10.11.6 broke digital signing in Adobe?

jnojr wrote:

Your post doesn't contribute anything useful. There is a problem, and it will get fixed. Please do not make irrelevant additions to this thread.

I disagree. I think my post is quite useful, although it may not be until the next update before anyone could take advantage of it.

This is a freely accessible forum and anyone with an Apple ID can post anything they want in this thread as long as they comply with the Apple Support Communities Terms of Use. Only the person who started this thread has ability to identify the most relevant additions by marking them as helpful.

Yet again another irrelevant comment. I ask that an Admin remove your comments as they do not contribute to the topic and imply that we are all complainers for expressing our issues on this freely accessible forum.

I just got finished with Apple Support and they suggested I restart using safe mode (power down Mac, tap the power button, hold shift until login screen, login like normal). I tried it and am still not able to digitally sign. Maybe it will work for you all.

Hello again Scuba Steve007,

I am quite confident in the relevancy of my comments. Apple moderators do not normally read these threads unless someone uses the report function to notify them. You need to be at least Level 2 before the report functionality is enabled for you (see Levels and Perks). Until then, you can post your removal request to the Using Apple Support Communities community.

I didn't mean to imply that people were "complainers" for posting on this forum. I happen to agree with you that both Apple and Adobe need to do a better job of testing their software. I meant that it is a waste of time to complain about such issues in this forum because the problem involves 3rd party software. Apple doesn't regularly monitor this forum for these issues and even if they did, they probably won't worry about it because it sounds like an Adobe problem.

It theory, you could use Apple's Feedback page (http://www.apple.com/feedback/) to talk directly to Apple. I have done that and I have filed bug reports (http://bugreport.apple.com). But I see no evidence that Apple, Adobe, or anyone else in today's consumer software industry is going to stop their "continuous release" practices. So, rather than joining the chorus complaining about things I know I can't change, I try to give people suggestions on how to deal with these issues as they arise.

If you work with Apple, allowing them to diagnose the problem on your machine, then they will either fix the problem on their end or work with Adobe to fix the problem. Either way, there is going to be some future software update from someone that may fix the problem. The more assistance you provide to Adobe and Apple to identify the problem, the sooner that will happen. My suggestion is that when said update eventually arrives, make sure to thoroughly test it, be ready to look for other issues, and roll back to an earlier version if you don't have a dedicated test environment. Make sure to double-check that you aren't at risk for security issues (About the security content of OS X El Capitan v10.11.6 and Security Update 2016-004 - Apple Support) before rolling back to an earlier version. You may not like it, and you certainly appear not to like me telling you about it, but this is the new normal.

I hope that I do not "give people suggestions" enough to get me to level 2 but I will look into the link you sent, thanks! I have worked with Apple and Adobe and let both of them access my Mac with my supervision. However I deal with files and information that are sensitive and I cannot allow a program to pull data in the background (even if it is supposed to be harmless).

The "relevancy" of some comments posted by users could be debated. Certain comments are possibly relevant for the future but not necessarily relevant for this issue as we are already past the point of relevancy for certain comments. Perhaps users could create a new topic with those relevant comments in hopes of reaching poor and lost souls before they travel down the road to automatic update peril.

There are still some topic relevant avenues of approach that can still be discussed. Users can purchase new Macs as this issue appears to be isolated to only a few models. Then users can use their old Macs as product testers!

Depending on the year of Mac, users can utilize bootcamp (if you could be so kind to link the instructions in your response) and install Windows (version dependent on the year of Mac) on their Mac, install Adobe/digital certificates, and then sign that way.

To take it one step further and maximize the functionality and ease of use, users can then install a 3rd party app so they can run OS and Windows without having to log out of one to access the other (again if you could be so kind to post a link to that as well...if you could teach me how to link other topics that would be greatly appreciated).

Scuba Steve007 wrote:

There are still some topic relevant avenues of approach that can still be discussed. Users can purchase new Macs as this issue appears to be isolated to only a few models. Then users can use their old Macs as product testers!

The problem seems related to both Adobe and CAC cards, each with its own driver. Anything involving digital certificates or CAC cards is going to be delicate. An organization that requires things like that is going to be months, if not years, behind. It has been a couple of years since I needed to use a CAC card. I stayed on 10.6 for a long time for reasons like this. When I finally upgraded to 10.8 or maybe 10.9, I had to manually hack up the old open-source CAC card drivers to make it work.

Depending on the year of Mac, users can utilize bootcamp (if you could be so kind to link the instructions in your response) and install Windows (version dependent on the year of Mac) on their Mac, install Adobe/digital certificates, and then sign that way.

You mean this? https://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/

To take it one step further and maximize the functionality and ease of use, users can then install a 3rd party app so they can run OS and Windows without having to log out of one to access the other (again if you could be so kind to post a link to that as well...if you could teach me how to link other topics that would be greatly appreciated)

There are numerous virtual machines available like VMWare, Parallels or Veertu. I think people can Google those if they are interested.

There are a couple of other suggestions in this thread: Create digitally signed PDFs. The thread is several years old and I don't know if those tools work or not.

There are also web-based services available: https://www.docusign.com/products/electronic-signature

One of my users seems to have found a workaround... when you get the invalid credential message, force-quit Reader, then re-open. I'm told it leaves a signed copy behind :-)

I gave it a shot and it did leave behind the signature. However it was flagged as invalid and wouldn't validate. Did your users experience the same thing?

I set up my credentials on Windows 8.1 yesterday using VMWare. The only snag I encountered was my CAC reader not showing up on Windows, easy fix by going into the VMWare settings and forcing my Mac to share the usb with Windows. Everything else works fine, I am able to digitally sign docs, and access CAC enabled websites.

The only additional expenses will be getting a copy of Windows if you don't already have one and if this issue isn't fixed within 30 days you will have do pay for the full version of VMWare. I would recommend setting this up anyways because who knows when the fix will come and when it will break again. Plan for the worst, hope for the best.

I haven't seen / heard anything more on this issue :-( In my case, dual-boot or a virtual OS is a non-starter. I'll add that Oracle Virtualbox is free and could be a good option to VMware Player for many people.

Here's hoping this gets resolved!

True! 🙂

Thanks a lot for your answer. This fixed the issue for me. 🙂

This worked like a champ. Had some beachball issues, ended up fixing those by blowing away all of the Adobe Acrobat DC preferences.

jnojr, worked perfectly. The only additional step I had to do was enter my CAC pin for the password when prompted to sign. Thanks so much!

jnojr, your fix worked for me, thanks a ton!

Olá m.ferreira!

Estou a ter este mesmo problema que aqui descreveram no ano passado com o meu Sierra 10.12.3...

Consegues ajudar-me pff? Como se resolveu esta situação?

Obrigado