Hey guys I am trying to open a pdf file from the Downloads folder, but when I try to it closes immed...

# android

[J6ey]

Hey guys I am trying to open a pdf file from the Downloads folder, but when I try to it closes immediately.

File file = new File(Environment.getExternalStoragePublicDirectory(Environment.DIRECTORY_DOWNLOADS), "la.pdf");

Uri pdfUri = FileProvider.getUriForFile(this, getPackageName() + ".provider", file);
Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, pdfUri)
.setDataAndType(pdfUri, "application/pdf")                   
.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_GRANT_READ_URI_PERMISSION);
startActivity(intent);

file.exists() shows that the file exists. I am able to locate and open the file in the Download folder, but just not by code. Any idea?

[Pablichjenkov]

Have you tried the new Storage Access Framework?

[David Eriksson]

Maybe a stack trace would help?

[J6ey]

The behavior is the android default pdf opener opens the pdf file from my app, then immediately closes and switches back to my app. There is no crash or exception I can trace. Only thing I can verify is that it’s probably not able to read the file, or any file for that matter.

[David Eriksson]

Not a single hint in logcat?

[J6ey]

not a single hint 😔

[J6ey]

I’m actually curious myself if anyone can programmatically open a pdf file in Downloads on their end. This may be a version issue for all I know. I’ve tried with Android 7-10

[David Eriksson]

What if you remove the "pdfUri" parameter to new Intent()?

[David Eriksson]

Also it seems you have Java code in a Kotlin Slack 😉

[J6ey]

Removed from intent, no dice. Yeah I apologize for that haha

[David Eriksson]

So what does the URI look like before you send the intent?

[J6ey]

Just a dummy pdf file:
https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tests/xhtml/testfiles/resources/pdf/dummy.pdf

[David Eriksson]

That can't be the URI in the pdfUri parameter

[J6ey]

How should the format be like?

[David Eriksson]

Show the URI from the debugger 🙂

[David Eriksson]

It should be content:// something

[J6ey]

Good point 🙂

[J6ey]

<content://com.sony.screeners.screenersapp.provider/external_files/Download/la.pdf>

[David Eriksson]

What does your file_provider_paths.xml file look like?

[J6ey]

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<paths>
    <external-path name="external_files" path="."/>
</paths>

[David Eriksson]

Hmm. Maybe you should try to open file Uri yourself with openAssetFileDescriptor and see if you get an error?