Edge Browser Control can't render local .PDFs

[Hoof Hearted]

This is production database for an engineering company. I started writing it in 1994 using Access 2. We've gone through several versions of Access and we've now been on Access 365 for several years with a SQL Server back end. It's worked well and I could usually fix problems myself until January this year...

We have a form which displays information relating to customer Drawings. In the top right corner is a Web Browser control with displays a .PDF thumbnail of the current drawing. The .PDFs are located in the customer's folder on our server. Just one of our users has a Windows 11pc. On that pc, the .PDF no longer displays the image. The control just displays a grey rectangle.

I did some reading and discovered that the Web Browser control has been deprecated and the Edge Browser control is what I should be using. So on my own windows 10 workstation I tried to implement it. What I find is that the Edge Browser control almost displays raw text instead of rendering the .pdf. Just a very few .PDFs render normally with the Edge Browser control.

Here's what I've tried in order to fix the issue.

I've put "h-t-t-p-s-:-/-/-m-s-a-c-c-e-s-s-/" at the start of the address. (I had to insert all those hyphens before this site would accept this question)

I've tried putting the address in the .ControlSource property of the control, instead of using the .Navigate method.

If tried putting "=" at the start of the address and wrapping the address in quotes.

I've moved the code into the FormTimer() routine, so that it runs after the form has opened and everything else is initialised.

Reading other people's woes, it seems that there was an update in January which has caused problems with the Edge Browser control displaying local .pdfs. I had only used the Web Browser control previously. So I don't know if this is a new problem with the Edge Browser control.

Does anyone know of a fix please?

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Just one of our users has a Windows 11pc. On that pc, the .PDF no longer displays the image. The control just displays a grey rectangle.

Perform this web search: "problems with edge browser control and PDF local files"

Since I don't use Edge browser, I can't give any more advice than this. However, that search turned up a couple of pages of articles, one or more of which might be useful. The fact of it being a local file to the Win11 system suggests that the Win11 system doesn't have a proper association for PDF files and MIGHT not have the free-to-download Adobe Reader app.

 

[Hoof Hearted]

Yes it does have Adobe Reader. It is this which the Web Browser control used to render the .PDf images. I assume the Edge Browser control uses it also. I've tried changing the windows default pdf reader. It doesn't make any difference. Historically we've always had Adobe Reader as the default pdf reader.

When a user opens this form, the .PDF opens in the WebBrowser control at the top right. If the user wants to see the image full screen, they can click a button and Access executes a Shell command to call Adobe Reader supplying the filepath as a command line argument. This still works fine.

 

[isladogs]

The old IE browser control hasn't been deprecated yet but will be later this year
However, fellow MVP, Karl Donaubauer reported issues with PDFs in the IE browser control to the Access team on 5 Sept and that issue is being investigated. The cause hasn't yet been identified but only affects Win 11 users

However, not all users are seeing the same symptoms. For that reason, I wrote a thread about this a few days ago asking for feedback:

PDFs no longer open in the legacy IE browser control

Recently there have been several reports that PDF files (whether local or online) no longer open in the old IE browser control. This is on machines that have the latest Windows Jan 2026 updates. Some people report just seeing an empty grey box where the browser control is located. In my...

www.access-programmers.co.uk

However, the Edge browser control should still be able to display both online and local PDFs. At least it still works for me
Have you setup the TrustedDomains table for handling local files?

If you are on Win 11, your issues may be due to problematic Windows updates in January which have caused lots of problems for many users.

 

[Hoof Hearted]

Something changed overnight. My windows 10 pc is now displaying all .pdfs as a solid grey rectangle. This is identical to the windows 11 pc.

No I hadn't set up the TrustedDomains table. I've added h-t-t-p-s:/-/-msaccess/ now (sorry about the hyphens). It didn't make any difference. Is there anything else I should put in there? I've also now added the network location to the TrustedLocations in security centre. We never needed this for the WebBrowser control.

Thankfully the WebBrowser control is still working for all the other client pc's for the time being.

 

[RonPaii]

The old IE browser control hasn't been deprecated yet but will be later this year
However, fellow MVP, Karl Donaubauer reported issues with PDFs in the IE browser control to the Access team on 5 Sept and that issue is being investigated. The cause hasn't yet been identified but only affects Win 11 users

I ran into an issue yesterday trying to connect to a VERY old HP4050's web page. The internal controls do not show. I enabled IE emulation for the page but the option to go to IE mode is not visible. Could the recent W11 updates finally eliminate IE thus causing the problem with the IE control in Access?

 

[isladogs]

I ran into an issue yesterday trying to connect to a VERY old HP4050's web page. The internal controls do not show. I enabled IE emulation for the page but the option to go to IE mode is not visible. Could the recent W11 updates finally eliminate IE thus causing the problem with the IE control in Access?

As I can still use the old IE browser control in both Win 10 & Win 11 (except for PDFs), the answer has to be no.
I am finding more & more issues with using it but the IE browser control still works and the Trident engine hasn't yet been deprecated

 

[isladogs]

Something changed overnight. My windows 10 pc is now displaying all .pdfs as a solid grey rectangle. This is identical to the windows 11 pc.

No I hadn't set up the TrustedDomains table. I've added h-t-t-p-s:/-/-msaccess/ now (sorry about the hyphens). It didn't make any difference. Is there anything else I should put in there? I've also now added the network location to the TrustedLocations in security centre. We never needed this for the WebBrowser control.

Thankfully the WebBrowser control is still working for all the other client pc's for the time being.

View attachment 123204

At the moment this whole thread is too speculative for anyone to give you clear advice.

When something stops working overnight, the first step is to identify what has changed. Office update? Windows update?
Try to identify what changed and see whether rolling back updates fixes the problems.

So have you now set up the TrustedDomains table in Access? As I expect you realise that's a totally different issue to Trusted Locations.
See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/vba/api/access.edgebrowsercontrol.trusteddomains

Please could you provide a very simple repro database with the Edge browser control on a form and which has the issue on your computer(s).
Rmove all unnecessary stuff from the db and any private data
Also supply a non-confidential PDF which used to work but doesn't now

It would also be very helpful for troubleshooting if you could provide the Windows 10 & 11 versions and builds together with the Office versions, builds and Update Channels in use.