OS2 World Community Forum

OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical => Applications => Topic started by: Pete on October 17, 2019, 05:15:42 pm

Title: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: Pete on October 17, 2019, 05:15:42 pm
Hi All

I have a silly PDF problem introduced by my ISP who is now producing my bills in PDF format.
As I cannot read the bills online I have been downloading them to view with Lucide 1.5.0 GA.
However, something has changed with the PDF files as I cannot view my later Bills using Lucide; all that is displayed are blank pages.

I have checked the Document Info available via the Lucide menu item View.

The older bills I can view all have this Document Info:-

Document: STANDARD.pdf
Format: PDF-1.7
Creator: Foxit Quick PDF Library 15.11 (www.debenu.com)
Producer: Foxit Quick PDF Library 15.11 (www.debenu.com)
Created: 01/01/2019  3:02:19 PM
Modified: 01/01/2019  3:02:19 PM


The pdfs that cannot be  vewed in Lucide have the same Docment Info:-

Document: 01062019.pdf
Format: PDF-1.7
Creator: Foxit Quick PDF Library 15.11 (www.debenu.com)
Producer: Foxit Quick PDF Library 15.11 (www.debenu.com)
Created: 01/06/2019  3:08:37 PM
Modified: 01/06/2019  3:08:37 PM

Obviously the values of Document, Created and Modified are different for each bill but the Format, Creator and Producer values are the same.

As the Format, Creator and Producer values are the same for Bills I can view with Lucide and those I cannot does anyone have any ideas on what the difference between the Bills could be and how to view those Bills that cannot be viewed in Lucide?


Thanks for any help.

Pete
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: ivan on October 17, 2019, 06:26:38 pm
Hi Pete,

A couple of things that may, or may not help.

If you open the the PDF with EPM.EXE are the headers and endings the same between those you can read and those you can't?

Have you tried opening them with GSVIEW?  I have found that it gives a somewhat cryptic error message if ti can't read a PDF which might give a clue as to the problem

And an extra.  Have you tried an older version of Lucide?  I'm running Lucide 1.3.5GA because some of the newer versions barf on some of the PDF manuals I use.
 
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: Pete on October 17, 2019, 08:11:30 pm
Hi ivan

Just tested GSView which has the same problem as Lucide, just blank pages displayed.

Note: Both Lucide and GSView open the file without any error messages and display *blank* pages. Lucide can retrieve Document Info whereas GSView cannot.

Comparing the file that does display in both Lucide and GSView with the file that does not display using text editor the headers look identical however the endings are very different:-

Standard.pdf displays fine in both apps and has this ending:-

>>
startxref
131746
%%EOF
í─L¿k¶
`

01062019.pdf does not display in Lucide or GSView and has this ending:-

>>
st┐äóÍ│8zvþ¥U▄£ËÝÕ;Pwartxref
131912
%%EOF


A little editing to that file ending resulting in

>>
startxref
131912
%%EOF
í─L¿k¶
`

I saved the edited file as test.pdf and then tried opening it in both Lucide and GSView. Blank pages are displayed by both apps so maybe it is not the difference in the endings...

Guess I have Lucide 1.3.5 somewhere amongst my backups so will have to dig it out and test.


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: Eugene Gorbunoff on October 17, 2019, 11:01:17 pm

Maybe new pdf files don't include fonts.. you can see the contents in Windows, but get empty pages in OS/2,
we have this problems with cyrillic pdf files
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: ivan on October 17, 2019, 11:41:46 pm
Hi Pete, 

The ending with symbols after the %%EOF doesn't appear to be correct, at least looking at random samples from my PDF collection.

examples;

my ISP bill header:

%PDF-1.4
%ÃýÅó
5 0 obj
<</Length 6 0 R/Filter /FlateDecode>>
stream

Same bill ending:

trailer
<< /Size 42 /Root 1 0 R /Info 2 0 R
/ID [<910210598AA2CBBE0AF0C0823BDA8D74><910210598AA2CBBE0AF0C0823BDA8D74>]
>>
startxref
25067
%%EOF

and the ending from my electricity bills:

endstream
endobj
startxref
116
%%EOF


OK, all of my PDF files start with either %PDF-1.4 or %PDF-1.5 while yours are %PDF-1.7.  If I get a chance tomorrow I will ask a friend that produces PDF files at work, if there are ant strange foibles with 1.7 as compared to 1.4.  I know he has a copy of the various PDF standards.
 


Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: Eduardo Vila Echagüe on October 18, 2019, 05:41:20 am
Have you tried qpdfview?
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: Pete on October 18, 2019, 01:34:16 pm
Hi Eduardo

I have qpdfview 4.15 installed from zip package but cannot run it.

Sadly qpdfview seems to be coded to use CUPS.DLL which does not exist on a system with CUPS2.x installed from zip files. Copying the existing CUPS20.DLL file to CUPS.DLL and having a LIBPATH entry pointing to the directory containing the CUPS.DLL file does not resolve the problem .

I see qpdfview 4.17-6beta2 is available via ANPM(rpm-yum) but have no intention of installing that as it also wants to download and install the cups rpm packages which are simply not required as I already have a working cups installation.

So, no I have not tried qpdfview but simply because it does not work at all.


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: David Graser on October 18, 2019, 05:11:26 pm
eCSoft/2 does an excellent job of explaining what is needed.

https://ecsoft2.org/qpdfview

It requires a lot.  I used the the quick install listing all the prerequisites and it works fine.
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: ivan on October 18, 2019, 05:40:42 pm
Hi David,

You missed Pete's  point that he has an optimal CUPS install working and QPDFVIEW wants to install cups over what he has working it is a no-no.

Hi Pete,

My friend is down in Spain solving IT problems but will get back to me as soon as he gets home.
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: roberto on October 19, 2019, 10:16:14 pm
I can think of one thing, try to rename the file, with basic, not special characters.
saludos
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: Dariusz Piatkowski on October 21, 2019, 02:09:02 am
When you open the PDF with Lucide and select 'View=>Fonts Info', do you see anything?

I'm curious about whether the document uses embeded or system fonts?

I'm also assuming that you are using the lupplr PDF plugin based on teh poppler library 0.59.0?
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: Dariusz Piatkowski on October 21, 2019, 02:13:14 am
Hi Pete,

...I see qpdfview 4.17-6beta2 is available via ANPM(rpm-yum) but have no intention of installing that as it also wants to download and install the cups rpm packages which are simply not required as I already have a working cups installation...

I have 0.4.17.beta2 installed here, but the non-RPM one b/c I didn't want to actually install CUPS since my Brother printer is nearly fully supported using the PScript driver.

Anyways, the ZIP filename i pulled was qpdfview-0_4_17-6beta2_oc00.zip, found on the ZIP side of the repository I believe.
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: xynixme on October 21, 2019, 03:05:43 am
I'm also assuming that you are using the lupplr PDF plugin based on teh poppler library 0.59.0?
BTW, does Lucide 1.3.5 have any special requirements? My copy (eCS 1.2, i.e. no CUPS) is appending text to POPUPLOG.OS2 when the number of it's being executed isn't an even number. So I have to open files twice.

Code: [Select]
LUCIDE.EXE
c0010003
1e92f0c1
P1=00000003  P2=XXXXXXXX  P3=XXXXXXXX  P4=XXXXXXXX 
EAX=02e3beba  EBX=0001154c  ECX=025f1830  EDX=02e341b8
ESI=00000618  EDI=00002ef3 
DS=0053  DSACC=f0f3  DSLIM=ffffffff 
ES=0053  ESACC=f0f3  ESLIM=ffffffff 
FS=150b  FSACC=00f3  FSLIM=00000030
GS=0000  GSACC=****  GSLIM=********
CS:EIP=005b:11bf77a4  CSACC=f0df  CSLIM=ffffffff
SS:ESP=0053:0012f854  SSACC=f0f3  SSLIM=ffffffff
EBP=02e10000  FLG=00012202

PMMERGE.DLL 0004:000ff0c1
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: Pete on October 21, 2019, 06:38:00 am
Hi Dariusz

'View=>Fonts Info' gives me a list of embedded fonts.

Yes, poppler 0.59.0-3 installed.

