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When I try to view any PDF in Chrome it displays a gray bar over the PDF that moves around when I scroll, but blocks my view of the PDF no matter what I do. Sometimes upon loading the entire page will be blank gray -- other times the PDF will momentarily appear intact until I scroll.

This is happening with every PDF.

I haven't identified anything that changed with Chrome when this began happening (a few days ago). I have tried restarting Chrome, restarting my computer, disabling and re-enabling the Chrome PDF viewer plugin, doing the same with all other Chrome plugins... nothing has worked. This is not happening in other browsers. Any help would be very appreciated!!

EDIT: Here are some screenshots showing the issue.

Partial coverage by gray bar:

Partial coverage by gray bar

Entire page is gray:

Entire page is gray

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    Seems you are not alone on this its some kind of recent bug users here having the same symptoms.
    – NetworkKingPin
    Commented Mar 10, 2016 at 4:41
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    What version of Chrome and which OS? Can you include a screenshot of this, I can't replicate it?
    – Burgi
    Commented Mar 10, 2016 at 14:26
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    OS X 10.9.5, Chrome Version 49.0.2623.87 (64-bit). From the thread linked by @NetworkKingPin it looks like it's a problem with Chrome 49+. That thread includes a screenshot
    – S E Clark
    Commented Mar 10, 2016 at 15:28

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Someone on this thread finally found a fix.

In Chrome, go to Preferences > Show Advanced Settings, and under "System", uncheck the box that says "Use hardware acceleration when available". Restart Chrome to apply this setting.

PDFs are loading correctly for me again.

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    Doesn't work for me :\
    – Vedaad Shakib
    Commented Aug 6, 2016 at 2:00
  • It also did not work for me, but found a solution:
    – Igor Lino
    Commented May 10, 2019 at 14:54
  • which one? which solution did you use?
    – Suncatcher
    Commented Sep 19, 2019 at 18:36

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