thanks but as I indicated, i already tried that. even when tracking is off, it still makes change bars on the xrefs. i have tried it several times and it keeps doing it, even when tracking is off.

to be clear, there are no change bars on the xrefs until I try to make a PDF. they appear when the PDF is being generated.

I think it is a bug. I might have discovered an answer though. If I lock the document before I make the PDF, it seems it is not putting the changebars on.