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Flatpak Firefox not displaying some pdfs correctly

  • 5 replies
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  • Last reply by jonzn4SUSE

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Hello,

Am using Mozilla Firefox installed via flatpak on openSUSE. Certain pdfs display correctly but other pdfs displayed with Firefox (either locally or online) are displayed badly: spaces are replaced with a lower half block character, fonts not sharp. I installed Firefox from the openSUSE repos (not from flathub) and opened the same pdf and it displayed correctly. I downloaded the pdf and opened it using Okular and no problems. I also opened the “troublesome” pdfs on Firefox in Windows and it displays correctly. I conclude that the flatpak version of Firefox is causing some pdfs to display incorrectly but I don’t know why.

I installed flatseal to tweak the flatpak Firefox’s settings but nothing seemed to fix the pdf display issue. Please see screenshot below of how Firefox (from openSUSE repos, on the left hand side) and Firefox (from flathub, on the right hand side) display the same pdf from the internet. The online pdf in the screenshot and used as an example of the issue can be found at:

https://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/default/files/jrf/files-research/international_cities_rotterdam.pdf

Not sure why some pdfs display correctly in Firefox from flathub and others display incorrectly. I’d prefer to use flatpak’s sandboxed Firefox if possible. Is there anyone else with the same problem or someone who who found a solution to this issue?

Thanks

Dad4Linux

Hello, Am using Mozilla Firefox installed via flatpak on openSUSE. Certain pdfs display correctly but other pdfs displayed with Firefox (either locally or online) are displayed badly: spaces are replaced with a lower half block character, fonts not sharp. I installed Firefox from the openSUSE repos (not from flathub) and opened the same pdf and it displayed correctly. I downloaded the pdf and opened it using Okular and no problems. I also opened the “troublesome” pdfs on Firefox in Windows and it displays correctly. I conclude that the flatpak version of Firefox is causing some pdfs to display incorrectly but I don’t know why. I installed flatseal to tweak the flatpak Firefox’s settings but nothing seemed to fix the pdf display issue. Please see screenshot below of how Firefox (from openSUSE repos, on the left hand side) and Firefox (from flathub, on the right hand side) display the same pdf from the internet. The online pdf in the screenshot and used as an example of the issue can be found at: https://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/default/files/jrf/files-research/international_cities_rotterdam.pdf Not sure why some pdfs display correctly in Firefox from flathub and others display incorrectly. I’d prefer to use flatpak’s sandboxed Firefox if possible. Is there anyone else with the same problem or someone who who found a solution to this issue? Thanks Dad4Linux
Attached screenshots

All Replies (5)

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Sounds like a flatpak issue https://discourse.flathub.org/. I also have no issue with the Distro and Mozilla version of Firefox when viewing the same pdf. Are you in Leap or Tumbleweed? X11 or Wayland? I guess I could install it and see what happens...


Operating System: openSUSE Tumbleweed 20230605 KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.5 KDE Frameworks Version: 5.106.0 Qt Version: 5.15.9 Kernel Version: 6.3.4-1-default (64-bit) Graphics Platform: X11 Processors: 16 × AMD Ryzen 7 5825U with Radeon Graphics Memory: 62.1 GiB of RAM Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon Graphics Manufacturer: HP Product Name: HP ProBook 455 15.6 inch G9 Notebook PC

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Installing.... standby.

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Interesting... The Flatpak version opens the distro version.  ;-)) I would have to uninstall the distro version to test and I'm not doing that.

Modified by jonzn4SUSE

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that's strange; the menu command for the distro version is completely different from the flatpak version which invokes the flatpak command.

In any case, before I even installed the distro version, i only had the flatpak version of Firefox installed. Because I had encountered this strange rendering of some pdfs, I installed the distro version of Firefox to see if the issue had to do with a newer version of Firefox (maybe newer bug?). The distro version of Firefox and Firefox on a completely different os (WIndows) wasn't exhibiting the incorrect rendering of pdfs.

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On another laptop and no issues with distro nor Mozilla version of Firefox. see screenshot Are you X11 or Wayland?


Operating System: openSUSE Tumbleweed 20230605 KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.5 KDE Frameworks Version: 5.106.0 Qt Version: 5.15.9 Kernel Version: 6.3.4-1-default (64-bit) Graphics Platform: X11 Processors: 8 × Intel® Xeon® CPU E3-1535M v6 @ 3.10GHz Memory: 62.2 GiB of RAM Graphics Processor: Mesa Intel® HD Graphics P630 Manufacturer: HP Product Name: HP ZBook 17 G4