my adobe acrobat keeps crashing on launch. how to fix this?

Hello CONCEPT-MACHINE,

Thanks for that info and choosing the Apple Support Communities. I know how important getting this application working on your Mac! Based on what you stated, it seems you may be experiencing issues with only a certain app on your Mac opening and launching. Good news is you can use these steps to narrow down and resolve this issue:

1. You can figure out if unexpected behavior is related to user file or setting by trying to reproduce the issue from another user account. This process includes creating a new user account, logging in to it, and testing for the issue.

How to test an issue in another user account on your Mac

2. Next, use Safe Mode to start up your Mac so that it performs certain checks, delete system cache files, verifies your startup disk, and attempts to repair directory issues if needed. Log into your user account in Safe Mode and test the issue again.

Try safe mode if your Mac doesn't finish starting up
Limited graphics performance in OS X recovery or safe mode

3. If all other applications work but this app is still not able to launch at this point, make sure you reinstall the app again as per the instructions from Adobe.

Cheers!

Ensure that you have the latest Adobe Acrobat product updates that are compatible with OS X 10.11.6

Quit your Adobe applications. In /Users/yourname/Library/Caches folder, check if there are any Adobe or Adobe Acrobat named files or folders. If so, perform a Safe Boot again, and while there, move these Adobe-specific files/folders to the Trash. Reboot normally, and empty the Trash.

Are the applications still crashing on start?

As a footnote, I don't have Acrobat Pro, but do have Reader DC 15.017.20053, and Reader 11.0.17, and both work just fine on OS X 10.11.6, even after the Security Update 2016-001.