Share links don't work on Android

[aprilafternoon]

For a while now, I've been sharing Dropbox documents in PDF format via email. Once in a while people tell me they "can't open the links." I always just assumed they didn't know what they were doing, but today I happened to test one of these links on an Android phone.

In the Gmail app on Android, clicking on a Dropbox link in this format:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/o8fpocz6tykra0o/20190204.pdf?dl=0

gives the error,

Cannot display PDF (20190204.pdf is of invalid format)

Anyone know how to get this to work on Android?

[Lusil]

Hi there, @aprilafternoon. 

As a first step, could you please send me a screenshot of the error message you’re seeing (excluding personal info)? You can do this by selecting one of the following options:

Thanks in advance!

[aprilafternoon]

Absolutely! Here you go.

[Lusil]

Thanks for the screenshot, @aprilafternoon!

Hmm. The first thought that comes to mind is that the device doesn't have the relevant third party app to support the file in question so as to preview. 

However, I just wanted to ask, if you change the shared link's dl=0 into dl=1 (so as to force the file to download), are you then able to preview the file directly from your mobile phone by any chance? 

Let me know what you find!

[aprilafternoon]

I actually did try the dl=1 argument before I wrote this post! It makes no difference. Shouldn't the links open in the browser instead of trying to download the file?

[Lusil]

Thanks for trying this out for me, @aprilafternoon. 

Could you please try manually copy-pasting the shared link you have into a browser and see if that does the trick?

Let me know of any updates! 

[Здравко]

Hi @aprilafternoon,

The message is absolutely normal. The link point to JPEG file, erroneous renamed to .pdf. Of cource, android try to redirect to activity serving PDF, but the same activity seems doesn't know anything about JPEG. Check Your file format and/or set apropriate name extension.

[aprilafternoon]

Unfortunately, that's not the case... the file in question is a valid PDF file and I can view it properly from iOS devices... just not Android. 

[Здравко]

Hi @aprilafternoon,

As response to link Your posted initialy (https://www.dropbox.com/s/o8fpocz6tykra0o/20190204.pdf?dl=0) in part of the content (no to direct link) headers reported are:

accept-ranges: bytes
cache-control: public, max-age=31536000, no-transform
content-disposition: inline; filename="AA-iJSzD.jpe…ilename*=UTF-8''AA-iJSzD.jpeg
content-length: 232494
content-security-policy: referrer no-referrer
content-type: image/jpeg
date: Thu, 07 Feb 2019 01:25:27 GMT
referrer-policy: no-referrer
server: nginx
timing-allow-origin: *
vary: Origin
x-content-type-options: nosniff
x-dropbox-request-id: a80463e96954cc0b61e152b987784782
X-Firefox-Spdy: h2
x-robots-tag: noindex, nofollow, noimageindex
x-server-response-time: 171

all together (at least, when I clicked the link provided). Note especially the line:

content-type: image/jpeg

I will left this byself without comments.

Something more: Even on a same OS different activities can have different capabilities (What to say on different devices and/or OS-es). So, some activities can serve more types, others - no. That's it.

[Здравко]

Of course, this could be bad redirection to https://uce90e38fa32e1b7b14345c2a3a2.previews.dropboxusercontent.com/p/thumb/AAULjtCnhlyMjiewZ4Hm5Jr...

If so, I can't say anything more.