and resolves nothing.
All is a waste of time!
The users of Acrobat should not have to endure this type of situations, it is Acrobat responsibility to resolve these issues.
And yes, this happens when I transfer form and old Mac to a new Catalina OSX Mac. Everything transferred fine except Acrobat.
After going t the terminal and following all steps I end up in the same hinging window.
I am frustrated by the tremendous amount of wasted time.

Seems like the application is facing an issue while writing tokens in one of the installation directories. It can be caused due to permission issues on your system. Could you please try the below and confirm if the issue is resolved:

Mac:

Quit the Acrobat.
Delete the OOBE folder by navigating to /Library/Application Support/Adobe/
Launch Acrobat and sign in.
Windows:

Quit the Acrobat
Delete the OOBE folder by navigating to \AppData\Roaming\Adobe
Launch Acrobat and sign in.

Hello everybody,
I reached this thread after being close to lose my mind spending (litterally)a whole day with Adobe support via chat and remote control over my Mac Book Pro - Catalina 10.15.4, with no results.
I'm still getting the message "activation failed, ...).
Please forgive me, I'm not a geek.
Could you please tell how to create a root-user account (simple step by step, if possible). For the 1st solution.
And, for the 2nd, what to do after typing the user account password and hiting enter. The terminal dialog box stay open. Should I simply click on the red X to close it, and then open acribat to finish the activation step.
Is it better to use the sudo while logged in what you call the root-user account, or that does not help. Please send me a message on k_gazzeh AT hotmail.fr
Thank you for your help.

sudo /Applications/Adobe\ Acrobat\ 2017/Adobe\ Acrobat.app/Contents/MacOS/AdobeAcrobat

This command FINALLY enabled me to run Acrobat Pro 2017. The licensing app had been hanging or misbehaving - wasting my time, too - until I found this solution.

Thanks!

Ansh, what triggered the problem (the loss of privileges) was doing a migration from one Mac to another. All the other programs made it except Pro Acrobat. I even tried deleting every trace of Acrobat, but nothing worked except a Root authorization. So the Adobe install glitch may only relate to migrations.

That's great you had got it resolved.

I checked for the root cause and the problem comes when the licensing application tries to write the data into a folder requiring the special privileges and somehow that folder permission is overridden by an application or user or some other factor.

Ansh, thank you for the reply. I tried all of that, and it didn't work. The solution: I had to create a "root user" account, then log out, log back in as "root" and finish the installation (i.e., license application) from there. I think that's the only way around the glitch in Adobe's install.