nextcloud / nextcloud/richdocuments

Office not opening pdfs on mobile devices

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Dominant language
JavaScript
Stars
453
Forks
147
Avg merge
14h 54m
Merged PRs (30d)
83

Description

Describe the bug
We are experiencing an issue where shared PDF documents that have the “Download and Sync” permission disabled cannot be opened on mobile devices via Collabora.

On iOS, the client returns the error: “403 Forbidden – you don’t have permission to complete the operation."
On Android, the document does not open at all.

On Windows clients, the same documents open without any issues with collabora.
Word and Excel are working without any problems on android and apple, with this permission.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

  1. Share a pdf file with a user and only allow to read it. “Download and Sync” permission set to disabled.
  2. login with the user on android or apple
  3. open the file
  4. see the error “403 Forbidden – you don’t have permission to complete the operation.” on apple or on android nothing

Expected behavior
It should open the pdf as ready only in collabora.

Client details:

  • OS: iOS 26.1, Android 16
  • Browser [Brave]
  • Device: [e.g. iPad 10th, Pixel 8]

Server details

Operating system:
Debian / Docker container

Web server:
Apache

Database:
MariaDB 10.6

PHP version:
8.3.30

**Nextcloud version:
31.0.13

Version of the richdocuments app
8.7.7

Version of Collabora Online
25.04.8.1

Configuration of the richdocuments app

{
    "apps": {
        "richdocuments": {
            "canonical_webroot": "",
            "disable_certificate_verification": "",
            "edit_groups": "",
            "enabled": "yes",
            "external_apps": "",
            "federation_use_trusted_domains": "yes",
            "installed_version": "8.7.7",
            "public_wopi_url": "https:\/\/colla.domain.de",
            "types": "filesystem,prevent_group_restriction",
            "use_groups": "",
            "wopi_allowlist": "internal ip adresses",
            "wopi_url": "https:\/\/colla.domain.de"
        }
    }
}

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

No source file or test is named. Start by reproducing the read-only PDF flow with “Download and Sync” disabled on iOS and Android, then trace the richdocuments/Collabora request that returns 403. Done means the PDF opens read-only on both mobile platforms without changing behavior for Word or Excel.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
android, apache, ios, javascript, mariadb, php
Domain
authorization, backend-api-design, mobile-dev
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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