I tried qpdfview-0_4_17-6beta2_oc00.zip which looks like it needs to be unzipped into the unixroot - something I would rather avoid much preferring to keep applications within their own directory structure than dumped into /bin and /lib etc.

Tried unzipping it and copying files into a qpdfview directory with the addition of a copy of cups20.dll renamed to cups.dll and qpdfview actually starts. Sadly it cannot open any pdf files as it cannot find plugins. I suspect this is because they are not within the unixroot structure but will not be bothering to investigate further.


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: xynixme on October 21, 2019, 01:36:25 pm
Earlier the same here, w.r.t. qpdfview. No plugins found, no useless Unix directory structures installed, and no clue that it's possibly only a solution for the happy few.
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: xynixme on October 22, 2019, 01:04:51 pm
Sadly it cannot open any pdf files as it cannot find plugins. I suspect this is because they are not within the unixroot structure but will not be bothering to investigate further.

The same may apply to Qt5: "Could not find the Qt platform plugin". Producers of selfish, non-OS/2 solutions for the even fewer happy few...
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: Dariusz Piatkowski on October 22, 2019, 02:33:56 pm
Pete,

...I tried qpdfview-0_4_17-6beta2_oc00.zip which looks like it needs to be unzipped into the unixroot - something I would rather avoid much preferring to keep applications within their own directory structure than dumped into /bin and /lib etc.

Well, I am of the same opinion as you: keep my stuff clean, unless it is a genuine RPM package I do not put anything out there into the %UNIXROOT% tree. That way (my hope is) I have less of a chance of an un-known/foreseen problem creeping up eventually down the road.

So despite what the structure of the ZIP file I actually have the following in a completely separate directory:

Code: [Select]
[G:\apps\general\qpdfview]dir

The volume label in drive G is OS2.
The Volume Serial Number is 45B6:75C3.
Directory of G:\apps\general\qpdfview

 8-25-18   5:33p     <DIR>         354  .
 1-26-19   5:51p     <DIR>         300  ..
 9-01-19   6:18p     <DIR>         145  bin
 9-01-19   6:26p     <DIR>         147  share
        4 file(s)          0 bytes used
                 155148390 K bytes free

[G:\apps\general\qpdfview]dir bin

The volume label in drive G is OS2.
The Volume Serial Number is 45B6:75C3.
Directory of G:\apps\general\qpdfview\bin

 9-01-19   6:18p     <DIR>         145  .
 8-25-18   5:33p     <DIR>         354  ..
 7-12-18   6:20a     29325         346  qpdfdjvu.dll
 7-12-18   6:20a     17372         345  qpdfimg.dll
 7-12-18   6:20a     73209         345  qpdfpdf.dll
 7-12-18   6:20a     18047         344  qpdfps.dll
 7-12-18   6:20a    541469         480  qpdfview.exe
        7 file(s)     679422 bytes used
                 155148365 K bytes free

[G:\apps\general\qpdfview]dir share

The volume label in drive G is OS2.
The Volume Serial Number is 45B6:75C3.
Directory of G:\apps\general\qpdfview\share

 9-01-19   6:26p     <DIR>         147  .
 8-25-18   5:33p     <DIR>         354  ..
 9-01-19   6:14p     <DIR>         145  doc
 9-01-19   6:14p     <DIR>         150  qpdfview
        4 file(s)          0 bytes used
                 155148365 K bytes free

...Tried unzipping it and copying files into a qpdfview directory with the addition of a copy of cups20.dll renamed to cups.dll and qpdfview actually starts. Sadly it cannot open any pdf files as it cannot find plugins. I suspect this is because they are not within the unixroot structure but will not be bothering to investigate further...

