Firefox 3.0.7 is crashing when embedding a PDF using the object tag.

Question

I'm attempting to embed a PDF file into a HTML page using the object tag. The following HTML crashes Firefox 3.0.7:

<object id="pdfObject40" type="application/pdf" data="/file.ashx?id=40" width="432" height="600">
  <param name="src" value="/file.ashx?id=40" />
</object>

I don't have a problem in Internet Explorer.

Answer 1

Check the MIME-type the ‘file.ashx’ script is returning. If it's something other than application/pdf, or Content-Disposition is getting sent, there might be wrinkles.

Otherwise, it can only be (a) something odd in the document — do other documents load OK? — or (b) your setup.

In any case I would personally avoid ever embedding a PDF in a web page. A PDF plugin is a pretty inconvenient way to view a document, and the Adobe Reader plugin in particular is both historically awfully unreliable in IE, and also an ongoing security disaster. I'm advising all my clients to uninstall it ASAP.

Answer 2

I ended up using that code for IE and failing over to a link with a about:blank in Firefox. If any has a solution, feel free to add. I'll accept it down the road.

Answer 3

Incase anyone else has this problem, I ended up using object element tag with Firefox and embed element tag with everything else.

I think if I'd not been serving the PDF through an .ashx I could have used the embed tag for everything.

See: http://blogs.adobe.com/pdfdevjunkie/2007/08/using_the_html_embed_tag_to_di.html