File opening problem on Mint Mate 19.2

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wpshooter
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File opening problem on Mint Mate 19.2

Post by wpshooter »

One little problem that I have found so far on Mint Mate 19.2.

I have several PDF files of shooting targets all of which open just fine on my
19.1 machine but when I copy them over to 19.2 on another machine only
2 or 3 of them will open. The others come up with an error regarding opening
an PNG file type even though the file extension is PDF.

Any ideas ?

Thanks.
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gittiest personITW
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Re: File opening problem on Mint Mate 19.2

Post by gittiest personITW »

Do you use the same pdf reader on both computers?
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Re: File opening problem on Mint Mate 19.2

Post by wpshooter »

gittiest personITW wrote: Wed Aug 07, 2019 5:20 pm Do you use the same pdf reader on both computers?
Yes, xreader, but, of course, the 19.2 install has a slightly newer version, am wondering if this is a bug in the new version ???

Thanks.
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gm10

Re: File opening problem on Mint Mate 19.2

Post by gm10 »

Possible, although it could also just be a bad file type detection/association. When you get the error message about the PNG file, did the file try to open in Xreader or was it maybe Xviewer (the image viewer)? If you're not sure, open Xreader and try to open the problematic files via the file open dialog, see what happens.
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Re: File opening problem on Mint Mate 19.2

Post by wpshooter »

gm10 wrote: Wed Aug 07, 2019 6:06 pm Possible, although it could also just be a bad file type detection/association. When you get the error message about the PNG file, did the file try to open in Xreader or was it maybe Xviewer (the image viewer)? If you're not sure, open Xreader and try to open the problematic files via the file open dialog, see what happens.
If I attempt to open via right-hand clicking and choosing open with document viewer, I still get the same error message. It's as if the program is mistakenly identifying the file/document as an image instead of a document file type.

How would I attempt to revert to the old 2.0.2 version of xreader ?

Thanks.
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karlchen
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Re: File opening problem on Mint Mate 19.2

Post by karlchen »

Hi, wpshooter.

You did not follow the requested steps:
+ launch xreader first
+ use the "File" - "Open" from inside xreader
+ in order to open the potential .png file, maybe disguised as a .pdf by having the wrong filename extension

Could you please do so and report back.

As xreader on Mint 19.2 opens several (real) PDF files correctly, why do you suspect it may be wrong about the offending .PDF file?
Maybe it is really not a valid .PDF file?
Maybe it is a .PNG file, having the wrong filename extension .PDF only?

In Caja go the directory where the problematic file lives. Right click on the directory. Select "open terminal here".
Next execute file nameofpdffile where you replace nameofpdffile by the real filename.
Please, post what the command file tells about the file.

Regards,
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Re: File opening problem on Mint Mate 19.2

Post by gm10 »

The right click > open that OP did was good enough for me tbh. But your point that the problem may be the inverse, namely that it is actually a PNG, is a good one.

In addition to the file output, if the document can be shared we'd be happy to take a look btw.
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Re: File opening problem on Mint Mate 19.2

Post by wpshooter »

If I launch xreader from terminal and then attempt to open one of the problematic files, it creates an icon with the Adobe symbol in it with the name of the problematic file but if I click on that icon nothing happens.

If I do the 2nd suggested procedure what comes back on the terminal is - No such file or directory, and yes I am typing the file name just as it is shown, tried it several times.

Just seems logical to me that this is a problem in the new version of xreader since as I said all this works perfectly fine on the old version of xreader 2.0.2 that is used under Linux Mint 19.1.

????
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Re: File opening problem on Mint Mate 19.2

Post by gm10 »

wpshooter wrote: Thu Aug 08, 2019 9:34 am If I do the 2nd suggested procedure what comes back on the terminal is - No such file or directory, and yes I am typing the file name just as it is shown, tried it several times.
Probably spaces in the file name, enclose it in 'quotes'
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Re: File opening problem on Mint Mate 19.2

Post by wpshooter »

The problematic file comes back as "PNG image data, 850 x 1100, 8-bit/color RGBA, non-interlaced" - I had to rename it to xxx.pdf to get that to work.

The non-problematic files comes back as "PDF document, version 1.3" - I renamed this one to yyy.pdf before running the command.

This still does not give me any hint as to why these (same files) both work fine as PDFs under a 19.1 installation but only one of them will work under a 19.2 installation.

Is it possible that something is slightly out of whack with the filing system on the 19.2 installation ?

Thought maybe that the problem file had been opened by another application (perhaps Gimp) from the USB key that I have backups on - which I used to transfer files to new 19.2 installation) but I copied the problem file from the hard drive of the 19.1 install where it is working fine back to the USB key again overwriting the one that was on the USB and then copied from the USB to the hard drive on 19.2 hard drive but the problem still persists.

P.S. - I just went back to the 19.1 installation machine and the file is also shown as being a PNG image file (even though it has pdf extension), however as stated before it opens just fine on that machine.

