Why do PDFs that I attach to transactions in my checking register no longer display in a new browser tab when I click the link, as they always have done before?

If anyone has continued to attach files over the past month, I'm afraid I have some not-so-good news. The first time that I used QBO following the introduction of this bug, I attached files to two transactions. After I found that those would not open in a separate browser tab but would instead bring up a Save dialog, I left those files attached but did not upload any more except to test (after which I would Cancel without saving the transaction).

This morning, with new attachments behaving normally, I went back and checked those earlier attachments. They still do not open in a new tab. So it looks like my intuition was correct on this: any attachments done during the bug period will have to be deleted and re-uploaded.

Talk about sacrificing for the good of the cause! I started a chat with QBO support at 10:45 this morning, and ended it at 4:30 p.m. After about five hours and two screen share sessions, I think I got the rep to understand the problem. He said he would "contact Tier 2" about it. Half an hour after that, he came back to say that this is intentional: attached PDFs now have to be downloaded so you can view them (and subsequently hunt them down to delete the clutter). Of course they told some users that in November too, and then they fixed it with the December update. Go figure.

In the course of fiddling with it, I discovered that this time, PNG files do not seem to be affected. PDFs are behaving as they did with the November bug, opening a dialog to save the file when you click the attachment filename. But a PNG that I converted from PDF and attached to a checking register transaction displays in a new browser tab as it should. So I suppose a workaround would be to convert PDFs to PNG. That's a pain. I seldom see a "Save as PNG" option, whereas "Save as PDF" is ubiquitous. And this raises the question: If the new PDF behavior is so wonderful, why didn't they make PNGs act the same way?

Thanks everybody for contributing. I'm an unpaid volunteer bookkeeper, and I think it's time to retire.

Well, it appears that they have fixed it again. I just posted the following in reply to the announcement by a QB Team member in another thread:

Thank you, Mich_S. I tried an attachment just now and can confirm that it is indeed working correctly again.

Is it going to stay fixed this time? As you have alluded to, any files that have been attached during the "bug" period will have to be deleted and re-uploaded if we want them to exhibit proper viewing behavior. I have not been attaching any files but instead saving them up in the hope that this would be fixed again. Now it will take me half a day to upload all of those. I shudder to think how much work this will be for more serious users who have dozens or even hundreds of transactions a day.