1722288 - No content type entry for `Portable Document Format (PDF)` on Linux - want to open PDF attachments in external system viewer

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: OS Integration, enhancement)

Description

[Paul Littlefield]

Attachment: Screenshot 1: No default entry for Content Type `Portable Document Format (PDF)` (2021-07-24_14-49.png)

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/92.0.4515.107 Safari/537.36

Steps to reproduce:

Open a PDF file which is attached to a message.

Actual results:

The PDF file opened with the built-in Thunderbird viewer and did not render the page correctly.

Expected results:

The PDF file should have opened in the (Linux) system viewer 'xreader'.

The Thunderbird > Preferences > Files & Attachments screen did not show 'PDF Document' as an option to choose the system external viewer.

I SOLVED it by copying the handlers.json file from my Firefox profile to my Thunderbird profile and it now correctly opens the PDF file in 'xviewer'.

I am submitting this bug so that it helps people or you can have a 'default' handlers.json file which can be downloaded by people with instructions.

Thanks.

Comment 1

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Attachment: Screenshot 2: Action dropdown on Win10, 91.0b4 (64-bit) with option to choose OS default PDF app

Hi Paul, thank you for caring about TB's UX regarding PDFs!

I am seeing a lot of options in the action dropdown for PDF files (after clicking on the v on the right side of Preview in Thunderbird action). One option is to use the current default PDF app of my OS (Win10).

• Which options are in your dropdown?
• Can you share a screenshot of your action dropdown for PDF files?

Comment 2

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to Paul Littlefield from comment #0)

The PDF file opened with the built-in Thunderbird viewer and did not render the page correctly.

Please file a bug against Firefox pdf.js for that.

Comment 3

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Comment on attachment 9233077 [details]
Screenshot 1: No default entry for Content Type Portable Document Format (PDF) (2021-07-24_14-49.png)

Oh, now I'm getting you - you didn't even find a default content type entry for PDF files at all (your screenshot shows entry for content type http).

Comment 4

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Paul, is your Thunderbird installation part of a Linux distribution or did you download the official Thunderbird installer from thunderbird.net?

Comment 5

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Martin (:freaktechnik) has reported on Matrix that for him this is worksforme out of the box on Linux - there was an entry for content type PDF files without him going through any special procedures.

Comment 6

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

If you have no entry for PDF, try this: in Preferences > General on bottom click on "Config Editor...". In the new tab search for pdfjs.disabled and set it to "true". Better close/reopen TB and click on a PDF attachment. Now TB should ask what you want to do. Select your preferred action and check the checkmark for do always this action. Now the action should be added in the list.

Comment 7

[WaltS48 [:walts48]]

I have the PDF content type and "Preview in Thunderbird" action with a clean test profile using 91.0b4 from Thunderbird on Fedora 34 Workstation, Gnome desktop.

Comment 8

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to WaltS48 [:walts48] from comment #7)

I have the PDF content type and "Preview in Thunderbird" action with a clean test profile using 91.0b4 from Thunderbird on Fedora 34 Workstation, Gnome desktop.

Thanks Walt and Martin, I thinks that's sufficient to close this WFM... ;-)
Paul, we'll still be interested in your feedback.

Comment 9

[Andreas Manschke]

I had the same problem with the default TB from CentOS Linux release 7.9.2009 (rpm thunderbird.x86_64 91.2.0-1.el7.centos). Weired solution:
After clicking on the drop down menu "Content Type" suddenly PDF was offered to configure ...

Comment 10

[tubaman]

(In reply to Andreas Manschke from comment #9)

I had the same problem with the default TB from CentOS Linux release 7.9.2009 (rpm thunderbird.x86_64 91.2.0-1.el7.centos). Weired solution:
After clicking on the drop down menu "Content Type" suddenly PDF was offered to configure ...

This is also the case for me using Thunderbird 91.5.0-2~deb11u1 on Debian Bullseye