[javascript] PDF files do not open in Internet Explorer with Adobe Reader 10.0 - users get an empty gray screen. How can I fix this for my users?

There is a known issue with opening a PDF in Internet Explorer (v 6, 7, 8, 9) with Adobe Reader X (version 10.0.*). The browser window loads with an empty gray screen (and doesn't even have a Reader toolbar). It works perfectly fine with Firefox, Chrome, or with Adobe Reader 10.1.*.

I have discovered several workarounds. For example, hitting "Refresh" will load the document properly. Upgrading to Adobe Reader 10.1.*, or downgrading to 9.*, fixes the issue too.
However, all of these solutions require the user to figure it out. Most of my users get very confused at seeing this gray screen, and end up blaming the PDF file and blaming the website for being broken. Honestly, until I researched the issue, I blamed the PDF too!

So, I am trying to figure out a way to fix this issue for my users.
I've considered providing a "Download PDF" link (that sets the Content-Disposition header to attachment instead of inline), but my company does not like that solution at all, because we really want these PDF files to display in the browser.

Has anyone else experienced this issue?

What are some possible solutions or workarounds?

I'm really hoping for a solution that is seamless to the end-user, because I can't rely on them to know how to change their Adobe Reader settings, or to automatically install updates.

Here's the dreaded Gray Screen:
Edit: screenshot was deleted from file server! Sorry!
The image was a browser window, with the regular toolbar, but a solid gray background, no UI whatsoever.

Background info:
Although I don't think the following information is related to my issue, I'll include it for reference:
This is an ASP.NET MVC application, and has jQuery available.
The link to the PDF file has target=_blank so that it opens in a new window.
The PDF file is being generated on-the-fly, and all the content headers are being set appropriately. The URL does NOT include the .pdf extension, but we do set the content-disposition header with a valid .pdf filename and the inline setting.

Edit: Here is the source code that I'm using to serve up the PDF files.

First, the Controller Action:

public ActionResult ComplianceCertificate(int id){
    byte[] pdfBytes = ComplianceBusiness.GetCertificate(id);
    return new PdfResult(pdfBytes, false, "Compliance Certificate {0}.pdf", id);
}

And here is the ActionResult (PdfResult, inherits System.Web.Mvc.FileContentResult):

using System.Net.Mime;
using System.Web.Mvc;
/// <summary>
/// Returns the proper Response Headers and "Content-Disposition" for a PDF file,
/// and allows you to specify the filename and whether it will be downloaded by the browser.
/// </summary>
public class PdfResult : FileContentResult
{
    public ContentDisposition ContentDisposition { get; private set; }

    /// <summary>
    /// Returns a PDF FileResult.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="pdfFileContents">The data for the PDF file</param>
    /// <param name="download">Determines if the file should be shown in the browser or downloaded as a file</param>
    /// <param name="filename">The filename that will be shown if the file is downloaded or saved.</param>
    /// <param name="filenameArgs">A list of arguments to be formatted into the filename.</param>
    /// <returns></returns>
    [JetBrains.Annotations.StringFormatMethod("filename")]
    public PdfResult(byte[] pdfFileContents, bool download, string filename, params object[] filenameArgs) 
        : base(pdfFileContents, "application/pdf")
    {
        // Format the filename:
        if (filenameArgs != null && filenameArgs.Length > 0)
        {
            filename = string.Format(filename, filenameArgs);
        }

        // Add the filename to the Content-Disposition
        ContentDisposition = new ContentDisposition
                                 {
                                     Inline = !download,
                                     FileName = filename,
                                     Size = pdfFileContents.Length,
                                 };
    }

    protected override void WriteFile(System.Web.HttpResponseBase response)
    {
        // Add the filename to the Content-Disposition
        response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", ContentDisposition.ToString());
        base.WriteFile(response);
    }
}

Hm, would it be possible to simply do this:

The first time your user opens a pdf, using Javascript you make a popout that basically says "If you cannot see your document, please click HERE". Make "HERE" a big button where it will explain to your user what's the problem. Also make another button "everything's fine". If the user clicks on this one, you remember it, so it isn't displayed in the future.

I'm trying to be practical. Going to great lengths trying to solve this kind of problem "properly" for a small subset of Adobe Reader versions doesn't sound very productive to me.

We were getting this issue even after updating to the latest Adobe Reader version.

Two different methods solved this issue for us:

• Using the free version of Foxit Reader application in place of Adobe Reader
• But, since most of our clients use Adobe Reader, so instead of requiring users to use Foxit Reader, we started using window.open(url) to open the pdf instead of window.location.href = url. Adobe was losing the file handle on for some reason in different iframes when the pdf was opened using the window.location.href method.

