Comment 11 for bug 238572

Using Firefox (2.0.0.14 without an Adobe plugin) all of the above mentioned documents download fine.

Using Safari, which does open PDFs in the browser, but not with an Adobe plugin, I can't reproduce any of the problems either. I have clicked on all documents numerous times, and every time it appears in my browser as expected.

With a Windows machine and Explorer with Acrobat plugin, I can reproduce the problem, almost exactly as you described.

So, after more than an afternoon of investigation (2 people), we've found that there's a setting called "Allow fast web view" (this is in Adobe Reader, not the plugin, under "Internet" preferences). If you turn that off, the PDFs show up just fine. What's happening is the PDF was distilled (produced) in a 'linearized' Adobe format that allows the plugin to decide to download the file in chunks. You can see it happening in Exploror's status bar. Somewhere these chunks are not being handled properly.

We could say that your users should turn that preference off. If you Google that phrase you'll find lots of hits with the same advice. But we don't like that solution and it's likely that it won't really work in your organization.

There is probably a way to solve the problem on the serving side, we just haven't figured out how. But we see lots of other applications out there with the same headache, all because of the Adobe plugin. We'll have to investigate and find how, and where (in Apache, in the module, in the application) this gets solved.

We'll need to put this on the ToDo list for the next phase as it's not a quick fix.