So here is what I've done to get a working qpdfview:

1) review the contents of the install.os2 file in \share\doc\qpdfview-common-0.4.17
2) resolve any RPM conflicts:
- libjpeg is not installed here because the FF release uses libjpeg-turbo
- cups & cups-filters is NOT installed here, however I think I must have manually deployed CUPS dlls before since I have the following in my \usr\lib (thus violating my "PRIMARY DIRECTIVE" from above...LOL):

Code: [Select]
Directory of G:\usr\lib

11-27-17   5:56a    262399         124  cups.dll
11-27-17   5:56a     29188         124  cupscgi.dll
11-27-17   5:56a     16202         124  cupsim.dll
11-27-17   5:56a     10558         124  cupsmim.dll
11-27-17   5:56a     65450         124  cupspp.dll

...not sure if these are all the required CUPS pieces, however cups.dll is what qpdfview loads when it starts up. I do NOT print using qpdfview since the actual CUPS system is not installed.
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: Silvan Scherrer on October 22, 2019, 03:43:22 pm
Sadly it cannot open any pdf files as it cannot find plugins. I suspect this is because they are not within the unixroot structure but will not be bothering to investigate further.

The same may apply to Qt5: "Could not find the Qt platform plugin". Producers of selfish, non-OS/2 solutions for the even fewer happy few...

we are really glad for your nice words. Are we really selfish? I doubt. If it's a non-OS2 solution I doubt either.
If you insists in not using RPM, then it might work or not. As RPM is also strategic in ArcaOS we use it. And it makes the life a lot easier for the average user.

regards
Silvan
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: Roderick Klein on October 22, 2019, 08:12:19 pm
Sadly it cannot open any pdf files as it cannot find plugins. I suspect this is because they are not within the unixroot structure but will not be bothering to investigate further.

The same may apply to Qt5: "Could not find the Qt platform plugin". Producers of selfish, non-OS/2 solutions for the even fewer happy few...

we are really glad for your nice words. Are we really selfish? I doubt. If it's a non-OS2 solution I doubt either.
If you insists in not using RPM, then it might work or not. As RPM is also strategic in ArcaOS we use it. And it makes the life a lot easier for the average user.

regards
Silvan

Ignore the noise Silvan. Talk is cheap!

And yes if somebody wants an alternative for RPM. Either pay for it make a design and start a fundraiser! Be gladd people are still making software for OS/2.

The guy does not even know what he is talking about. If I rememebr correctly Alex mentioned to Dmitry he should incorporate some of the older OS/2 GUI elements that where in a previous QT version. OS/2 fonts settings are used. Correct me if I am wrong but you guys did already some things to make certain QT feels like and OS/2 product....


Roderick
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: Andreas Schnellbacher on October 22, 2019, 11:36:02 pm
Ignore the noise Silvan. Talk is cheap!
On OS2 world, there exists the Ignore List (https://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;area=lists;sa=ignore).
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: Eduardo Vila Echagüe on October 23, 2019, 12:20:03 am
Pete,

As you seem not to have  a test system, you could use our group for testing. Can you provide us with a sample of those Bills you cannot open with Lucide? Then you will know if the problem is with your system, with Lucide or with the PDF. I use both Lucide and qpdfview with no problem with any of the PDFs issued by my service providers

Eduardo
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: Joop on October 23, 2019, 01:26:48 am
I have a manual with next header;

%PDF-1.7
%ÃýÅó
5 0 obj
<</Length 6 0 R/Filter /FlateDecode>>
stream

Indeling: PDF-1.7
Gemaakt in: PDF24 Creator
Met: GPL Ghostscript 9.26
Gemaakt op: 23-07-2019  13:56:05
Veranderd op: 23-07-2019  13:56:05

And I don't have any trouble opening it with Lucide 1.3.2 GA (2010-04-22). Everything seems to be okay, text and pictures.

Joop
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: Pete on October 23, 2019, 02:46:22 am
Hi All


@Silvan

Despite my earlier noise I did investigate further and now have a working qpdfview-0_4_17-6beta2_oc00 which I am happy with.

Thank you for your efforts even when they sometimes seem unappreciated.


@Dariusz

I had the same directory layout as you posted above but with the addition of some support files in the \bin directory:-

cups.dll - a copy of cups20.dll to enable qpdfview to run; Yes printing works
idn11.dll
spectre1.dll
The 2 above dll files were installed from zip files as libspectre installation dragged along unneeded cups and ghostscript packages.

Initially qpdfview reported being unable to open files because it could not load the PDF plugin.

Following your sound advice I re-read the install.os2 file and followed the advice to delete %HOME%/.config/Trolltech.ini

That did the trick! - no problem opening and printing PDF files with qpdfview now.


