A PDF with dodgy (yet apparently valid per qpdf --check) structure is causing a crash about pikepdf HOT 1 OPEN

As much as this is frustrating, the PDF is severely malformed - there's absolutely no support for a random font object being inserted at that position. The PDF generator went quite far off the rails of reasonableness and I imagine this is the only the first issue that came up. It's also not entirely out of line to raise a runtime error here - it's a total unexpected situation, and deleting the metadata isn't necessarily the right thing to do.

My policy for this kind of error is to wait and see if lightning strikes twice. I assume that if another user comes forward with the same issue, then it may be widespread enough to warrant mitigation. I'd also accept evidence that, for example, a particular application consistently generates files with this problem and so there's a reasonable expectation of finding other PDFs with the same issue. Until then, for the sake of my sanity, I'll have to wait till more data is available.

from pikepdf.