Error spying on Adobe Acrobat Reader

[Anonymous]

I'm trying to create an object to interface with Adobe Acrobat Reader. When I try to spy on any elements on the Reader I get the following error: System.ApplicationException: The window spied was not found in the model    at BluePrism.AMI.clsAMI.Spy(clsElementTypeInfo& elementType, List`1& identifiers)    at Automate.frmIntegrationAssistant.HandleSpyOrLaunchClick(Object sender, EventArgs e) Any ideas? Thanks.

[Denis__Dennehy]

It sounds like you are not attached to the correct process.  If you look at Adobe in task manager you might see multiple processes even though you are only opening one document.  Experiement with how you attach to the application.

[Anonymous]

The problem appears to be due to the twin AcroRd32.exe processes launched by Acrobat Reader. As per the guidelines... ""One method to achieve this is to have one Business Object that simply launches the Win32 application or browser application. A second Business Object then calls this, and thereafter it can Attach to the process and spy the elements."" ...I've created one object to launch Acrobat Reader and another, the main object, to interact with it. This works fine until I try to use the Open file dialog (File->Open menu). The main object simply cannot spy the dialog in any spy mode. The launcher object, or a third object, can spy the open dialog but when I try to access it from the main object, which opens the dialog, I get a connection/attachment error. How do I get the launcher, or third object, to connect to the process of the main Acrobat Reader object and then interact with the open dialog? Grateful for any help.

[John__Carter]

I recently did some work on Adobe Acrobat DC and ended up with 4 objects, each one working with a different exe. The trick is to find out which exe your element belongs to (keep one eye on Task Manager) and spy the element from the appropriate object. It's painful at times, but it seems to be the way Acrobat functions.

[JoshuaPainter]

Thanks for the help - this absolutely works for this issue that I was having also in Adobe Acrobat DC. I also ended up with 4 objects to read a PDF.

[JohnSullivan]

​@John Carter Would you mind sharing which adobe components you attached to enabling the use of menu options? I've been having the same issue and cannot seem to find the right exe associated with buttons like redact, combine, comment, etc.​

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John Sullivan
Project Manager
Discover Financial Services
America/New_York
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[ChristianMeyer]

Hi John.

Did you find a solution ? If so can you share the BO(s) ?

I have the same problem and can't spy the Adobe BO 😞 (I need to read a PDF file.)


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Christian Meyer
Developer at TDC A/S
TDC A/S
Europe/London
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[JohnSullivan · Accepted solution]

Christian, 

I was unable to find an ideal solution for attaching to interact with certain buttons in exactly the way I wanted to. In your use case where there is a need to read the PDF data, this is something where developers have suggested a variety of methods including opening the PDF via a browser and performing copy all to extract the data to be read. Should be able to use the text strings utility from there to read through and parse what is needed.

Here is another method that has been suggested for reading data using command line available in the BP Community:

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John Sullivan
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[erik.hjertholm]

I don't know if this is still relevant, but one thing I noticed is that to be able to spy basically any buttons, and not just windows, I had to first open and close settings. It sounds strange, and it definitely is, but adding these actions after launching the application solved it for me. 

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Erik Hjertholm
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