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Cannot download PDF with Firefox on iOS

  • 8 replies
  • 5 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by Macronaut

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On the current version of Firefox for iOS, I cannot download a PDF. If I long-press the link to access the PDF, it shows the correct preview and I click download, but it downloads some much smaller blank file. If I click on the link instead (to open it in Firefox), the “Share Page With” does not give the full list of save options I need to save the PDF. I can click Print and then pinch-zoom-out the PDF to open it in a way that allows me to save it, but that puts unwanted text in the header and footer. Isn’t there some way to simply download a PDF with Firefox on iOS!?

On the current version of Firefox for iOS, I cannot download a PDF. If I long-press the link to access the PDF, it shows the correct preview and I click download, but it downloads some much smaller blank file. If I click on the link instead (to open it in Firefox), the “Share Page With” does not give the full list of save options I need to save the PDF. I can click Print and then pinch-zoom-out the PDF to open it in a way that allows me to save it, but that puts unwanted text in the header and footer. Isn’t there some way to simply download a PDF with Firefox on iOS!?

All Replies (8)

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Can you please link us to the pdf? We can try to see if we can reproduce that same issue. If so, we'll file a bug to get it fixed. Also does this occur for all pdfs you try to download or just a specific one? Thanks for reporting this and sharing the workarounds you've tried.

I'm also wondering if the smaller blank file downloaded still has a file extension of .pdf or something else. Some sites serve pdfs in a strange way that makes it difficult to download them.

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Here’s an example, although not the site I had trouble with yesterday, which contained personal information. I can’t download the operating instructions from this Sony website by long pressing the link or trying the share feature after opening

https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/audio-components-receivers-amplifiers/str-dh790/manuals

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Thanks for an example PDF link and your quick reply! I'll try to get someone on an iOS device to test this as soon as possible. Bear with us b/c of the upcoming holidays. Also a pre-emptive happy new year to you! :)

Forgot to get an answer from you on if the smaller blank files you get end up having a different file type at the end instead of .pdf? I'm thinking it's the temporary file Firefox uses to d/l the file before it renames it into the actual file's name.

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The link I provided does not produce that problem with the blank PDF file. I went back to the original link (which I can’t provide) and when I long-press the link to download the PDF it shows the preview and the file size and file name and it all looks good. I click download and locate the file. The downloaded file is only 18kb instead of the 316kb it should have been. It has the full file name and extension, but it’s blank inside.

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Thank you very much for those extra details! I'll get the iOS developer team to look at this & get you an answer back as soon as possible. Hopefully it's a known issue & a fix is already in progress. But in case it's not already on their radar, your report of this plus all the helpful details you shared should help get this fixed much more quickly.

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In some cases when I try to “share with” a web page into iBooks I get a box saying “creating PDF” but the page does not appear in iBooks.

I cannot find any stored PDF on my 1st Gen iPad Pro running iOS 14.3 (this has been an ongoing problem in Firefox for a long time). It’s unpredictable when this happens. Sometimes when trying to download a scientific paper or article as displayed this will happen, but if the page has a “download PDF” it will display as a PDF and then (sometimes) I can share it with iBooks.

If I open the page in Safari then I can usually load it into iBooks directly.

I’m also at a loss as to how to move a PDF I’ve downloaded into files (either on the iPad or into a cloud server) into iBooks as the icon for iBooks in the “share with” sunscreen is either missing or doesn’t work. Also, depending on what I’m doing, the “share with” icon sequence changes. I moved the iBooks icon to the left as I use it a lot, but sometimes it moves back to the right so I have to scroll to find it, and when it does so it usually gives the above “creating PDF” message and then failed to load the document into iBooks. If the iBooks icon appears 2nd on the list in “share with” it usually works.

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I have the same problem as Scott38. I have to use Safari in order to download PDFs. It would be great to get this fixed; I got rid of Safari for a reason.

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Me, too!