Regards

Pete




Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: xynixme on October 23, 2019, 03:16:55 am
Be gladd people are still making software for OS/2.

The guy does not even know what he is talking about. If I rememebr correctly Alex mentioned to Dmitry he should incorporate some of the older OS/2 GUI elements that where in a previous QT version. OS/2 fonts settings are used. Correct me if I am wrong but you guys did already some things to make certain QT feels like and OS/2 product....
O, don't give my any of that. They aren't. Part of the problem will be that there's an eCS 2.x DE for the happy few. It's nothing but a lie that you are glad that people are still producing software for OS/2.

That'll be the cause. Name-dropping is clumsy, and there really is no need for advocating self-justification with irrevant arguments. It isn't even possible to view "OS/2 GUI elements" nor "OS/2 fonts settings" with the so-called "software for OS/2", and I'm not sure what an irrelevant installer has to do with not being able to find in an OS/2 directory. It's great, for the even fewer happy few, that they did "some things" for those people. People moving on, while leaving a significant part of the small community behind each time.

But thanks for confirming the issues, because apparently this is supposed to be some encouragement for the poor to buy your way out of acknowledged troubles. Perhaps customers making funding conditional is a better idea, if funders do care about the size of their small community (excluding me, obviously) . There really is no need to pretend that they are writing OS/2 software. They don't, which is a perfectly valid conclusion and which is fine. It's a choice. I've tried to care less about the selfish opinion and classic online attack of a CTO of a company whoms products aren't made for me. They aren't writing software for OS/2, and you are confirming that, so you're only problem is someone pointing that out. And a broken or incomplete search stragtegy of binaries really has nothing with some installer. Clearly they are writing software for their own non-OS/2 environments.

The "be gladd people are still making software for OS/2", unlike some CTO I am, makes even less sense than the attempts to insult me. They are producing non-OS/2 software for the even fewer happy few, which is a valid conclusion. So is them having the full freedom to continue to reduce the size of a small community, unless you'd fund an installer on your own.

I'd support the suggestion of the selfish happy few to block the messenger, and please continue to fund the efforts of some CTO. Unconditionally. Who cares about a smaller size of of a small community, and who cares about "people still making software for OS/2". You don't.
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: Pete on October 23, 2019, 03:19:21 am
Hi All

The problem I have with Lucide or any other pdf file viewer opening Bills from my ISP seems to be a problem between Seamonkey 2.42.9esr and something on the ISPs website - possibly javascript.

My ISP does not offer a download of my bills and expects a browser to have a current adobe plugin in order to read Bills online. However, clicking the "View Bill" button results in Seamonkey offering to either open with WPS Default app or save a file called $STANDARD which it describes as a PDF file.

For whatever reason using Open with WPS Default results in the file appearing in Text Editor - Yes, Lucide is set as Default PDF viewer. While viewing the file in Text Editor selecting to save the file results in a PDF file that cannot be opened by any PDF Viewer.

Saving the file does not quite work - but it does for my purposes!

When I select Save file in the Seamonkey dialog no Save dialog appears. The file save generates a lot of 4 core cpu activity briefly and then drops back to a bit less busy. This seems to indicate the file download has finished. As I have not had the chance to specify a Save location and filename I looked in my TEMP directory to see if $STANDARD existed. No, it did not. I did have a file called ytK8tCVo.pdf.part which had only just been created in the directory though and looking at it with Text Editor it seemed to be the complete bill I had selected for download.

I copied ytK8tCVo.pdf.part to test.pdf and have opened it without any problems using both Lucide and qpdfview.

The file $STANDARD did not appear in the TEMP directory and cpu activity remained fairly high until I logged out of my ISPs member area.

I repeated the above several times to download recent Bills that I had not been able to view before with the same results every time. After copying the downloaded *.pdf.part files to *.pdf the files open fine with Lucide and qpdfview.

So, looks like something goes wrong with downloading the file. My guess is that it is probably javascript related. Anyone else have any ideas? - I would like to give my ISP an idea of what to fix  ;-)


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: xynixme on October 23, 2019, 03:48:51 am
Thank you for your efforts even when they sometimes seem unappreciated.

