417352 - Certain PDFs served over SSL cause Adobe Reader 8 to never initialize

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Brad Fish]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.12) Gecko/20080201 Firefox/2.0.0.12
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.12) Gecko/20080201 Firefox/2.0.0.12

We have a web application (uses the Django python web framework) which serves up dynamically generated PDF files over an SSL connection. A few releases ago (I think somewhere around Firefox 2.0.8, but I can't be sure), these PDFs stopped loading in Firefox with Adobe Reader 8. The title of the Firefox window/tab becomes "(application/pdf Object)" but the Adobe Reader 8 plugin does not appear. Instead, the contents of the prior page are still visible. When this happens, it appears that Firefox (or the Adobe Reader 8 plugin) is not repainting the window. If you bring another application to the foreground and close it, you'll see the other application's contents in the Firefox window. This is not a freeze or a hang, because you can click the back button to return to the previous page just fine, at which point repainting issues go away.

What is really interesting is this: only PDFs served by our web application over SSL cause this problem. The following do NOT cause this problem, and work correctly:

* PDF served by the web app over non-SSL (works fine)
* PDF served directly by the web server over non-SSL (works fine)
* PDF served directly by the web server over SSL (works fine)

To recap, the problem exhibits itself only in the following situation:

* PDF served by the web app over SSL (Adobe Reader 8 fails to appear; repainting problems)

This problem is also occurring in Firefox 3 Beta 3. This problem does not occur under Internet Explorer 7.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Make sure Adobe Reader 8.1.2 is installed and configured to load PDFs in the browser
2. Visit http://www.enduringrose.com/ssl/pdf/
Actual Results:  
Page title becomes "(application/pdf Object)", but the contents of the page do not change (the old page is still visible since no repainting has occurred).

Expected Results:  
The Adobe Reader 8.1.2 plugin should be visible and display the PDF.

I have prepared 4 different URLs to help debug the problem:

PDF served by Django web app over non-SSL (NO BUG):
http://www.enduringrose.com/non-ssl/pdf/

PDF served by Django web app over SSL (BUG):
http://www.enduringrose.com/ssl/pdf/

PDF served directly by Apache over non-SSL (NO BUG):
http://www.enduringrose.com/media/ff_ssl_adobe_reader_8.pdf

PDF served directly by Apache over SSL (NO BUG):
https://www.enduringrose.com/media/ff_ssl_adobe_reader_8.pdf

All of the URLs are serving the exact same PDF file from disk.

I have used the "Live HTTP Headers" to capture the HTTP request and responses, with headers, for the above 4 URLs:

=================
Django (non-SSL):
=================

http://www.enduringrose.com/non-ssl/pdf/

GET /non-ssl/pdf/ HTTP/1.1
Host: www.enduringrose.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.12) 

Gecko/20080201 Firefox/2.0.0.12
Accept: 

text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,

image/png,*/*;q=0.5
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Keep-Alive: 300
Connection: keep-alive
Cookie: __utmz=237318740.1202602694.130.3.utmccn=(referral)

|utmcsr=bradwich.com|utmcct=/|utmcmd=referral; __utmb=237318740; 

__utma=237318740.1750340059.1190003989.1202930336.1202936582.153

HTTP/1.x 200 OK
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:42:56 GMT
Server: Apache
Content-Type: application/pdf
Set-Cookie: sessionid=7660c53594e2362bad2a9d47e9af2021; Path=/;
Keep-Alive: timeout=15, max=100
Connection: Keep-Alive
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
----------------------------------------------------------

=============
Django (SSL):
=============

https://www.enduringrose.com/ssl/pdf/

GET /ssl/pdf/ HTTP/1.1
Host: www.enduringrose.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.12) 

Gecko/20080201 Firefox/2.0.0.12
Accept: 

text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,

image/png,*/*;q=0.5
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Keep-Alive: 300
Connection: keep-alive
Cookie: __utmz=237318740.1202602694.130.3.utmccn=(referral)

|utmcsr=bradwich.com|utmcct=/|utmcmd=referral; __utmb=237318740; 

__utma=237318740.1750340059.1190003989.1202930336.1202936582.153; 

sessionid=7660c53594e2362bad2a9d47e9af2021
Cache-Control: max-age=0

HTTP/1.x 200 OK
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:45:44 GMT
Server: Apache
Content-Type: application/pdf
Set-Cookie: sessionid=7660c53594e2362bad2a9d47e9af2021; Path=/;
Keep-Alive: timeout=15, max=100
Connection: Keep-Alive
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
----------------------------------------------------------

=================
Apache (non-SSL):
=================

http://www.enduringrose.com/media/ff_ssl_adobe_reader_8.pdf

GET /media/ff_ssl_adobe_reader_8.pdf HTTP/1.1
Host: www.enduringrose.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.12) 

