559512 - Double clicking on PDF email attachment does not open PDF file

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[Nicholas Chan]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506.30; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.9.1.9) Gecko/20100317 Thunderbird/3.0.4

Any email that has a PDF attachment cannot be opened by double clicking or right-click, Open.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open mail in either preview panel or double clicking
2. Double click on PDF attachment
3 [review]. Nothing happens
Actual Results:  
Nothing happens

Expected Results:  
PDF attachment to open in Adobe Acrobat Reader

Comment 1

[Joe Sabash [:JoeS1]]

PDF files open fine here using:
    Version: 9.3.0.148
    Adobe PDF Plug-In For Firefox and Netscape
Do you have plugins enabled, and the appropriate plugin.

Comment 2

[Nicholas Chan]

The Adobe Acrobat reader version here is version 8, and the plugin in Thunderbird is 8.2.2.217. It is enabled.

Comment 3

[[:Aureliano Buendía]]

If click on menu-->tools-->options--> tab "attachments", do you see an item that say:
content type                  action
Adobe Acrobat Document        use adobe acrobat (in Thunderbird) 

If your answer is No, please try to delete this association and next time set Tb ask you association with Acrobat Reader.

Comment 4

[daynejordan]

Same here. PDF's do not open when double-clicked.

PDF plugin 9.3.4.218
TB: 3.1.3

Deleted the association. Restarted TB, still doesn't ask to do anything with .pdf attachment. If I right click I am given 4 options, "open", "save as" "detach" and delete. Choosing open does nothing, not even prompted to associate .pdf's. If I choose "save as" then it saves and I'm able to open with Adobe reader from the desktop just fine. (In reply to comment #3)

Comment 5

[David :Bienvenu]

But other attachment types work OK w.r.t. opening?

Comment 6

[daynejordan]

Yes, I've tried all types of image attachment, Word Docs, .xls docs, etc etc. All others seem to work fine that I've tried. Just .pdf's seem to be the issue.

Comment 7

[David :Bienvenu]

Can you attach or e-mail me your mimetypes.rdf file, from your user profile dir? http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Thunderbird

Comment 8

[daynejordan]

Sent.

(In reply to comment #7)

Comment 9

[David :Bienvenu]

I don't see any association for pdf in mimetypes.rdf...

Presumably, windows has the right association for .pdf files since opening from the desktop works, but could you look in the control panel for the association for .pdf files?

Comment 10

[daynejordan]

The association was there. However, I used the test from comment #3 and deleted the association in Thunderbird and restarted it so that perhaps it would ask me to re-associate it again. It still does nothing when you double-click or right-click "Open". Windows Control Panel > Default Programs > Set Associations shows .pdf associated with Adobe Reader.

Comment 11

[David :Bienvenu]

There are two kinds of associations - mime type associations, which Thunderbird does, for things like application/pdf, and file type associations, which Windows does, for things like .pdf files. If the attachment has the type application/octet-stream, that tells Thunderbird nothing about how to open the attachment, so we have to fall back to the file extension, which we can get from mimetypes.rdf or the windows registry, if I remember correctly.

Comment 12

[daynejordan]

Ok a bit further testing. I went into TB options > Add-ons > Plug-ins and disabled the Adobe Acrobat 9.3.4.218. I then clicked on a .pdf attachment in the email and I was prompted by Windows to open the file with (defaulted) to Adobe Acrobat or Save File. I re-enabled the Adobe Plug-in and tried clicking on the .pdf file again, nothing happened.

I disabled the plug-in again, clicked the pdf file attachment and the Windows "open" box popped up again. I chose Open with Adobe Reader selected and the .pdf file opens. I then closed it, clicked on the email again but this time checking the box to "Do this Automatically for files like this from now on". Closed tb, restarted and voila, the pdf file opens fine every time now. Interestingly enough, the Adobe reader plug-in within tb is STILL disabled... but the pdf files still open fine from any email. Hopefully this helps you figure it out.

Comment 13

[daynejordan]

More info: I re-enabled the Adobe Reader plug-in and the pdf's don't open from within tb. Work fine if I disable the plug-in.

Comment 14

[daynejordan]

(In reply to comment #4)
PDF plugin 9.3.4.218
TB: 3.1.3 (no themes or other add-ons)
OS: Windows 7

Comment 15

[David :Bienvenu]

thx for the info, Dayne. I have the exact same OS and PDF Plugin versions, so I don't think the plugin is broken, per se.

Comment 16

[daynejordan]

Just noticed same issue for PowerPoint documents. Fails to open any .pp* extension from within TB as well. If I save the .pp* attachment to disk and double-click it opens within PowerPoint just fine.

Comment 18

[Joe Sabash [:JoeS1]]

Just an FYI here,
I'm seeing the failure to open pdf's here in:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.0; rv:2.0b8pre) Gecko/20101110 Thunderbird/3.3a1pre ID:20101110035512

But only if the plugin is enabled AND CompactHeader extension is installed and enabled.

It's not at all clear to me how a plugin can conflict with an extension??
But the plugin would only seem to necessary for embedded pdf's
Mine are all attachments.

Comment 19

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Worksforme on 91.5.0 (64-bit), Win10, with any of Preview in Thunderbird, Always ask, Use Adobe Acrobat.

A lot of things have changed and improved in this corner (e.g. we now have pdf.js for viewing PDFs inside TB).
A lot of things are still broken in this corner, e.g. bug 1698140 for composition.
About time to close this oldie.