Failure to open local file in windows platform

[juncaixinchi]

Configuration:

• Web browser and its version:
  Electron 1.7.8 ( use webpack and set target: 'electron-renderer')
• Operating system and its version:
  Windows 10
• PDF.js version:
  pdfjs-dist: 1.9.640
• Is an extension:
  no

Steps to reproduce the problem:

1. try to open C:/User/1234/Desktop/a.pdf
2. window.location transform it to file:///C:/User/1234/Desktop/a.pdf
3. PDFNodeStreamFsFullReader get /C:/User/1234/Desktop/a.pdf
4. ENOENT: no such file or directory, lstat C:\C:\User\1234\Desktop\a.pdf

What went wrong?

the pr #8928 is not working

path before decodeURI: /C:/User/1234/Desktop/a.pdf. Howerver, after decodeURI, path is still the same.

see also
#8946

[pcad]

@juncaixinchi - We had a similar issue. PDFJS switched in the 1.9 release to the fetch api. Fetch in Electron doesn't work the same way as XHR wrt the file:// protocol.

electron/electron#9474 (comment)

[juncaixinchi]

@pcad if you use webpack, you can set target: 'electron-renderer' or target: 'electron in webpack.config.js, then PDFJS will using Node Stream to load local file rather than fetch api.

However, due to the bug I refered in this issue, it's only working in Linux or Mac platform, failed in windows.
About fetch, file:// protocol was refused to add to fetch api. ╮(￣ . ￣)╭

JakeChampion/fetch#92 (comment)

[matteodem]

So what's the solution to this problem?

[juncaixinchi]

@matteodem A PR(#9323) has been added to solve this problem, you can try the latest release, it should be OK.

[matteodem]

@juncaixinchi I get following error:

fetch_stream.js:96 Fetch API cannot load file:///C:/Users/demichma/Downloads/ZH_BD_CD_07773.pdf. URL scheme must be "http" or "https" for CORS request.

see http://jsfiddle.net/9engc9mw/2601/

Does the build version have to be updated too?

[juncaixinchi]

@matteodem

That's becasue the fetch api does not support file protocol (JakeChampion/fetch#92 (comment)).

You should use http protocol: http://jsfiddle.net/9engc9mw/2611/.

If you are electron and webpack user, see #9020 (comment)

[matteodem]

@juncaixinchi ...so this means this is not possible? as in the original issue is unresolved / unresolvable?

[juncaixinchi]

@matteodem It's not possible to use the fetch api to load local files via file protocol. However, the pdf.js supports reading local files if you are in NodeJS environment.