How can I troubleshoot opening a PDF through Firefox on Android?

android apache firefox adobe-reader
user2211907 picture user2211907 · Jul 28, 2019 · Viewed 8.8k times · Source

I have a link to a pdf file on my website. The pdf opens without any issues in the built-in pdf viewer on Firefox or iOS.

I get an error when I try to open the pdf by clicking the link in Firefox on Android. After clicking the link the Adobe Reader app opens and tries to download the pdf for viewing. Then I get an error and the pdf doesn't open. The error inside of Adobe Reader just says

Error. The file could not be downloaded. Please save the file to your local storage and then try to open it.

How can I troubleshoot this? I tried removing spaces from the file name, using absolute urls in the links, but none of that worked. I also tried creating a pdf using a different program, in case the issue was in the pdf itself, and that didn't help. I also tried typing in the link directly into the browser url and same thing happens.

At this point I don't know how to troubleshoot it without getting some kind of debug information. I'm using Apache on the server.

Answer

jules picture jules · Oct 20, 2019

At one time in the past, you have picked Adobe Reader as default when it comes to downloading PDF-Docs. Unfortunately, AR doesn't support that option.

To change it back, Type about:config into the address bar of the browser. Search for browser.download.preferred.application/pdf. Underneath it should say "Adobe Acrobat". Reset this option.

Next time you download a PDF, Firefox will ask you how you want to open the PDF. Pick anything but AR.

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