If you have installed Adobe software on your system, then you likely have installed various accompanying updaters that periodically check for updates from Adobe's support servers. These updaters should run seamlessly in the background; however, there are times when an odd configuration of them may result in annoying distractions. This may particularly happen if you have updated your system with additional Adobe software, uninstalled and reinstalled (especially after restoring from a backup), or otherwise have modified your Adobe software installation. If affected, the problem may manifest as a brief display of an Adobe-related updater, and may even affect the focus of applications or otherwise interrupt your workflow.

MacFixIt reader Ed recently ran into such an issue: While I am working in some application, a window pops open and quickly disappears. It looks like a Flash Player installer or a read-only installer disk image mounts and dismounts. It is there and gone so fast that I can't see well enough to read the item's file name.

It is clearly a Flash Player icon. If I'm using an app like Word, typing something, it switches me to the Finder, then disappears and I find myself typing in the Finder. I have searched all over for the item with no luck. Of course following notable malware outbreaks such as Flashback that have disguised themselves as Adobe software, whenever Flash- and Adobe-related oddities show up on a system, one suspicion folks might have is that some new, related malware may be at play.

While not an invalid concern, another more likely issue is that some configuration error is resulting in the problem. If for some reason the installation or updating of software goes awry, the system could be left in a configuration where it attempts to perform some final cleanup steps, and could be regularly launching a tool or helper to do so. Therefore, first I recommended to Ed to try reinstalling any recently installed Adobe software, including the latest version of Flash. However, this did not work, and the problem continued.

I have Safari 7.1 and Adobe Acrobat Pro 11.0.06 which is the paid version of the latest version of Adobe Reader.My computer is a MacBook Pro 5,2 running OS X 10.9.1. Hp officejet 3830 scan to computer software. Safari has absolutely no problems reading PDFs that I created using Adobe Distiller.

In looking closer at the problem, it was clear that the problem was being triggered on regular intervals and not in response to any specific task. At one point Ed could be using Word and have the problem appear, and at other times the problem could happen when using another program. This behavior indicates that the problem was likely manifesting itself through launch agent scripts, which are methods that Apple and third-party developers can use for periodically running updaters and other routine tasks in the background.