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Firefox hangs when opening PDF links

  • 10 replies
  • 363 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by VOCALSpin

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I have tried the suggestions, but none of them worked. If I click on a link to access a PDF file, Firefox hangs. I seem to be able to download other files OK.

I have tried the suggestions, but none of them worked. If I click on a link to access a PDF file, Firefox hangs. I seem to be able to download other files OK.

Chosen solution

You can try to install the latest Adobe Reader.

Read this answer in context 👍 4

All Replies (10)

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Chosen Solution

You can try to install the latest Adobe Reader.

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Downloading a new Adobe reader makes no difference. I'm using the latest Firefox (version 3.6.12) and the latest Adobe reader (9.4.1) but downloads of PDF files quite often hang indefinitely part way. The same file downloads without problems using IE, or Google Chrome, or Opera. I guess the solution is to stop using Firefox until this is fixed. It's not just on my computer, others have found the same problem.

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I had a similar problem. The Adobe reader tried to open a document and hung Firefox completely. All I could do was force FF to shutdown under W7 64bit. When I tried to restart FF all the same pages came up again and it hung again. Forcing a shutdown does not offer to save open pages or not. The only way I could get out of it was to use Google Chrome to join this forum and click on the link in the resulting email. Fortunately this caused Firefox (my default browser) to restart with the "Well this is embarrassing..." message which allowed me to tell it to ignore the pages it couldn't open. It would be nice if there was somewhere you could go to delete some or all of the remembered URLs so that problematic ones wouldn't open next time.

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I have a similar issue - the Adobe reader is launched but the document never displays. If I try to launch Firefox after I get this failure, I get a message that it's already running and I need to cancel it via task manager.

This doesn't happen all the time - but it happens enough that I created an account to make this post. Some times if I cancel Firefox and re-launch Firefox and try to view the PDF file - it works (sometimes - otherwise I end up using IE (ugh)).

If there are trace settings that I can set for someone to look at - just let me know.

I'm running win7 64 w/4 users (family desktop); firefox 3.6.13; adobe reader 10.0.1 - everything is up to date.

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display is rarely an issue for me but sometimes i come across something interesting i want to hold onto or something a bit heavy to digest in one sitting and i click the download button. everything is fine unless the download is very slow.

this paralyzes Firefox and i cannot change tabs till the download fails, the download completes or i minimize Firefox by clicking on the Firefox button on my taskbar (clicking on the minimize button on the window does nothing during this glitch)

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It does not work. It seems that every new version worsens the experience which is really frustrating. I don't like IE and I really loved Mozilla, but now... I am able to open the PDF document but then, everything becomes incredibly slow!!!! So I'm actually not able to browse anymore. I've been forced to install Chrome to solve this, since 80% of my job has something to do with opening PDF's files, but I really want the useful Mozilla back

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Had the same problem. I went into the Plugins and when I disabled the DocuCom PDF plus plugin the problem stopped. See if you have any plugins or extensions that deal with PDF files and try disabling them and see if the problem resolves.

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Ok, here we go, I spent half an hour to figure out this annoyance. First, it is not a Firefox issue, it is solely an Adobe issue. I'm running Windows 7 32-bit, Firefox 3.6.17 , Adobe Acrobat Reader 10.0.1 and Adobe PDF plugin for Firefox 10.0.1.434. Either way, be it using the standalone Acrobat Reader or the PDF plugin, the click on a link in a PDF document freezes your application, be it Firefox or Acrobat Reader. Both of them spring back into life after about 200 seconds, and do what you were expecting to happen. Using the plugin, it shows the page you clicked on. All subsequent clicked links are displayed instantly. Using the standalone reader, in my case, it shows the popup if you allow this link to be displayed; click yes and it is presented in Firefox. All subsequent clicked links display this popup instantly. I'm now of to Adobe, to request this 200 second timer to be removed ;-)

Cheers

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This Problem was a big pain in the neck. The problem was not with Firefox it was with Adobe, I downloaded the newest Adobe and the problem went away. Good Luck.

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I created a one page PDF (see here) yesterday. It had 8 links going to YouTube, FaceBook, MySpace, SoundCloud, and some others. After uploading it to my Word Press Post Page, and creating the new URL, I logged into GoDaddy to forward the domain "VOCALSpin.com" (with masking) so the long WordPress URL would be hidden.(http://vocalspin.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/vocalspin-music-productions.pdf) This worked great, in Chrome, all the links worked! ... In FireFox, only 3 links out of 8 worked. YouTube, Flickr, MySpace, and Twitter would not connect! I only got a blank white page, or error page. In Opera and IE, I got the same failures! BLANK WHITE PAGE or ERROR PAGE. Here's the FIX: After "Masking" the long WordPress URL which ended in ".pdf " with a domain that ended in ".com " ... the -FireFox PDF plug-in- did not distinguish the page as a PDF, so "the built-in PDF Reader" didn't do its job of thoroughly "reading" the document. ... After I removed the "masking," the domain (VOCALSpin.com) then forwarded to the long WordPress URL which showed up in the browser, ending with ".pdf " ... Removing the ".com" ending from the browser, replaced by the URL ending with ".pdf " then caused all the links to work in FireFox, IE, Opera and Safari. ... Chrome was never an issue. In my case, it had to end with .pdf to be truly treated as a PDF! # !Doink! # ... At least- all my links work NOW! HoT-diGGiTy-DawG! ... make sure it ends with .pdf in the browser!

Modified by VOCALSpin