A few qustions: Are she using web-mail to access the email? Using Firefox or IE Are you downloading the same email from the same outlook.com -account? What happens when you open a acrobat-file from your own hard-disk?

Open option / attachment / incomming and see if pdf/ acrobat is listed. If its not right delete it (del-key). It might ask you what to use and you can for example select Adobe acrobat or firefox.

she uses outlook.com.. The same file is sent to both of us. when I try to open it says "file is damaged and cannot be repaired.

turn of email scanning in your anti virus and see if that helps. It usually does.

This accomplished nothing. Besides my wife's email is on the same computer.

Do I understand you right? Your wife is using webmail in IE or Firefox to read her emails on the server (outlook.com) ? You are using Tbird to download and read your emails. Can you read your mail using webmail? That is using the same Firefox or IE as your wife to log in to your account. If its not there your wife can forward it to you.

What happens if you save the attachment to disk and try to open it? You didn't answer my earlier questions so I am still guessing. Webmail and mail-clients use entirely different ways of accessing data.

This morning I forwarded the email to my ISP and read it there using Webmail. It worked fine. When I then downloaded using Firefox I was able to read correctly. So it looks like the problem occurs when I open Firefox and download PDF files that weren't opened on Webmail. This problem just started this year. I get a pdf file basically every month from a group I deal with and until February of this year I had no problem. I tried save the file to disk and then opening it but that didn't work either.

polarbear1000 said

.......So it looks like the problem occurs when I open Firefox and download PDF files that weren't opened on Webmail.

I assume you mean Thunderbird. Try this: open your tools / option /attachments and change . pdf to firefox, ask OR delete it. Next time you get a pdf-file you should get a question about how you want to view it

Thunderbird is already set up to ask how do I want to view. The other thing I just noted was that when I looked at the file on webmail it separated the file into 3 attachments unlike when I had taken it thru Thunderbird the first time tthere was on one.

What is the name of this attached file?

Inv_75532_from_GOWEN_INC_5928.pdf

Desperate time call for desperate measures. To diagnose problems with Thunderbird, try one of the following:

• Restart Thunderbird with add-ons disabled (Thunderbird Safe Mode). On the Help menu, click on "Restart with Add-ons Disabled". If Thunderbird works like normal, there is an Add-on or Theme interfering with normal operations. You will need to re-enable add-ons one at a time until you locate the offender.
• Restart the operating system in safe mode with Networking. This loads only the very basics needed to start your computer while enabling an Internet connection. Click on your operating system for instructions on how to start in safe mode: Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, OSX

If safe mode for the operating system fixes the issue, there's other software in your computer that's causing problems. Possibilities include but not limited to: AV scanning, virus/malware, background downloads such as program updates.

HI I did as you suggested and got the same result.

in the dialog refered to in this post https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1052631#answer-714691 delete any entry for PDF and restart Thunderbird.

Deleted entry for PDF and got the same result as initially.

I'm not convinced you do it right then its a bit tricky

• Delete pdf-entrance in options/ attachment
• Right click on attached .pdf
• Right click on open
• mark "do this automatically..."
• in the open-"pull_down_menu" choose other
• select FireFox
• execute (ok /ok)

Hopefully you missed something earlier (strange wish) so this would solve it.

I can't select Firefox because it's not in the drop down. I tried selecting IE and that only worked on the files that had been looked at in webmail before downloading using Thunderbird.

That moves things forward. If the file is in the cache is opens, if no it does not.

That indicates something is blocking the creation of the temporary file. My guess anti virus. Although I have no idea why the problem would have continued in windows safe mode if that were the case.

What security software do you have installed, including anti virus?

I have Spybot and Trend Micro Titanium

polarbear1000 said

I can't select Firefox because it's not in the drop down. ....

That strange as, according to more system details, you have FireFox installed. You could clear cache. (Tools/clear resent history) Despite that, a virus or your firewall could have created this.

I'm not sure it help but can you add the troubleshooting information to your post To find the Troubleshooting information:

• Open Help (or click on three-line-icon and select Help)
• Choose Troubleshooting Information
• Use the button Copy to clipboard to select all. Do not check box "Include account names"!
• Paste this in your post.

