Here's an FAQ I just wrote up for this issue:
WHY DO I NOT SEE THIS ARTIFACT IN ARCMAP?
ArcMap does not exhibit this behavior is because the output pipeline in ArcMap DOES NOT support alpha transparency. All the layers below a partially transparent layer are already flattened and composited together into a single layer called "Image" in the PDF - so you lose the layers.
WHY DOES PRO EXPORT HAVE THIS PROBLEM?
Pro exports can natively support transparency in any layer, and because of this they run afoul of this display artifact in PDF reader when a raster layer is output that contains transparency in multiple tiles.
I ONLY HAVE ONE RASTER LAYER IN MY MAP, WHY DO I SEE THIS PROBLEM?
Keep in mind that some layers "become" raster layers when some symbology is applied (an example would be the heatmap renderer for points) even if they're not raster layers in your ArcGIS Pro map. Even a single raster layer can become multiple _tiles_ of raster layer (placed like mosaic tiles together to form the larger image). We output raster layers in multiple tiles so that we can export higher resolutions without consuming inordinate amounts of resources.
WHY DOES OUTPUT AS IMAGE CAUSE THE GRIDLINES TO DISAPPEAR?
- Exporting using "Output As Image" gets around this because it performs flattening of the transparency BEFORE we write it to the PDF (very similar to what ArcMap output did).
ARE YOU SURE THIS IS AN ISSUE IN THE DISPLAYING APPLICATION, NOT SOME PROBLEM WITH THE PDF?
- the gridlines remain the same width regardless of zoom level.
- you can print this from Acrobat and it looks fine (no gridlines).
- You can also use "Optimize PDF" and choose the flatten option (which removes transparency) and no gridlines.
- The gridlines are ONLY visible in the viewing application, and they appear to be an artifact of the way that transparency is applied to adjacent tiles in the viewing application.
- We can inspect the coordinates of each of the tiles internal to the PDF written and they are NOT overlapping.
WHAT ACTIONS ARE BEING TAKEN TO TRY TO INVESTIGATE OR MITIGATE THIS ISSUE?
After a long period of investigation, we contacted Adobe support about this some time ago. In that contact, Adobe employee Dov Isaacs had acknowledged that it the PDF is written to spec, and therefore should display without these artifacts. It is currently an open bug in the Adobe Acrobat queue.
WHAT IS THE STATUS OF THE BUG IN ADOBE'S QUEUE?
We now are waiting on some analysis or guidance from them.
We have also recently reached out through multiple channels to try and get some response on this issue, but so far have not heard any updates.