"The file is damaged and could not be repaired." in Internet Explorer

One of those days... with one of those useless obscure bugs to fix.

The new version of Adobe Acrobat Reader (version 8) had an incompatibility with one specific type of output at the bingo card site I manage.

It would give this error "The file is damaged and could not be repaired." only with Internet Explorer (version 6, not sure if others are affected) and Adobe Reader 8 (and 8.1).

This exact same site works for hundreds of people daily with countless combinations of PDF readers, operating systems, word combinations, etc. So I know the site generally works.

On the exact same test machine, Adobe Reader 8 in Firefox works. Plus the exact same PDF when saved to disk will open without problems. Plus, the other half a dozen PDFs I generate from the site work. It was only in the combination of IE + AR8 (+ maybe iframe) + <=5 pages of the generic 2x2 bingo cards where the problem shows up.

Finally, after finding this post:
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:6xzFpm2iDB8J:www.experts-exchange.com/OS/Microsoft_Operating_Systems/Server/2003_Server/Q_22714573.html+%22The+file+is+damaged+and+could+not+be+repaired.%22+internet+explorer+%22reader+8%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=ca&client=firefox-a

I got a hint that compression of some kind might be involved.

The print-bingo.com site uses FPDF to generate PDF's. So... using a feature in it's API, I disabled compression of files of less than 15 pages (arbitrary).

So far so good.

I want my last two hours back. And maybe it's time for a proper blog.

Tags: adobe, reader, ar8, pdf, fpdf, compression, php, bug, problem, error