Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

When I click on a PDF, it reports File type text/plain type (text/plain) is not supported

  • 7 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 13 views
  • Last reply by WestEnd

more options

I'm on a CentOS v6.10 machine with the latest available firefox, (firefox-60.1.0-6.el6.centos.x86_64). When I click on a PDF, it downloads it properly, but when I click on the downloads progress icon and click on the file, it reports "Unable to open document. File type text/plain type (text/plain) is not supported". The default app for PDFs is evince as it has been for years. That worked fine until the recent major update of firefox. If I set it for the standard firefox PDF viewer, the result is still the same.

I'm on a CentOS v6.10 machine with the latest available firefox, (firefox-60.1.0-6.el6.centos.x86_64). When I click on a PDF, it downloads it properly, but when I click on the downloads progress icon and click on the file, it reports "Unable to open document. File type text/plain type (text/plain) is not supported". The default app for PDFs is evince as it has been for years. That worked fine until the recent major update of firefox. If I set it for the standard firefox PDF viewer, the result is still the same.

All Replies (7)

more options

That is a strange message for many reasons.

If you go out to disk and rename the file with a .txt extension, then launch it in a text editor, is it actually a plain text file, or does it look like a PDF (PDF appears near the start of a PDF)?

If it is a plain text file, or an HTML file, there is some problem with the downloading process. Does this occur on all servers or is it still working normally on some sites?

more options

In linux (and UNIX, for that matter), we have a utility called "file" which inspects a file and reports what it looks like. On this file, it reports, "PDF document, version 1.4", It pays no attention to the file extension. Also, once I found where ff put the file, I was able to bring it up with evince or xpdf, both PDF readers. This happens on all PDF files regardless of site.

more options

Hmm, so different from Windows. Hopefully a Linux users recognizes this behavior.

more options

Thanks for trying.

more options

I would assume that the file isn't saved with the correct file extension (.pdf), either the file extension is missing or is wrong and Firefox defaults to text/plain.

With what file extension are the files saved?

more options

The files are saved properly with a .pdf extension.

more options

bobcatos said

The files are saved properly with a .pdf extension.

Is the original location a pdf file?