797288 - Pdf.js download behavior inconsistent

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: PDF Viewer, defect, P3)

Description

[david.smitmanis]

It seems the behavior when clicking the download button differs depending on your profile settings. Default behavior with a clean profile is to download the pdf to the default folder without prompting, which in my opinion isn't desirable.

Other people seem to get promted (see Bug 793832 for instance), so my guess is that it could depend on your settings in Options - Applications.

My suggestion would be to make the download button always prompt no matter the settings, or to add the ability to specify the behavior yourself in some way. Right now it seems beyond direct user control.

Comment 1

[Alexander Wang]

Can you check the "General" tab under the Options window? The setting under "Downloads" might be set to automatically save files to a default folder. I changed a clean profile setting to "Always ask me where to save files," and the next PDF I saved prompted me for a location to save the file to.

Comment 2

[david.smitmanis]

Indeed, if you set to the "Always ask" you are asked where you want to save the file. The problem is that this settings goes for everywhere in Firefox. The default settings (from a completely new profile) is "Save to folder", yet you will get some sort of dialog before it downloads for any file without a custom behavior set in Applications. And you can't set a preferred behavior for pdf files, because you have already set it to preview in browser.

Comment 3

[Alexander Wang]

I think I understand what you are saying. The prompt always comes up regardless of the download setting in Options for any non-PDF file. This is occurring for me on Firefox 18, Ubuntu, 32-bit.

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:18.0) Gecko/18.0 Firefox/18.0

Comment 4

[Brendan Dahl [:bdahl]]

With the built in version of pdf.js it should always download automatically.  It would be nice if it opened the open with/save as dialog instead.

Comment 5

[Brendan Dahl [:bdahl]]

We have a relatively small fix for this which will come along with bug 835954, but from recent feedback this seems to be a pretty common issue.

Alex, 
Do you think this is worth/wanted for uplift?

Comment 6

[Alex Keybl [:akeybl]]

(In reply to Brendan Dahl from comment #5)
> Alex, 
> Do you think this is worth/wanted for uplift?

That'd be great, since we expect to be relying on the fallback in a number of user critical instances. Please prepare an uplift for landing on mozilla-beta Tuesday, along with the other infobar changes. Thanks!

Comment 7

[Yury Delendik (:yury)]

Attachment: Use attachment content disposition attachment and filename (beta)

Comment 8

[Yury Delendik (:yury)]

Attachment: Use attachment content disposition attachment and filename (aurora)

Comment 9

[Yury Delendik (:yury)]

Comment on attachment 709688 [details] [diff] [review]
Use attachment content disposition attachment and filename (beta)

[Approval Request Comment]
Bug caused by (feature/regressing bug #): --
User impact if declined: Download behavior inconsistent
Testing completed (on m-c, etc.): https://tbpl.mozilla.org/?tree=Try&rev=bcfacb40d978, tested on dev. version on pdf.js
Risk to taking this patch (and alternatives if risky): low, affects only fallback/download pdf.js functionality
String or UUID changes made by this patch: --

Comment 10

[Yury Delendik (:yury)]

Comment on attachment 709689 [details] [diff] [review]
Use attachment content disposition attachment and filename (aurora)

[Approval Request Comment]
Bug caused by (feature/regressing bug #): --
User impact if declined: Download behavior inconsistent
Testing completed (on m-c, etc.): https://tbpl.mozilla.org/?tree=Try&rev=b9730aeeedd3, tested on dev. version of pdf.js
Risk to taking this patch (and alternatives if risky): low, affects only fallback/download pdf.js functionality
String or UUID changes made by this patch: --

Comment 11

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-aurora/rev/c0eea5c5526a
https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-beta/rev/53c23a73d31c

This will be fixed on m-c when bug 835954 lands.

Comment 12

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/af8e5720ccf2

Comment 13

[Manuela Muntean [Away]]

Verified on Firefox 19 beta 5.

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:19.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/19.0
Build ID: 20130206083616

Comment 14

[u279076]

Thanks Manuela. Dropping qawanted but leaving verifyme to track for verification on other branches.

Comment 15

[Virgil Dicu [:virgil] [QA]]

Verified the fix for Firefox 20.0 beta 1 (20130220104816).
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:20.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/20.0

After clicking the download button, the user is prompted to Open/Save file.

Comment 16

[Ioana (away)]

Verified as fixed on Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:21.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/21.0 (20130416200523). I get the open/save prompt every time.

Comment 17

[Petruta Horea [:phorea], Desktop QA]

Verified as fixed on latest Nightly 25.0a1 (Build ID: 20130728030204)
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:25.0) Gecko/20130728 Firefox/25.0