Comments on: Cause of corrupt PDF's?

Question: Cause of corrupt PDF's?

Grod — Sun, 09 May 2004 19:08:50 -0800

HELP! Suddenly, every PDF I download from various databases is corrupt in some way. Either there is "insufficient data for an image" or "unable to extract font X", this has never happened to me before. I have no problem grabbing PDFs from other sites, so I don't know if the corruption is caused by dropped packets going through the library proxy server, evil gremlins, or my recent installation of Reader 6 alongside Acrobat Pro 5

By: JohnR

JohnR — Sun, 09 May 2004 19:48:29 -0800

Adobe Acrobat Reader 6

By: Grod

Grod — Sun, 09 May 2004 19:53:52 -0800

I still have the full, professional version of acrobat 5 installed, it has the same problem as reader 6. The only reason I installed 6 was because 1 file I needed was not backwards compatible with 5. Sigh.

By: Grod

Grod — Sun, 09 May 2004 19:56:23 -0800

I just got rid of reader 6. The problem is still present.

By: jjg

jjg — Sun, 09 May 2004 20:27:04 -0800

Reinstall Pro 5. All the Acrobat apps share code libraries, and different versions do not play nicely together.

By: Grod

Grod — Sun, 09 May 2004 21:19:26 -0800

Um. I'll leave that as a last resort, I don't have the original disk anymore. Besides, the actual downloaded file is corrupt. When I download a tiff image of the same document from the same resource it, too, is corrupt.

By: Danelope

Danelope — Sun, 09 May 2004 23:41:57 -0800

Are you sure the nebulous "source" server isn't at fault? If multiple files in multiple formats you've downloaded from the same site are corrupt, it points to either your browser or their server.

Certain browsers (i.e. Netscape 4.x, and occasionally others) are known for corrupting binary files during download. Fortunately, these "cooked" files can be repaired with the use of a program like unphuck* (formerly uncook95.exe). Download the file to your hard drive, run it through unphuck, try opening it again.

* I cannot vouch for the sterility of the aforementioned file. I'm still using an old version of uncook95 to remedy this issue whenever it appears. Virus scan the executable after downloading and installing.

By: Danelope

Danelope — Sun, 09 May 2004 23:49:18 -0800

Actually, it appears that unphuck doesn't function for anything but MP3 files. uncook95, on the other hand, will parse anything so long as you select "All" in the File > Open dialog. The same caveat applies to this executable as the last.

By: Grod

Grod — Mon, 10 May 2004 00:32:19 -0800

I decided it was the source, in this case JSTOR. However, when I finally managed to remove all the viruses and worms from my girlfriend's computer and downloaded the files again, all but one were fine. So now I don't know what to think.

By: Grod

Grod — Mon, 10 May 2004 00:38:07 -0800

And when I download the files on my system they are still broken. Oddly, I have no problem opening PDFs I already have nor is there any difficulty in opening those that I downloaded on my GFs computer. Leaving me scratching my head.