tonhowtf/omniget · error · anyhow::Error

Failed to download pdfium from

Error message

Failed to download pdfium from {}: HTTP {}

What it means

When downloading the pdfium archive, ensure_pdfium_with_variant() checks the HTTP status of the response and throws this error for any non-success status. The message includes the full source URL and the numeric HTTP status, so it distinguishes 404 (bad base URL/variant), 403 (rate-limit/blocked), 5xx (server outage), etc.

Solutions

  1. Read the HTTP status in the message: 404 means fix the URL/archive variant; 403 means auth/proxy issue; 5xx means retry later
  2. Verify PDFIUM_DOWNLOAD_BASE still points to valid release assets and that the variant name maps to an existing archive
  3. Retry after checking network/proxy; the request has a 600s timeout so failures are genuine server responses
  4. Pin a known-good pdfium archive name or install from a local file with set_pdfium_from_path

Example fix

// retry with a fallback variant on 404
match ensure_pdfium_with_variant(Some(variant)).await {
    Err(e) if e.to_string().contains("HTTP 404") => ensure_pdfium_with_variant(None).await,
    other => other,
}
Defensive patterns

Strategy: retry

Validate before calling

let head = client.head(&url).send().await?;
if !head.status().is_success() {
    eprintln!("pdfium URL not reachable: {}", head.status());
}

Try / catch

match ensure_pdfium().await {
    Err(e) if e.to_string().contains("Failed to download pdfium") => {
        // inspect HTTP status in message; retry with backoff or pin another release
    }
    other => other.map(|_| ()),
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: The GET request to PDFIUM_DOWNLOAD_BASE + archive_name returns a non-2xx status: wrong or renamed archive variant, outdated download base URL, offline proxy returning errors, or GitHub/bento release assets moved.

Common situations: New pdfium release renamed the asset so the constructed archive_name 404s; corporate proxy blocks bslashdev/github downloads; transient 502/503 from the CDN.

Understand the failure class

Background: "API error: {status}" and "HTTP 401/403/404/429/5xx" errors: non-2xx HTTP responses explained — this error's family across 27 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of tonhowtf/omniget@8600b91f42 (2026-09-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/9d8eb37aa3201bb5. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at src-tauri/omniget-core/src/core/pdfium.rs:180

    let target_dir =
        pdfium_target_dir().ok_or_else(|| anyhow!("could not determine app data dir"))?;
    std::fs::create_dir_all(&target_dir)
        .with_context(|| format!("creating pdfium target dir {}", target_dir.display()))?;

    let archive_name = archive_name_for_variant(variant.as_deref());
    let url = format!("{}/{}", PDFIUM_DOWNLOAD_BASE, archive_name);
    let lib_filename = pdfium_lib_filename();
    let target_path = target_dir.join(lib_filename);

    tracing::info!("Downloading pdfium from {}", url);

    let client = crate::core::http_client::apply_global_proxy(reqwest::Client::builder())
        .timeout(std::time::Duration::from_secs(600))
        .build()?;

    let response = client.get(&url).send().await?;
    if !response.status().is_success() {
        return Err(anyhow!(
            "Failed to download pdfium from {}: HTTP {}",
            url,
            response.status()
        ));
    }
    let bytes = response.bytes().await?.to_vec();
    if bytes.len() < 100_000 {
        return Err(anyhow!(
            "Downloaded pdfium archive is too small ({} bytes) — likely an error page",
            bytes.len()
        ));
    }

    let target_path_clone = target_path.clone();
    let target_dir_clone = target_dir.clone();
    let lib_name = lib_filename.to_string();
    let extracted_version =
        tokio::task::spawn_blocking(move || -> anyhow::Result<Option<String>> {

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