Comment 13 for bug 238572

Hi Kit,

Many thanks for all the effort put into investigating this.

We do still have one question though - on our example webpage at http://devtrain.beds.ac.uk/isd/guides/gw we have a list of 7 DL links. The third link is 'Using GroupWise 7.0.x at the University' and there is a pdf and a text version available. If you select the pdf two or three times then the PDF stops displaying as we have all now witnessed. However, after these 7 DL links there is a standard link to another copy of the very same PDF, which has been uploaded to Silva as a 'Silva file' rather than using the DL. This pdf loads and displays perfectly every time via the plugin, no matter how many times you select it. Surely this indicates a problem with the repository or the method used to fetch the file from the OAI, otherwise wouldn't this direct pdf link behave in the same way as the DL link?

>>> On 20/06/2008 at 10:13, Kit Blake <email address hidden> wrote:
> 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.
>
> --
> PDFs causing browser problems on arana
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/238572
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