File does not begin with "%PDF-"

User Help for Mozilla Firefox
Post Reply
MTAKASHI-0
Guest

File does not begin with "%PDF-"

Post by MTAKASHI-0 »

When I get to a web site and click for some document, I get "File does not begin with "%PDF-"" message. I have already installed pulg-in. This does not happen if I access the same web page via IE. I use Adobe Professional 6.0.4 (not Adobe Acrobat). On Adobe side, I cannot find the menu location to check/modify default browser. Can anyone help?
mtz1of4
Posts: 3665
Joined: November 4th, 2004, 9:26 am
Location: Fairport, NY USA

Post by mtz1of4 »

Guest
Guest

Post by Guest »

I am also getting this error. Running Firefox 1.0.7 and Acrobat Reader 7.0.3. I have recently been promoting Firefox to many of my associates and colleagues and have found this particular issue to he a real deal killer (despite all of the wonderful facets of Firefox). I work predominantly in an industry that is quite PDF-heavy. As best I can tell, the issue occurs when accessing a PDF that does not have the PDF extension in the filename portion of the URL.

Here is a sample URL that exhibits the problem: http://forums.slickdeals.net/attachment ... entid=8634

In this case, the downloaded "filename" appears to have an extension of "php" or maybe "php?attachmentid=8634". The content-type in the return headers is "application/pdf" and the content-disposition is "inline; filename="sbdac_005157_vikingcover.pdf" (which does indicate the proper "pdf" extension.)

This URL works fine on IE - the PDF opens right up. On ther sites, Firefox will open PDFs, but the pattern I've seen is that the "pdf" extension has to be there in the URL. One other difference I noticed between IE and Forefox is that the Firefox HTTP response was using chunked transfer-encoding, whereas IE just took the data straight. I'm not sure if this is a contributing factor or not. FWIW, if I save the PDF, it opens fine in Acrobat. Also, a "View PAge Source" shows the file starting with "%PDF-1.4" just as it should.

I hope that this issue can be addressed - perhaps through a configuration setting or perhaps a fix to the plugin. I checked the link posted by mtz1of4, but didn't see that the referenced information applied to this problem - other than upgrading to the latest version of things (not an issue here since I just built this computer and am using the latest releases of everything)

Thank you
Guest
Guest

Post by Guest »

Guest,
I had no problem opening the coupon from Staples.

I just clicked on the link you gave, i.e. (Here is a sample URL that exhibits the problem: http://forums.slickdeals.net/attachment ... entid=8634 ) and it opened in FF.

I am running FF 1.0.7 and Adobe Reader 6.0.4 on Win2K Pro
mtz1of4
Posts: 3665
Joined: November 4th, 2004, 9:26 am
Location: Fairport, NY USA

Post by mtz1of4 »

I am running 1.0.7 with Acrobat 7.0.0 on Win XP and got the same %pdf file error. Musst have something to do with 6.0.4 and 7.0.0
Guest
Guest

Post by Guest »

More likely a configuration problem.
1.0.7 and 6.0.4 on 98SE gave the error at listed site.
Guest
Guest

Post by Guest »

Anonymous wrote:More likely a configuration problem.
1.0.7 and 6.0.4 on 98SE gave the error at listed site.
Continuing...
Save file from View Page Source after error, then Open > File in same Firefox window => works.
Suspect it is transmission from site.
Please give other examples of error.
Post Reply