Unable to open PDFs in SharePoint Online

[laurah14081032]

We have run into issues opening some PDF files from SharePoint Online when using Chrome (see screenshot).  We have the Adobe Document Cloud add in installed in our tenant.  The PDFs in question can be opened in the browser without Adobe Document Cloud in Edge and by clicking Open > Open in browser while in the document library using Chrome.  The PDFs in question can also be opened by Adobe Reader after downloading the PDF from the document library.  Is this a known issue?  Is there something we can do to the PDFs to fix the issue?  Or is the only work around to open the PDF in the browser or download it and open in Adobe Reader?

[Tariq Ahmad Dar]

Hi laurah14081032,

Sorry to hear about the experience.

When you open the file in Adobe Reader> File> Properties. You will see the file properties window. Click on Description tab, it will show you file producer. take the screenshot and attach. Also, is this happening with other browsers as well?


Regards,
Tariq

[laurah14081032]

I have attached the screen shot.  This is happening in Chrome and Edge.  It is only happening on certain PDF files.

[stefanom63576600]

I have the same problem.
Have you found a solution?

[Tariq Ahmad Dar]

Hi stefanom63576600 and laurah14081032,

I would require the few sample files which exhibits the behavior. If you can't share them publically, please feel free to sent it via private message. To send private message, click on my Profile name> "Send Message". There is no attachment option, you have to share with me a OneDrive, Dropbox or Adobe DocumentCloud link. 

Regards,
Tariq

[laurah14081032]

Hello.  I am working on getting a link to the file to you.  It looks like the file was able to be opened on the SharePoint site before it was renamed.  After a user renamed the file, the file was unable to be opened using the PDF viewer in SharePoint Online.  I also noticed that when I copied the file to another site using the copy to function in SharePoint Online, the file is able to be opened on the new site.  I was also able to download the file to my local desktop and upload it to another SharePoint site.  The file successfully opened using the PDF viewer on the new SharePoint site.  It looks like renaming the original PDF file broke the file in the first place.  Do you know why renaming a PDF in SharePoint Online would break the file?

[roberts83657448]

I have also had the exact same problem. I only get the error on some PDFs and am trying to determine what is common with them.

[laurah14081032]

The issue seems to be related to the length of the URL for the PDF.  The entire URL for PDFs has to be less than 248 characters.  

[Daniel5E7D]

Agree, I've just done some testing and as I move a file further down the folder structure, it then stops opening giving the above error message.

[MWatsonANB]

This has been bugging me. Thank you! I did some testing by shortening the file names of documents giving us this error and it worked.

[Daniel5E7D]

Amazing! Glad I could help.

[brajeshk12751679]

Thank you for reporting this issue. This issue is due to a bug in Microsoft file handler. We have already raised this with Microsoft and following up with them. The good news is that they have agreed to fix and roll that out by end of September or October.

[roberts83657448]

Thank you Brajesh for that good news! Who will let us know when this fix has been implemented by Microsoft?

Thanks Again!

[RKDIT]

Brajesh,

Is this a limitation by the microsoft file handler specifically with the interfacing of Adobe Cloud?  As in you say Microsoft agreed to fix this for the Adobe corporation and is a ticket in their system raised by your devs?

Or is this a problem or "unplanned feature" that affects all development and is current a uservoice or roadmap entry that was found? 

Eithere way is there any link you can point to?

I'm trying to gauge how accurate that will be as we are 10 days away till the end of October.

[RKDIT]

Brajesh,

Not sure if anyone has notified you but the File handler issues appear to have been fixed.  Made a folder path and file name equalling 388 characters in a Sharepoint library and it pulled up just fine.  We are currently putting it through its paces but if everything keeps up, this will be the largest and most crippling bug for the Adobe integrations resolved!