By, excluding you and your earlier noise, whom?

Please don't make up what someone is (not) appriciating. If I'd unappreciate software which is not written for me nor OS/2, then I'd be quite busy complaining about 99.9999%, rounded down, of all businesses and people producing sofware. I do write (mainly specialized and non-public) software for OS/2, FWIW, I honestly don't really care who's not appriciating that digitally, and I wasn't expecting nor demanding any useful nor helpful reply from an advocating CTO who wants to be funded. No customer, no complaints. You can guess why I'm not funding their "solitions".

If the selfish insults and unsollicited name-dropping are anything to go by, they I don't suddenly have to start liking them because there's some unexpected, acceptable solution available. The messenger isn't one of the happy few. But it's a fact that I dont appricate the usual self-justifications of such a CTO, just like it's a fact that they are producing non-OS/2 software for the happy few. O well, we've already left quite a few people/countries/languages behind since OS/2; who cares...
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: Dariusz Piatkowski on October 23, 2019, 05:08:34 am
...For whatever reason using Open with WPS Default results in the file appearing in Text Editor - Yes, Lucide is set as Default PDF viewer. While viewing the file in Text Editor selecting to save the file results in a PDF file that cannot be opened by any PDF Viewer...

Hmm...does the option to do 'Save As' not appear at all?

This is probably FF preferences driven (Tools=>Options=>Applications, I have most of my set to 'Always Ask'), and since the browser is not seeing a PDF document flag in the server feed it assumes it's text (perhaps b/c it is actually seeing something else that looks like text) and therefore it treats it as such.

A file called ytK8tCVo.pdf.part is created during the d/l process. Once completed FF will rename it to just ytK8tCVo.pdf (or whatever you picked as the 'Save As' filename option). In your case it appears that this does not happen, which is strange, b/c even if treated as a simple text file it should eventually open up the PDF in default text editor.
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: Alex Taylor on October 23, 2019, 05:50:08 am
For whatever reason using Open with WPS Default results in the file appearing in Text Editor - Yes, Lucide is set as Default PDF viewer.

TTBOMK the Open behaviour of downloaded files is controlled by the MIME type of the download stream, and not by the filename.  If the remote HTTP server is reporting the wrong MIME type for the file, or it's falling back to the generic "application/octet-stream", then that's what tends to happen.  AFAIK there's not much that we, the user, can do about it.

Quote
When I select Save file in the Seamonkey dialog no Save dialog appears. The file save generates a lot of 4 core cpu activity briefly and then drops back to a bit less busy. This seems to indicate the file download has finished. As I have not had the chance to specify a Save location and filename I looked in my TEMP directory to see if $STANDARD existed. No, it did not. I did have a file called ytK8tCVo.pdf.part which had only just been created in the directory though and looking at it with Text Editor it seemed to be the complete bill I had selected for download.

Does it happen with other file types as well?

This sounds like the long-standing bug in our Mozilla ports where saving a downloaded file fails to open the Save As dialog, and as a result the file never gets transferred from the temporary directory.  This can be triggered, quite reliably, by attempting to save a file to the root directory of a drive.  Once you do that, saving downloads to a specific directory will be broken from then on.  I have not found any way of fixing the browser once it gets into this state, short of creating a new profile.  It is a well known and IMHO quite serious bug in all Mozilla for OS/2 builds for the past several years.  I do not know why a fix seems to be so elusive.

Otherwise, the only viable workaround is to turn off the "Always ask me where to save files" setting, and simply allow all downloads to be placed in the preconfigured Downloads directory.  Which is annoying, but at least it works.
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: roberto on October 23, 2019, 08:36:20 am
Hello
This is a case very similar to what Pete comments:

https://manuals.easygates.co.uk/PDF/DEA/LIVI_ENG%20[483%20Kb].pdf

When trying to open the file from the Download Manager, clicking twice fails. But renaming it or from another application does not fail
In fact the correct link is including square brackets, and even the pdf. It seems that Seamonkey does not like square brackets ....
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: David Graser on October 23, 2019, 04:47:14 pm
Hello
This is a case very similar to what Pete comments:

https://manuals.easygates.co.uk/PDF/DEA/LIVI_ENG%20[483%20Kb].pdf

When trying to open the file from the Download Manager, clicking twice fails. But renaming it or from another application does not fail
In fact the correct link is including square brackets, and even the pdf. It seems that Seamonkey does not like square brackets ....