Experimenting more, the underlying cause in my app (calling goog.userAgent.adobeReader) was accessing Adobe Reader via an ActiveXObject on the page with the link to the PDF. This minimal test case causes the gray screen for me (however removing the ActiveXObject causes no gray screen).

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <title>hi</title>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
  </head>
  <body>
    <script>
      new ActiveXObject('AcroPDF.PDF.1');
    </script>
    <a target="_blank" href="http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/xml/AdobeXMLFormsSamples.pdf">link</a>
  </body>
</html>

I'm very interested if others are able to reproduce the problem with this test case and following the steps from my other post ("I don't have an exact solution...") on a "slow" computer.

Sorry for posting a new answer, but I couldn't figure out how to add a code block in a comment on my previous post.

For a video example of this minimal test case, see: http://youtu.be/IgEcxzM6Kck

I had this problem. Reinstalling the latest version of Adobe Reader did nothing. Adobe Reader worked in Chrome but not in IE. This worked for me ...

1) Go to IE's Tools-->Compatibility View menu.
2) Enter a website that has the PDF you wish to see. Click OK.
3) Restart IE 4) Go to the website you entered and select the PDF. It should come up.
5) Go back to Compatibility View and delete the entry you made.
6) Adobe Reader works OK now in IE on all websites.

It's a strange fix, but it worked for me. I needed to go through an Adobe acceptance screen after reinstall that only appeared after I did the Compatibility View trick. Once accepted, it seemed to work everywhere. Pretty flaky stuff. Hope this helps someone.

I ran into this issue around the time MVC1 was first released. See Generating PDF, error with IE and HTTPS regarding the Cache-Control header.

For Win7 Acrobat Pro X

Since I did all these without rechecking to see if the problem still existed afterwards, I am not sure which on of these actually fixed the problem, but one of them did. In fact, after doing the #3 and rebooting, it worked perfectly.

FYI: Below is the order in which I stepped through the repair.

1. Go to Control Panel > folders options under each of the General, View and Search Tabs click the Restore Defaults button and the Reset Folders button

2. Go to Internet Explorer, Tools > Options > Advanced > Reset ( I did not need to delete personal settings)

3. Open Acrobat Pro X, under Edit > Preferences > General.
   At the bottom of page select Default PDF Handler. I chose Adobe Pro X, and click Apply.

You may be asked to reboot (I did).

Best Wishes

I don't have an exact solution, but I'll post my experiences with this in case they help anyone else.

From my testing, the gray screen is only triggered on slower machines [1]. To date, I have not been able to recreate it on newer hardware [2]. All of my tests have been in IE8 with Adobe Reader 10.1.2. For my tests I turned off SSL and removed all headers that could have disabled caching.

To recreate the gray screen, I followed the following steps:

1) Navigate to a page that links to a PDF
2) Open the PDF in a new window or tab (either via the context menu or target="_blank")
3) In my tests, this PDF will open without error (however I have received user reports indicating failure on the first PDF load)
4) Close the newly opened window or tab
5) Open the PDF (again) in a new window or tab
6) This PDF will not open, but instead only show the "gray screen" mentioned by the first user (all subsequent PDFs that are loaded will also not display -- until all browser windows are closed)

I performed the above test with several different PDF files (both static and dynamic) generated from different sources and the gray screen issue always occurs when following the above steps (on the "slow" computer).

To mitigate the problem in my application, I "tore down" the page that links to the PDF (removed parts piece by piece until the gray screen no longer occurred). In my particular application (built on closure-library) removing all references to goog.userAgent.adobeReader [3] appears to have fixed the issue. This exact solution won't work with jquery or .net MVC but maybe the process can help you isolate the source of the issue. I have not yet taken the time to isolate which particular portion of goog.userAgent.adobeReader triggers the bug in Adobe Reader, but it is likely that jquery might have similar plugin detection code to that used in closure-library.

[1] Machine experiencing gray screen:
Win Server '03 SP3
AMD Sempron 2400+ at 1.6GHz
256MB memory

[2] Machine not experiencing gray screen:
Win XP x64 SP2
AMD Athlon II X4 620 at 2.6 GHz
4GB memory

[3] http://closure-library.googlecode.com/svn/docs/closure_goog_useragent_adobereader.js.source.html

In my case the solution was quite simple. I added this header and the browsers opened the file in every test. header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="filename.pdf"');

I realize this is a rather late post but still a possible solution for the OP. I use IE9 on Win 7 and have been having Adobe Reader's grey screen issues for several months when trying to open pdf bank and credit card statements online. I could open everything in Firefox or Opera but not IE. I finally tried PDF-Viewer, set it as the default pdf viewer in its preferences and no more problems. I'm sure there are other free viewers out there, like Foxit, PDF-Xchange, etc., that will give better results than Reader with less headaches. Adobe is like some of the other big companies that develop software on a take it or leave it basis ... so I left it.