1935718 - Cannot open pdf in external app

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox for Android :: General, defect)

Description

[Dave Royal]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Android 13; Mobile; rv:133.0) Gecko/133.0 Firefox/133.0

Steps to reproduce:

1 Display a page with pdf links, eg
https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/vodafone-slash-ck-hutchison-jv-merger-inquiry
2 Tap a pdf link eg. Administrative timetable.
It displays the pdf in the same tab.
3 Tap Download
Get notification 'Download completed' with an Open button
4 Tap Open

Actual results:

Displays the pdf again in a new tab:
content://media/external_primary/downloads/1000036461
3 and 4 will repeat indefinitely.

Expected results:

At 4, it should display list of apps capable of displaying the pdf, which is what happens in released version 133.0.2
(Well, almost: 133 displays /some/ apps - but I think that's a quirk of the Android version.)

Workround is to open the download in a File Explorer.

This is a Galaxy Tab S6 Lite with Android 13
I have the MuPDF reader app and several others that can read pdfs.

In Fx have 'Open apps in links' = Never, but same behaviour if I change to 'Ask'

Comment 1

[Nicholas Poon [:Nick]]

Hi,
Thanks for reporting this bug. This was done intentionally in Bug 1920092, so I will close this as WONTFIX. The rationale behind this was:

1. To mirror what currently happens in desktop Firefox
2. To improve workflow, if you open a local PDF from fenix, it will open in fenix. This not only happens in the case that you mention, but also if you try to open a downloaded PDF from the notifications tray or from the downloads page

Comment 2

[Dave Royal]

I can see why, if I tap an already-downloaded pdf from the 3-dots menu, it should display it in Fx. But if I'm displaying a pdf, and tap download, why would I want it to open in a second tab? And a third, and a fourth...? Better to ignore the 'open'.

If I just downloaded the pdf it's for one of two reasons:
1 I want to download for viewing later, in which case I won't tap 'open'.
2 I want to open it in another app, e.g. it's a score and I want play it with Music Scanner.

Opening it again in a second tab makes no sense. It certainly doesn't improve my workflow.

Comment 3

[Nicholas Poon [:Nick]]

Thanks for your feedback! We will be taking a look at this and seeing how we can improve this behaviour.