Firefox keeps asking what to do with PDF files
Categories
(Firefox :: File Handling, defect)
Tracking
()
People
(Reporter: bugzilla, Unassigned)
Details
Attachments
(2 files)
Selecting "Open in Firefox" in the prefs
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:93.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/93.0
Steps to reproduce:
Every time I click on a link that's a PDF file, Firefox asks me "What should Firefox do with this file?", despite me having selected "Do this automatically for files like this from now on." Every time I want to view the file in Firefox. The endless asking is getting tiring.
Expected results:
Firefox should not ask again if the user previously selected "Do this automatically for files like this from now on."
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Comment 1•3 years ago
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The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Firefox::File Handling' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please revert this change in case you think the bot is wrong.
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Comment 2•3 years ago
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Hi,
Are you using a third-party PDF viewer for downloaded PDF files or Firefox's built-in PDF viewer?
Can you attach your about:support information?
Best,
Clara
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Reporter | |
Comment 3•3 years ago
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Comment 4•3 years ago
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I'm using Firefox's built-in PDF viewer. My about:support information is attached.
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Comment 5•3 years ago
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Can you also check the following?
1- Open the Downloads panel by clicking the download icon next to the address bar.
2-Right-click on the file folder icon of the PDF file and select Open Containing Folder.
3-Then, in the Downloads folder, right-click on the file, select Open with > choose another app > always use this app to open pdf files (is Firefox selected here as well?)
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Comment 6•3 years ago
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I did steps 1 and 2. On step 3, there is no "Open with", but there is "Open With Document Viewer" and "Open With Other Application". If I choose "Open With Other Application", Firefox is not listed by default. If I select view all applications, I then see "Firefox Web Browser". If I choose it, then the .pdf file is opened in Firefox.
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Comment 7•3 years ago
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Is there any news on this? The problem keeps happening after my previous test.
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Comment 8•3 years ago
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Comment 9•3 years ago
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(In reply to Alistair Cunningham from comment #7)
Is there any news on this? The problem keeps happening after my previous test.
In the downloads preferences in about:preferences inside Firefox, you can set PDFs to open with Firefox; see the screenshot I attached just now.
If you're still getting asked despite the settings being set up to open PDFs in Firefox automatically, it is likely that the server is sending the Content-Disposition: attachment header with the PDF file, which effectively tells the browser "do not open this in the same tab", which is why you get asked what to do.
The fact that we don't remember your choice for such files and let you override what the website is telling us automatically is an unfortunate consequence of some very old code and decisions about how to handle Downloads in Firefox, that we're working to change. The original problem is tracked in bug 453455. I'm hopeful that our changes to the downloads experience that will fix this will be ready in the next few months. They are currently undergoing testing in the "Nightly" channel of Firefox; if you're feeling adventurous, you could try switching to Nightly and seeing if you prefer the experience - but of course, other things might be broken -- it's our testing channel.
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Comment 10•3 years ago
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Thank you. I use Firefox for work, so I'll wait until this update is in a stable version.
Description
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