Thanks.
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Re: File opening problem on Mint Mate 19.2

Post by Flemur »

wpshooter wrote: Thu Aug 08, 2019 11:23 am The problematic file comes back as "PNG image data, 850 x 1100, 8-bit/color RGBA, non-interlaced" - I had to rename it to xxx.pdf to get that to work.
Probably just needed quotes as gm10 suggested.
Is it possible that something is slightly out of whack with the filing system on the 19.2 installation ?
Probably not since xreader doesn't open .png files.

https://www.mankier.com/1/xreader#Description
"Xreader is a simple multi-page document viewer. It can display and print PostScript (PS), Encapsulated PostScript (EPS), DJVU, DVI, XPS and Portable Document Format (PDF) files."
https://community.linuxmint.com/software/view/xreader
"Xreader is a simple multi-page document viewer. It can display and print PostScript (PS), Encapsulated PostScript (EPS), DJVU, DVI and Portable Document Format (PDF) files."
Please edit your original post title to include [SOLVED] if/when it is solved!
Your data and OS are backed up....right?
gm10

Re: File opening problem on Mint Mate 19.2

Post by gm10 »

wpshooter wrote: Thu Aug 08, 2019 11:23 am The problematic file comes back as "PNG image data, 850 x 1100, 8-bit/color RGBA, non-interlaced" - I had to rename it to xxx.pdf to get that to work.
Ok, so change the extension to .png and then try opening it with your preferred image viewer, see if it opens. If it does, mystery solved. As Flemur said, Xreader doesn't seem to support opening image file formats despite registering itself as a MIME handler for all of them (image/*, and that would be a bug, but it's not new).
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Re: File opening problem on Mint Mate 19.2

Post by karlchen »

Hm. Will have to repeat the test on Mint 19.2, did it on 19.1:
  • renamed a genuine .pdf file to .png. Right-clicked on it and selected to open with document viewer. xreader came up and opened the file. No problem.
  • selected a genuine .png file, right-clicked on it and selected to open with document viewer. xreader came up and opened the file. No problem.
  • selected a genuine .pdf file, right-clicked on it and selected to open with document viewer. xreader came up and opened the file. No problem.
In all 3 cases I checked via Help => About that the loaded application was xreader 2.0.2.
Note: xviewer 2.0.2 will only open the genuine .png file, not the spoofed one and not the genuine .pdf file.
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Re: File opening problem on Mint Mate 19.2

Post by gm10 »

karlchen wrote: Thu Aug 08, 2019 1:44 pm Hm. Will have to repeat the test on Mint 19.2, did it on 19.1:

Code: Select all

[*]selected a genuine [c].png[/c] file, right-clicked on it and selected to open with document viewer. xreader came up and opened the file. No problem.
Xreader 2.2.3 refuses to open any type of image on my system, showing a banner that its not a supported file type. Interesting that they would cut that functionality.
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Re: File opening problem on Mint Mate 19.2

Post by karlchen »

Hi, gm10.

Confirmed. While xreader 2.0.2 (Mint 19.1) still can open and display image files, this functionality seems to have been removed from xreader 2.2.3. xreader simply refuses, even if I use File => Open from inside xreader.
Maybe the reason is that there is no good reason to permit filetypes, handled by xreader, to overlap with filetypes, handled by xviewer.

Regards,
Karl
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Re: File opening problem on Mint Mate 19.2

Post by wpshooter »

gm10 wrote: Thu Aug 08, 2019 2:50 pm
karlchen wrote: Thu Aug 08, 2019 1:44 pm Hm. Will have to repeat the test on Mint 19.2, did it on 19.1:

Code: Select all

[*]selected a genuine [c].png[/c] file, right-clicked on it and selected to open with document viewer. xreader came up and opened the file. No problem.
Xreader 2.2.3 refuses to open any type of image on my system, showing a banner that its not a supported file type. Interesting that they would cut that functionality.
I found a converter and converted the files that were coming up identified as PNG types.

Now I can open all of the files under the 19.2 installation. Since all of them (without any conversion to the ones that were labeled as PNG file types) would open under the 19.1 installation of xreader), I would say that there must have been a change to the newer version of xreader which more tightly restricts the file identification types that will open under it.

Thanks for your help.
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Re: File opening problem on Mint Mate 19.2

Post by wpshooter »

karlchen wrote: Thu Aug 08, 2019 4:06 pm Hi, gm10.

Confirmed. While xreader 2.0.2 (Mint 19.1) still can open and display image files, this functionality seems to have been removed from xreader 2.2.3. xreader simply refuses, even if I use File => Open from inside xreader.
Maybe the reason is that there is no good reason to permit filetypes, handled by xreader, to overlap with filetypes, handled by xviewer.

Regards,
Karl
Yes, but the only problem about this is that I am going to be giving/donating this computer with 19.2 on it to likely someone who basically knows nothing about Linux and they would have never gotten it fixed (took me long enough to do so !!!) and they would have gotten frustrated with Linux Mint and would have scrapped it for MS$.
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Re: File opening problem on Mint Mate 19.2

Post by karlchen »

Actually, there is no Mint 19.2 problem viewing
+ PDF document files, xreader will do
+ PNG image files, xviewer will do

You created the hassle yourself by appending an incorrect filename extension .pdf to a filename PNG image data, 850 x 1100, 8-bit/color RGBA, non-interlaced, which already in the filename suggested that it were an image file.
The bigger problem, however, with this filename are the characters in it, mainly the /, which must never be used in a filename or in a directory name, because it is the path separator.
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Re: File opening problem on Mint Mate 19.2

Post by gm10 »

karlchen wrote: Thu Aug 08, 2019 4:06 pm Maybe the reason is that there is no good reason to permit filetypes, handled by xreader, to overlap with filetypes, handled by xviewer.
Probably, but it seems work in progress (the MIME registration for image/* and the file open dialog still lets you filter for image types). Personally I'm using MATE's Atril because it has less bugs than Xreader and it also still opens all images (not that I ever use it for that).
wpshooter wrote: Thu Aug 08, 2019 4:19 pmand they would have gotten frustrated with Linux Mint and would have scrapped it for MS$.
Haha, good one. Windows entirely depends on file extensions so what worked for you under LM 19.1 would never work there. Just give your files the correct extensions and they will work on all systems.
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Re: File opening problem on Mint Mate 19.2

Post by karlchen »

Hi, gm10.
It might just be a bug / regression as well.
Karl
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