248869 - Clicking on PDF file freezes Firefox temporarily, fries Acrobat Reader 5.1

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 253565

(Firefox :: File Handling, defect)

Description

[reichard]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)
Build Identifier: Mozilla Firebird 0.9

First crash report was lost after the fried acrobat reader crashed IE, which 
crashed Windows XP, which required two hard restarts.  Sorry, I'll try to 
retype. :)

In a second Firebird window, I went to the above link and clicked on Powell's 
Memo to White House (PDF document).  (This is the first pdf I have tried to 
open with Firefox, any pdf might work.)  Acrobat Reader was already open and 
came to the foreground (my IE settings are to open pdf files in a Acrobat 
Reader separately, without a plugin, and I suppose Firebird imported these 
settings.)  I didn't know how large the file was.  The stop button in the 
Firebird window was deactivated, so when the document didn't pop up immediately 
I tried to stop the download by closing Acrobat Reader.  

Firebird stopped responding.  The two windows went white and would not redraw.  
It drew heavy CPU usage (I wasn't checking the first time, but when I 
reproduced the fault, Task Manager showed heavy 98% or so CPU usage).  I 
clicked to close the window which had the above URL in it (and no other tabs).  
Win XP gave me the option of force-quitting Firebird because it wasn't 
responding.  I did not force quit but instead tried to click to close again.  
Eventually it closed.

Then the other Firebird window redrew and appeared normal.  The tabs that were 
open could be browsed.  However, when I typed in a URL it would not load the 
page; nothing happened.  Also autocomplete would not activate; I had to type 
the entire URL.  Internet Explorer continued to work as normal (including 
autocomplete, which indicates that CPU usage had dropped to normal); there was 
no network disruption.  

I quit Firebird and tried to start it again.  It would not let me do so since 
it said the default profile was in use.  I created a new profile and Firebird 
seemed to work fine.  I started to write a bug report using Internet Explorer, 
and used Firebird to reproduce the above steps.  (Acrobat Reader was already 
not open this time.)  This time, when clicking on the pdf, an Acrobat popup 
appeared saying that the rasterizer failed to load.  Worried, I tried to open a 
pdf file on my desktop and Acrobat Reader still wouldn't load (it gave two 
different error dialogs, one mentioning "page.." file? but the details are lost 
in first bug report).  Somehow Firebird broke Acrobat Reader (at least until a 
restart later).

Stupidly, I used IE to load the page and clicked on the pdf file.  This froze 
IE, but I could not force quit it.  I could not restart the computer since IE 
would not force-quit, and I was forced to hard restart the computer.  Host 
services did not load according to a dialog.  Soon after, I was forced to hard 
restart a second time.

I am running Mozilla Firebird 0.9 (Safe Mode) default everything, just 
downloaded it Friday, haven't added any extensions.  It says that for pdf files 
it opens with AcroExch.  OS is Windows XP.  Acrobat Reader version 5.1.  

Reproducible: Sometimes
Steps to Reproduce:
1.Open pdf file in Acrobat Reader 5.1.
2.Go to above web page in Firefox (requires free NY Times registration).
3.Click on Powell report pdf link.
4.Close Acrobat Reader before pdf download completes and document opens.

Actual Results:  
My attempt to reproduce the problem before restarting are described above, and 
were frustrated since the first incident had apparently done something to 
Acrobat Reader.
After two restarts: Again Firefox windows (two) went white and did not redraw 
for at least 30 seconds.  CPU usage was heavy.  Eventually Firefox started 
working, with http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB127/02.01.26.pdf 
displayed as URL, but nothing actually in the window.  Autocomplete continued 
to work the third time, and I could continue to load new URLs.  Acrobat Reader 
installation continued to work.  I could not reproduce Acrobat Reader being 
completely broken.

Expected Results:  
The stop button should be active so there is a way to cancel opening the pdf 
document.  Firefox should not freeze up, even temporarily (30 sec).  Acrobat 
Reader should not be broken.  (I suppose it is possible the incident was a bug 
in Acrobat Reader, but it has never happened with Internet Explorer.)

Comment 1

[kb]

this is similar to Firefox specific bug number 253565

Comment 2

[Jeff Walden [:Waldo]]

This is probably an Acrobat Reader problem (and if so, this bug's INVALID).

Comment 3

[kb]

the bug that this is similar to: 253565--does not occur for me with IE opening 
the exact same pdf file, but it does freeze and lock up with Firefox, 
suggesting that it is not an Acrobat Reader problem. 

Comment 4

[Tristor]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b2) Gecko/20050322
Firefox/1.0+

I am unable to reproduce since I don't have Acrobat Reader 5.1  When using
Acrobat 6 Pro, I have no problems.  As mentioned in the commments by kb, this is
similar to bug 253565 which has yet to be resolved fixed, and has been
confirmed.  Since that bug has more comments/following, I am marking this one
duplicate of 253565.


*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 253565 ***