Application Basics

   Name: Thunderbird
   Version: 31.6.0
   User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.6.0
   Profile Folder: Show Folder

             (Local drive)
   Application Build ID: 20150330093429
   Enabled Plugins: about:plugins
   Build Configuration: about:buildconfig
   Memory Use: about:memory

 Mail and News Accounts
   account2:
     INCOMING: account2, , (none) Local Folders, plain, passwordCleartext

   account3:
     INCOMING: account3, , (imap) mail.twc.com:143, plain, passwordCleartext
     OUTGOING: mail.twc.com:587, plain, none, true

 Crash Reports

 Extensions
   Theme Font & Size Changer, 37.0, true, {f69e22c7-bc50-414a-9269-0f5c344cd94c}

 Important Modified Preferences

   Name: Value

     accessibility.typeaheadfind.flashBar: 0
     browser.cache.disk.capacity: 358400
     browser.cache.disk.smart_size_cached_value: 358400
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     browser.cache.disk.smart_size.use_old_max: false
     extensions.lastAppVersion: 31.6.0
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     font.name.monospace.el: Consolas
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     font.name.monospace.x-central-euro: Consolas
     font.name.monospace.x-cyrillic: Consolas
     font.name.monospace.x-unicode: Consolas
     font.name.monospace.x-western: Consolas
     font.name.sans-serif.el: Calibri
     font.name.sans-serif.tr: Calibri
     font.name.sans-serif.x-baltic: Calibri
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     font.name.sans-serif.x-cyrillic: Calibri
     font.name.sans-serif.x-unicode: Calibri
     font.name.sans-serif.x-western: MS Gothic
     font.name.serif.el: Cambria
     font.name.serif.tr: Cambria
     font.name.serif.x-baltic: Cambria
     font.name.serif.x-central-euro: Cambria
     font.name.serif.x-cyrillic: Cambria
     font.name.serif.x-unicode: Cambria
     font.name.serif.x-western: Cambria
     font.size.fixed.el: 14
     font.size.fixed.tr: 14
     font.size.fixed.x-baltic: 14
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     font.size.variable.el: 17
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     font.size.variable.x-western: 26
     gfx.direct3d.last_used_feature_level_idx: 0
     mail.openMessageBehavior.version: 1
     mail.winsearch.firstRunDone: true
     mailnews.database.global.datastore.id: a5a8f7f2-8597-40bb-b82f-810160f6555
     network.cookie.prefsMigrated: true
     places.database.lastMaintenance: 1331408867
     places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages: 104858
     places.history.expiration.transient_optimal_database_size: 167772160
     plugin.disable_full_page_plugin_for_types: application/pdf
     plugin.importedState: true
     print.printer_KODAK_ESP_Office_2170_Series_XPS.print_bgcolor: false
     print.printer_KODAK_ESP_Office_2170_Series_XPS.print_bgimages: false
     print.printer_KODAK_ESP_Office_2170_Series_XPS.print_colorspace:
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     print.printer_KODAK_ESP_Office_2170_Series_XPS.print_duplex: 1515870810
     print.printer_KODAK_ESP_Office_2170_Series_XPS.print_edge_bottom: 0
     print.printer_KODAK_ESP_Office_2170_Series_XPS.print_edge_left: 0
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     print.printer_KODAK_ESP_Office_2170_Series_XPS.print_footercenter:
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     print.printer_KODAK_ESP_Office_2170_Series_XPS.print_footerright: &D
     print.printer_KODAK_ESP_Office_2170_Series_XPS.print_headercenter:
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     print.printer_KODAK_ESP_Office_2170_Series_XPS.print_paper_width: 8.50
     print.printer_KODAK_ESP_Office_2170_Series_XPS.print_plex_name:
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     print.printer_KODAK_ESP_Office_2170_Series_XPS.print_scaling: 0.80
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     print.printer_KODAK_ESP_Office_2170_Series_XPS.print_to_file: false
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 Graphics

     Adapter Description: Intel(R) HD Graphics Family
     Vendor ID: 0x8086
     Device ID: 0x0116
     Adapter RAM: Unknown
     Adapter Drivers: igdumd64 igd10umd64 igd10umd64 igdumdx32 igd10umd32 igd10umd32
     Driver Version: 8.15.10.2430
     Driver Date: 6-26-2011
     Direct2D Enabled: true
     DirectWrite Enabled: true (6.2.9200.16571)
     ClearType Parameters: ClearType parameters not found
     WebGL Renderer: false
     GPU Accelerated Windows: 1/1 Direct3D 10

     AzureCanvasBackend: direct2d
     AzureSkiaAccelerated: 0
     AzureFallbackCanvasBackend: cairo
     AzureContentBackend: direct2d

 JavaScript

 Incremental GC: 1

 Accessibility

   Activated: 0
   Prevent Accessibility: 0

 Library Versions

     Expected minimum version
     Version in use

     NSPR
     4.10.6
     4.10.6

     NSS
     3.16.2.3 Basic ECC
     3.16.2.3 Basic ECC

     NSS Util
     3.16.2.3
     3.16.2.3

     NSS SSL
     3.16.2.3 Basic ECC
     3.16.2.3 Basic ECC

     NSS S/MIME
     3.16.2.3 Basic ECC
     3.16.2.3 Basic ECC