Christian LeBourgeois

[brajeshk12751679]

Hi Christian ,

Thanks for trying out. Yes, we  worked extensively with Microsoft to get the issue of long URL resolved. The major reason was the long user token that was encoded in the URL that Microsoft passed us. Now, Microsoft has updated the algorithm to keep that short (Earlier it was of the order of 1500 characters but now they have reduced it to about 700 characters) and hence the issue got resolved. The fix was rolled out gradually around October 20 and it's now available across all Office 365 tenants.

-Brajesh

[Henry5E66]

Hi Brajesh,

We are having this same issue, but with documents that have a hash (#) in the name. Is this a known limitation or a bug? When users try to open any document with a # in the name, they get the error "you may not have permission to access the SharePoint file being used this this workflow."

Thanks,

Henry

[brajeshk12751679 · Accepted solution]

Hi Henry,

Your understanding is correct. There is a known bug where '#' in file name doesn't work with Microsoft Graph APIs. We have already raised this issue with Microsoft and awaiting fix from them but there isn't any ETA from them.

-Brajesh

[Henry5E66]

Hi Brajesh,

Thanks for the update, appricate it. 

Best,

Henry

[๐Alone๐PM๛]

Hi, Brajesh 

Seems like the problem have been fixed, but in my case, that problem still occurs when I open a pdf file via the Adobe cloud (Our files are in Thai language that might cause a long length of the URL for the PDF)

[Sakib5DE8]

Hi @๐Alone๐PM๛ 

If possible, could you please share the file/filename(having Thai language characters) for which you are facing issue for further debugging.

Thanks,

Sakib

[Joshua5CD9]

Okay, I am receiving a flood of emails from Adobe to go here (5 emails between 4─11:30AM just today) with my issue. I first made contact about it last week. We are having the same problem. However, it is only with 1 user out of very many. She has a pro DC license that the company has issued to her. It worked once when refreshing the page using the button below the message, but otherwise has not. We thought it was because she had previously downloaded the PDF file, but when we tried to recreate that possible solution, it did not work. When it began, no files anywhere in SharePoint were able to be opened via document cloud, as it is not specific to any particular PDF. She is able to open a PDF document via the [open in browser] option, and she can download, then open in Adobe. I had her clear browsing history and cache, but it was to no avail. I went through chat support, but they were unable to fix this either, and sent me here. The file names do not have any symbols, the name is not more than 20 characters, and the url is not longer than the ±250 character limit. It doesn't matter if there's any special formatting, metadata, or anything else in the document, since all of these files can still be accessed by anyone else in the company without issue. The first chat agent suggested we globally uninstall, and then reinstall the Adobe extension through Microsoft. However, we work heavily with PDF files, and for just one user, that would be rediculous - I mean I will, if it comes down to it, but I'd rather not. This issue is only affecting one user out of many.

[Rahul5E6F]

Hi @Joshua5CD9 ,

Thanks for reaching out to us !!
If I get it correctly, so one of your sharepoint user is having trouble previewing PDF files using Adobe Document Cloud handler. So, Adobe File Handler isn't visible to that sepcific user.
In that case you can trying adding that specific user to Adobe Document Cloud handler via Azure Active Directory.

• Visit admin center with global admin.
• Navigate to Azure Active Directory -->> Enterprise Apps
• Under Enterprise Apps, search for Adobe Document Cloud App
• Then, navigate to user & group
• Here try adding that specific user to whom it's not visible.
• Wait for max 24hrs to reflect the changes.

After than I'm hoping it should be visible to user and the user should be able to use the same.

Please do let me know If I missed anything or didn't get it correctly.

Regards,

Rahul

[defaultzftyv9aalkmv]

If however you set it up like me and all users in the org have access by default then yes, unfortunately the only way is to remove it and re-add it and wait. Do it on a Friday evening I'd suggest and it should be good to go by Monday.

I've had to do it 3-4 times in the last 12 months.

[Joshua5CD9]

Thank you @Rahul5E6F and @defaultzftyv9aalkmv , I will try these options. I do have it set to enable for all users, although I see the ability to also indicate the users I want to ensure have use of this, which may come in handy later as well. I will try these and report my findings here for future use. Thanks again!