Unable to Download PDF with NGINX as a Reverse Proxy

When you’re using Nginx as a reverse proxy in front of Document Engine, and PDF download using any available means (Web SDK, Web UI, or Server API) fails, make sure that the title of the document doesn’t contain special, non-printable characters, e.g. escape codes.

To check if you’re running into this issue, check the following:

1. Does the download directly through Server, bypassing Nginx, works correctly?

2. Does the download for documents with ASCII title works correctly?

If the answer to both of these questions is “yes”, then you’re likely seeing this issue.

To circumvent this, you need to re-upload the PDF file and provide a sanitized document title. You can pass a custom title on upload using the Server API.