Ubuntu
mozplugger package

Mozplugger doesn't open a pdf file

Bug #3994 reported by sgtpepper
12
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
mozplugger (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Medium
MOTU

Bug Description

If mozplugger is installed, Firefox can't open pdf files with the default viewer Acrobat reader 7. I think, the /etc/mozpluggerrc is wrong:

repeat swallow(documentShell) fill: acroread -geometry +9000+9000 +useFrontEndProgram "$file"

If I run firefox from console, and I try to open a pdf file, it says:

user@xxx:~$ firefox

Usage: /usr/bin/acroread [options] [list of files]

Options:
    --display=<DISPLAY>
        This option specifies the host and display to use.
[...]

I think, the parameters in mozpluggerrc is bad.

Daniel Holbach (dholbach)
Changed in mozplugger:
assignee: nobody → motu
Revision history for this message
Barry deFreese (bddebian) wrote :

Unreproducable in Dapper. Is this a breezy bug? Thank you.

Changed in mozplugger:
status: Unconfirmed → Needs Info
Revision history for this message
Jeff Evans (jwevans1) wrote :

The "useFrontEndProgram" parameter is bad. With Acrobat Reader 7.0, I got this to work by using the following line in mozpluggerrc:

repeat swallow(acroread) fill: acroread -geometry +9000+9000 -openInNewWindow "$file"

This launches the viewer in the tab and opens the file and prevents it from simply being opened by any currently running acroread process (openInNewWindow option). However this still seems like a hack because it opens the new window for an instant (you can see it), then immediately "swallows" it to the tab. It also launches another acroread process, which is quite a memory hog. I wasn't able to find a way to get every tab with pdfs open to share the same process yet display different documents.

Revision history for this message
David Planella (dpm) wrote :

Related to this issue, viewing pdfs does not work for me, either.

I am using Evince as a pdf viewer, and in order to get it working with Epiphany/Firefox I added the following to /etc/mozpluggerrc:

repeat noisy swallow(evince) fill: evince "$file"

This seems to work for a couple of times, i.e. I can open pdfs with Evince either in tabs or new windows. I am also experiencing the "tab swallowing" issue Jeff Evans was describing on the previous post, although I can live with that.

However, after having open a couple of pdf documents, this does not work anymore. That is, clicking on a link containing a pdf file produces a new empty browser window (or tab). This behaviour is exactly the same in Evolution and Firefox.

After seeing this, I removed the Evince line from /etc/mozpluggerrc and left the acroread entry there untouched, saved the file, and tried again to open a pdf link.

The result being that no pdf file was displayed, I only got the empty browser page (yes, acroreda is installed on my system, and I'm not using the mozilla-acroread plugin because for some strange reason it does not work with Epiphany).

BTW, I'm using Dapper.

Revision history for this message
David Planella (dpm) wrote :

Please ignore my previous post. It was related to Evince and mozplugger, not Acroread and mozplugger.

I've submitted a separate bug for that.

Sorry for the noise.

Revision history for this message
Mark Reitblatt (mark-reitblatt) wrote :

The fix from Jeff Evans works for me on Dapper, and the problem doesn't exist for me on Edgy.

Revision history for this message
Rolf Leggewie (r0lf) wrote :

numerous people confirmed this.

As per the last comment, it seems this is not an issue for edgy, at least.

Changed in mozplugger:
status: Needs Info → Confirmed
William Grant (wgrant)
Changed in mozplugger:
status: Confirmed → Fix Released
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