PDF display not working on Crostini (Linux on ChromeOS)

[msiniscalchi]

LaTeX workshop works just fine under Crostini (Linux on ChromeOS). However, PDF preview does not work. When viewing the PDF file, the display is corrupted -- only part of the page is shown. See attached image

.
Zooming in or out a few times does seem to cause the entire page to be displayed, but there does not seem to be any empirical regularity.

This is under VSCode 1.41.1, LaTeX Workshop 8.7.1.

FYI by default, Crostini provides a Debian VM. In my case, I am running Buster.

[jlelong]

• Can you post anything suspicious from the console logs (to access the log, click 'help' -> 'Toggle Developer Tools')?

• Can you try to open your .pdf file in Chrome (View LaTeX PDF > View in web browser)?

[tamuratak]

I think we can do nothing on our side.

[jszarin]

Can verify. Issue is also present on crostini with the default debian stretch container. The PDF will appear correctly on chromeos if loaded into the browser from the file manager.

[msiniscalchi]

Thank you all! I'll check the console logs tonight---I'm at work now. @jszarin @jlelong one thing I can say for sure is that PDFs render perfectly in the browser (as well as in Evince, for that matter). The issue is only with PDFs rendered by PDF.js/LaTeX Workshop within VSCode.

I wonder if there have been similar reports regarding Wayland. ChromeOS uses Wayland natively, and X apps run via xwayland. But I don't know if VSCode runs as an X app. Just throwing ideas out for smarter people to mull over :-)

[seragunn]

It works fine on Wayland for me.

[tamuratak]

Related to microsoft/vscode/issues/1031.

[msiniscalchi]

@jlelong there is nothing strange in the dev console. When I open the PDF viewer,this is added to the log:

[Embedded Page] PDF 331f608807138a54b3e60379aed33350 [1.5 pdfTeX-1.40.19 / TeX] (PDF.js: 2.2.228)

and, to the right of this message,

webviewElement.ts:241

Now where it gets interesting is this. I have set up Firefox as the default web browser in Crostini. So, when I invoke the web view option from the extension, Firefox opens up----and I have the exact same issue: rendering is wrong. But, if I open the file in Chrome (or Evince under Crostini), all is fine.

Since I believe Firefox uses PDF.js, that's probably where the issue is.

[msiniscalchi]

@jlelong sorry, I gave you incorrect information.

My default browser in Crostini is Chromium, not Firefox. However, it appears that, when the PDF file is opened from within VSCode, using the "View in web browser" option in LaTeX Workshop, I do get the corruption issue. Also, opening the developer tools in Chromium shows that PDF.js is used to render the file.

If instead I open the PDF file directly from Chromium, rendering is correct---but it's also apparent that Chromium's internal PDF renderer is used.

[jlelong]

This looks like a pdf.js issue. So I am closing this bug report but if you can make a create MWE pdf file, you can post a bug report against pdf.js.

[tamuratak]

See mozilla/pdf.js/issues/11575. This problem should be reported to Chrostini itself.

[msiniscalchi]

That was in response to my bug report there, and yes, I have reported the issue on the chromium bug tracker. Fingers crossed!

[tamuratak]

@msiniscalchi Thank you for reporting this issue to the Chromium dev team.

This problem is tracked in https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1050344.

[msiniscalchi]

It would help if people star the issue on the Chromium bug tracker. Right now the bug is marked "available," which means that it was verified, but nobody is currently working on it. The more people star it, the more likely it becomes that someone will pick it up. Thank you!

[tamuratak]

Starting VS Code with --disable-gpu might solve this issue. https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/FAQ#_vs-code-is-blank

[msiniscalchi]

Yes, that does seem to work!

…

On Thu, Mar 19, 2020 at 5:56 PM Takashi Tamura ***@***.***> wrote: Starting VS Code with --disable-gpu might solve this issue. https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/FAQ#_vs-code-is-blank — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#1935 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAFDKBKLWVO4W52P5G4Y673RIKPITANCNFSM4KQW7CXA> .

-- Marciano Siniscalchi Economics Department, Northwestern University http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~msi661