Reader X doesn't display Pdf stream if response contains header "Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache"

[sophiefonfec]

Hi all,

I work on a web application that, among others, generates Pdf documents. It renders them directly within the IE window by "streaming" the content of the Pdf in the response output stream. Note that we also add the header "Cache-Control", "no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate,post-check=0, pre-check=0" to the response.

Everything was fine with previous version of reader but since I installed Adobe reader X the content of the Pdf is not showing any more in my browser.

Here is what I already investigated:

- if I use another machine with an "older" Reader version, it works. If I save the displayed Pdf and try to open it on the machine where X is installed  it works

- if I remove the the Cache-Control header, then it works with reader X installation

Do you have any idea what changed between version 9 and X that could lead to this issue ?

To ease diagnostic I created a sandbox environment to reproduce the problem, you can go to the following address to see what's happening (or not in case you have version X installed)

With the Cache-Control header: http://readerxissue.appspot.com

Without the Cache-Control header: http://readerxissue.appspot.com/enableCache.html

I must confess that I am a bit stuck and I wonder if some of you could help.

Thanks a lot

Regards

Vincent

[Bernd Alheit]

No problem with Adobe Reader X and Firefox. Looks like a problem of Adobe Reader X and IE.

[sophiefonfec]

Is there a way to have access to logs of IE or of the reader plugin ?

[TaylorHigley]

We have the exact same issue on another application of ours.  In Firefox/Chrome it works in both scenarios.  However, in IE it will not!

[Christian_Wood1]

+1

[Dave Merchant]

It's a consequence of the handoff between IE and the Reader X process - when the specific "no-cache" or "no-store" headers are set, the temporarily-held page body containing the PDF isn't passed to the plugin. You'll notice that the blank page being shown when you first request the no-cache page is plain HTML - not an empty Reader viewport - despite IE seeing and downloading the PDF content and spawning the AcroRd32 process(es) it never hands off to them - they're in memory but not part of the display stack.

If you refresh the URL containing the inline PDF stream, IE finally gets round to loading the plugin properly and the PDF displays fine - showing that Reader X can indeed see and render the "non-cached" content provided IE is in the mood to let it draw to the screen.

As a workaround to ensure the PDF is never *read* from the cache you can set the following headers:

Expires: 0

Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0

[sophiefonfec]

Hi Dave,

Thanks a lot for your reply.

I am digging into my docs but I remember that we had to add those "no-cache"

and "no-store" for a reason ... the actual web application is Https and

there were issues with IE/Reader when dealing with response of Post over

Https ... I am trying to find back the references but it seems that the

Adobe knowledge base link I had is no longer existing ... 404

I partly understand your explanation (I am going to perform some retest) but

one question pops up immediately ... why does IE seem to be in better mood

when talking to previous version of Reader ?

Thanks a lot again

regards

Vincent

[DJBabyK]

So the question becomes, is Adobe going to release a patch/update to reader/acrobat X so it works like it did in previous versions or are all of us web developers going to need to change all the web sites we have made over the last 10 years...

Adobe?

[tony_roma]

Hi Dave,

The workaround you have suggested is effective and the IE would then be able to display streamed PDF from the web server.

However, are there any alernative solutions if the use of no-cache is a must due to security constrains?

Thanks.

Tony

[jakealmer]

I was also seeing this but found the problem disappeared after using an <object> tag instead of <iframe>, used as http://pdfobject.com/ a reference. Unfortunately since then I've had a different errors from IE + Adobe Reader X after opening ~4 pdfs (http://forums.adobe.com/message/3382024?tstart=0).

Hope that might help a little.

[this_is_niko]

if use <iframe>

i think it should be in following way.

<script language="javascript">

window.frames["myfrm"].location.href="my.pdf";

</script>

my pdf now ok in ie6/7/8/9 firefox3.6 chrome9

[sophiefonfec]

Hi all,

Thanks for your help and advices.

Adobe just release the 10.0.1 version that seems to solve this issue ... but no real info about what was wrong and was corrected

Again thanks a lot for your support

Regards

V

[ddoug23]

I just installed the new version and tested out our issue and this update seems to have resolved it.  Thanks for the heads up!

[Tim_Miller_Dyck]

Hi,

I wanted to report we are still seeing the blank web page the first time we try to load a PDF from a web site with Acrobat Reader 10.0.1 on Windows 7 and on Windows XP workstations, both running Internet Explorer 8.

Here are the headers being returned by the web server:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Wed, 04 May 2011 12:36:38 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.3 (Red Hat)
Set-Cookie: SESS62797c01bc33feaf3b46c76bbbc9110a=e892pislfumllifrjn4usl3h60; expires=Fri, 27-May-2011 16:10:12 GMT; path=/; domain=.ontario.mcc.org
Expires: Sun, 19 Nov 1978 05:00:00 GMT
Last-Modified: Wed, 04 May 2011 12:36:52 GMT
Cache-Control: store, no-cache, must-revalidate
Cache-Control: post-check=0, pre-check=0
Content-Length: 1225931
Connection: close
Content-Type: application/pdf

..

Maybe this more of an IE problem as Firefox loads PDFs fine on the same site.

Thanks,

Tim Miller Dyck

PeaceWorks Computer Consulting

[ithinkdancan]

I think I solved the problem for my website my turning off gzip compression for pdf files in my htaccess file

SetOutputFilter DEFLATE

SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.pdf$ no-gzip dont-var

Taken From:

http://www.mybelovedphp.com/category/apache/

Hope that helps someone!

[HA4g3n]

Hello,

We have semiliar problems in sweden with Adobe Reader X 10.1 Swe and Internet Explorer 8.0 with streamed PDF files.

We had some issues and got them resolved by the following

Upgraded to Adobe Reader 10.1.2.45 Eng

- Print Issue:http://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/pdf-wont-print-reader-10.html

- Grey box in Internet explorer: http://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/pdf-opens-grey-screen-browser.html

- Add site as trusted: Edit-> Preferences, unbox Enable Enhanced Security + add the host/url to site that is whitelisted to send pdf files

(the Automaticly trust sites from mu Win OS security zones doesnt work for us)

The thing is we run MUI pack on our Citrix servers and want Adobe Reader in Swe but it havent been translated yet...

So we have to wait for the swedish release on Adobe Reader X 10.1.2

Thanks,

Tony Van Der Haagen

IT-Mästaren

Sweden