27
5
On Windows 10, Acer Aspire E 15
Whenever I download a pdf file, in the prompt comes up to ask where I want to save it, in the file type, I get some gibberish. This is an example.
However, the file does open as a pdf. Any idea on why this is happening and a possible fix?
Thanks in advance!
EDIT
Here is another example - (the save as is different even though I'm saving a pdf both the times)
DDDAD
Posted 2018-04-18T03:46:40.427
Reputation: 313
39
Open regedit and navigate to HKCR\.pdf. Make note of what the (Default) entry value is. For example, if you have Adobe Reader it might say AcroExch.Document.
Now, navigate to HKCR\<name of default value>, so in my example above I would navigate to HKCR\AcroExch.Document.
See what the value for the (default) key is. This is where your corruption should be. You can change it to something more familiar like Adobe Acrobat Document. Or use whatever identifier you want to use, depending on what application it is that is opening the PDFs.
Appleoddity
Posted 2018-04-18T03:46:40.427
Reputation: 9 360
3Thank you very much! It was due to a corrupt pdf reader I'd used in the past, but later uninstalled! – DDDAD – 2018-04-18T04:44:55.393
17@DDDAD Since this looks like a Far Eastern language (Chinese?) string to me, I would be bothered if the corrputed PDF reader was more a sort of malware and thus pay attention to other anomalites on the system. – rexkogitans – 2018-04-18T11:44:52.680
@rexkogitans the first image looks like Urdu, but I'm not sure. The second one is Korean. – Andrew T. – 2018-04-18T11:53:29.403
2@AndrewT. and if you ask me it's probably just outputting the memory reference as a rendering of whatever encoding system (was it ANSI-8? UTF-8?) that the Windows OS uses, which may hit on random characters anywhere – psosuna – 2018-04-18T19:25:20.737
1@psosuna windows is primarily UTF-16 – user253751 – 2018-04-18T23:03:57.187
@user20574 thanks! I always forget this – psosuna – 2018-04-18T23:04:45.597
2@rexkogitans, thanks for the suggestion. The pdf reader was a good one with no known history of malware. However, there were some errors while uninstalling it which may have led to the error – DDDAD – 2018-04-19T03:59:35.797
1just to be sure, this is for any PDF from any website? or just this site? – Keltari – 2018-04-18T03:50:54.980
Don't know if it's true for any website, but true for the ones I frequently use here is another example when I try to download from arxiv
– DDDAD – 2018-04-18T03:54:27.740find out. this matters. – Keltari – 2018-04-18T03:55:30.293
15How do I find out from "any" website? (there are millions of them out there) I've tried it out again for 5-6 sites, and I get similar results – DDDAD – 2018-04-18T03:58:02.260
As per the OP's statement, this problem is not related to any particular site anymore. It is some problem in the windows system of OP – user12313780 – 2018-04-18T04:15:41.437
Have you at any point used an alternate language? – Appleoddity – 2018-04-18T04:25:34.887
that was my first thought too, I did, use another language, but not the one that comes up in save-as type. Another point I'd like to bring up is that for a .pdf file, I get different texts everytime (refer to edit) – DDDAD – 2018-04-18T04:32:12.673