Gecko/20080201 Firefox/2.0.0.12
Accept: 

text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,

image/png,*/*;q=0.5
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Keep-Alive: 300
Connection: keep-alive
Cookie: __utmz=237318740.1202602694.130.3.utmccn=(referral)

|utmcsr=bradwich.com|utmcct=/|utmcmd=referral; __utmb=237318740; 

__utma=237318740.1750340059.1190003989.1202930336.1202936582.153; 

sessionid=7660c53594e2362bad2a9d47e9af2021
Range: bytes=8150-
If-Range: "861b-5c9d-c62b7340"

HTTP/1.x 206 Partial Content
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:46:43 GMT
Server: Apache
Last-Modified: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:22:45 GMT
Etag: "861b-5c9d-c62b7340"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 15559
Content-Range: bytes 8150-23708/23709
Keep-Alive: timeout=15, max=100
Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-Type: application/pdf
----------------------------------------------------------
http://www.enduringrose.com/media/ff_ssl_adobe_reader_8.pdf

GET /media/ff_ssl_adobe_reader_8.pdf HTTP/1.1
Host: www.enduringrose.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.12) 

Gecko/20080201 Firefox/2.0.0.12
Accept: 

text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,

image/png,*/*;q=0.5
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Keep-Alive: 300
Connection: keep-alive
Range: bytes=10739-23708,10739-10740
Cookie: __utmz=237318740.1202602694.130.3.utmccn=(referral)

|utmcsr=bradwich.com|utmcct=/|utmcmd=referral; __utmb=237318740; 

__utma=237318740.1750340059.1190003989.1202930336.1202936582.153; 

sessionid=7660c53594e2362bad2a9d47e9af2021

HTTP/1.x 206 Partial Content
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:46:44 GMT
Server: Apache
Last-Modified: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:22:45 GMT
Etag: "861b-5c9d-c62b7340"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 13189
Keep-Alive: timeout=15, max=100
Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-Type: multipart/byteranges; boundary=446111bf2a9a641ec
----------------------------------------------------------

=============
Apache (SSL):
=============

https://www.enduringrose.com/media/ff_ssl_adobe_reader_8.pdf

GET /media/ff_ssl_adobe_reader_8.pdf HTTP/1.1
Host: www.enduringrose.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.12) 

Gecko/20080201 Firefox/2.0.0.12
Accept: 

text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,

image/png,*/*;q=0.5
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Keep-Alive: 300
Connection: keep-alive
Cookie: __utmz=237318740.1202602694.130.3.utmccn=(referral)

|utmcsr=bradwich.com|utmcct=/|utmcmd=referral; __utmb=237318740; 

__utma=237318740.1750340059.1190003989.1202930336.1202936582.153; 

sessionid=7660c53594e2362bad2a9d47e9af2021

HTTP/1.x 200 OK
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:47:05 GMT
Server: Apache
Last-Modified: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:22:45 GMT
Etag: "861b-5c9d-c62b7340"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 23709
Keep-Alive: timeout=15, max=100
Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-Type: application/pdf
----------------------------------------------------------
https://www.enduringrose.com/media/ff_ssl_adobe_reader_8.pdf

GET /media/ff_ssl_adobe_reader_8.pdf HTTP/1.1
Host: www.enduringrose.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.12) 

Gecko/20080201 Firefox/2.0.0.12
Accept: 

text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,

image/png,*/*;q=0.5
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Keep-Alive: 300
Connection: keep-alive
Range: bytes=16384-23708,16384-16385
Cookie: __utmz=237318740.1202602694.130.3.utmccn=(referral)

|utmcsr=bradwich.com|utmcct=/|utmcmd=referral; __utmb=237318740; 

__utma=237318740.1750340059.1190003989.1202930336.1202936582.153; 

sessionid=7660c53594e2362bad2a9d47e9af2021

HTTP/1.x 206 Partial Content
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:47:05 GMT
Server: Apache
Last-Modified: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:22:45 GMT
Etag: "861b-5c9d-c62b7340"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 7544
Keep-Alive: timeout=15, max=99
Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-Type: multipart/byteranges; boundary=446111d3cafba425b
----------------------------------------------------------

There is an obvious difference between how Django serves the response and how Apache serves it. Django is uses a chunked transfer encoding of the entire PDF, while Apache is giving Firefox the option to request byte ranges. I'm not sure if this helps, but perhaps it is a bug involving the response format that only manifests itself over SSL in relation to the Adobe Reader 8.1.2 plugin.

Comment 1

[u88484]

This bug was reported using a version of Firefox that security and stability updates are no longer provided for.  All users are strongly encouraged to upgrade to Firefox 3 by selecting 'Check for Updates' in the Help menu or by going to http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/firefox.html

If you can no longer reproduce this bug using the latest Firefox 3.0.x version, please change the status of this bug to 'RESOLVED' 'WORKSFORME'.

If you can still reproduce this bug, please provide additional details to help resolve this issue.

Comment 2

[Brad Fish]

This did in fact get cleared up with a later version of Firefox. Seems to work fine now.