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mcandre

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 3, 2015
3
0
Hi,

When I try to read the ARM reference manual PDF, then the Files app permanently corrupts. Anyone else experience this?


The Files app shows a blank document with a Done button. Pressing Done toggles the button text to "Cancel", but nothing happens. The document cannot be closed directly, neither will it load. The file is only about 50 MB.

I tried relaunching Files, no luck.

I tried rebooting, no luck.

Unlike Android apps, I am not sure if Files has an option to empty the application cache.

I did manage to find a workaround, but it requires you to already have other documents available in Files. Long press on the Files app and select another document. Then you can temporarily access the rest of the Files app. If you can get to this state, then you will be able to delete the PDF. Finally, relaunch the app and the document will no longer block the Files app from being used.

This document appears to have some formatting errors that trigger other PDF readers as well. For example, Google Play Books preprocesses PDFs before making them available to read. In that case, the validation halts the document early, so there is no way for the user to even attempt to load the document.

The original ARM reference manual G.a edition PDF has questionable formatting. It's 2021 and they do not offer ePUB?

Fortunately, Preview on desktop macOS is able to open this document. Apple Books (formerly iBooks) is also able to open the document. However, the zoom will not be enjoyable. And progress will not sync with non-Apple devices.

The page count is 8,538. This could indicate a problem with how PDF readers on iPad and Google Play Books are failing to stream the pages, but naively attempting to process the entire document at once. Whereupon they quickly run out of resources.
 
Last edited:

NoBoMac

Moderator
Staff member
Jul 1, 2014
5,774
4,363
Was able to download it on an iPad and open it in Adobe Acrobat Reader. No problem scrolling there, jumped to page 8000 and scroll there as well.
 
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Slartibart

macrumors 68030
Aug 19, 2020
2,892
2,596
FileBrowser Professional handles it without any problem. (EDIT: iPad Pro 11”, 2020).

F9238D62-A8A9-4A60-AFBE-09585709B7B3.png
 
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