Application options for Adobe pdf files continually reverts to save file. Why doesn't it remember my choice to open using Adobe Reader?
Why doesn't it remember my choice to open using Adobe Reader? This is easy to fix by resetting the action under tools/options/applications but I don't know why I have to continually reset this. I can't say for sure if this is only after a version update or not. The most recent time I don't think it was but I can't be sure.
Is there some way to make this setting more persistent?
All Replies (3)
Do you want to use Adobe Acrobat in Firefox or Adobe Reader outside Firefox?
Was that the only lost setting? If not, do you have an Old Firefox Data folder on your desktop with a semi-randonly named folder inside that has recently updated files?
That would indicate that the "Refresh" feature ran. Sometimes during an update Firefox is sluggish and displays a notice about restoring some default settings to speed things up. If you click that button, then many of your settings, such as displaying PDFs in the built-in viewer, would be set to defaults.
Your preference for PDFs is stored in the mimeTypes.rdf file and occasionally the file becomes corrupted. Since the file is difficult to edit, we generally suggest renaming it and letting Firefox start a new one. If you don't find any other explanation, here's how you do that:
Open your current Firefox settings (AKA Firefox profile) folder using either
- "3-bar" menu button > "?" button > Troubleshooting Information
- (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
- type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter
In the first table on the page, click the "Show Folder" button. This should launch a new window listing various files and folders in Windows Explorer.
Leaving that window open, switch back to Firefox and Exit, either:
- "3-bar" menu button > "power" button
- (menu bar) File > Exit
Pause while Firefox finishes its cleanup, then rename mimeTypes.rdf to something like mimeTypes.old (in case you need to recover it later).
Start Firefox back up again, and return to Application Options to select your preferred viewer: View PDF files using Firefox’s built-in viewer.
Any improvement?
You can check the value of the plugin.disable_full_page_plugin_for_types pref on the about:config page and remove the application/pdf part if present or reset the pref to the default via the right-click context menu if you want to display PDF documents in Firefox with another application (i.e. not the built-in PDF Viewer).
You can open the about:config page via the location/address bar. You can accept the warning and click "I'll be careful" to continue.