I just tested Firefox, Lucide, and Qpdfview.  All 3 programs display the bracked pdf just fine.
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: Pete on October 23, 2019, 05:40:44 pm
Hi All

Seamonkey is set to "Always Ask" for PDF and the resulting dialog identifies the file $STANDARD as a PDF file.

The "Save As..." dialog does not appear when attempting to download the file.

The "Save As..." dialog does appear when attempting to download other files - it is just the bills from my ISP that have this problem. So, probably not Alexs long standing Mozilla bug.


@Roberto

The problem you are seeing is due to the filename [483%20Kb].pdf - the "[" and "]" are seen as opening and closing braces for parameters for an application.



Regards

Pete
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: Dave Yeo on October 23, 2019, 05:52:18 pm
SeaMonkey also displays the PDF fine.
Part of Petes problem was likely a line ending issue, sounds like Poppler doesn't like DOS line endings.
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: Pete on October 23, 2019, 08:10:44 pm
Hi Dave

More likely an ISP website Seamonkey interaction problem.

What are you using to get Seamonkey to display the  [483%20Kb].pdf file?


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: ivan on October 24, 2019, 01:53:24 am
Hi Pete,

I spoke with my friend this afternoon  and he thinks that your trouble could well be a damaged coded section especially if the download is a text file of some sort.  He suggested that you use a live linux DVD to boot from and use firefox to download the PDF and try to view that.  If it can be viewed correctly then the problem is a faulty download - why the download doesn't work is another problem.

If you don't want to use a linux DVD and have an Android tablet you could use that to download the PDF and transfer it from there to your computer using an OTG USB adapter.
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: Dave Yeo on October 24, 2019, 02:22:48 am

What are you using to get Seamonkey to display the  [483%20Kb].pdf file?

I just pasted it into the address bar and it loaded with the builtin JS PDF viewer. Strangely copying and pasting here gives https://manuals.easygates.co.uk/PDF/DEA/LIVI_ENG%20[483%20Kb].pdf though in the address bar it shows https://manuals.easygates.co.uk/PDF/DEA/LIVI_ENG [483 Kb].pdf I guess due to the spaces being escaped.
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: Pete on October 24, 2019, 03:08:53 am
Hi Dave

What builtin pdf viewer? All I get by copying 'n' pasting the non url - the url stops just before the "[" - is an offer to download the file.

Maybe you mean the javascript PDF Viewer Addon?

I enabled that and retried but that fails to load the file, just shows "Loading... 0%" with no activity obvious even a couple of minutes later.


Regards

Pete



Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: Dave Yeo on October 24, 2019, 04:39:40 am
Yes the Add-on, I've lost track whether I added it or not and whether I updated it. I'm using version 1.6.306. Doesn't seem to be on the Github page, https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js/releases (https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js/releases) but is on Hobbes, http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/apps/internet/www/browser/pdf_js-1_6_306-r2.zip (http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/download/pub/os2/apps/internet/www/browser/pdf_js-1_6_306-r2.zip) Guess should test a newer one.
Doesn't seem to be in the source tree so I guess I added it at some point.
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: Doug Bissett on October 24, 2019, 04:40:31 am
Quote
What builtin pdf viewer?

If you are using square brackets in the file name, all bets are off, but I have used Firefox to display PDF files, for a few years now. I don't remember what version started to support them. You do need to remove all external references to PDF support (including Javascript addons). I don't use SeaMonkey, but I would assume that it has the same support. I can load them from the internet, or open the PDF file (File-> Open File...).
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: Pete on October 24, 2019, 05:11:12 am
Hi Dave

Having updated PDF Viewer from 0.3.213 to 1.6.306r2 viewing PDF files online works - including my ISP Bills.

Thanks for the "heads up"  :-)


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: Strange PDF file problem using Lucide...
Post by: roberto on October 24, 2019, 10:03:36 am
Now yes, everything is fine here.
Thank you