pdf_rewrite_images() segfaults with shared image xrefs across many pages (buffer overflow)

Description of the bug

Calling doc.rewrite_images() on a PDF where the same image xref is referenced from many pages causes a segmentation fault due to a buffer overflow in MuPDF's underlying C function pdf_rewrite_images.

The PDF attached has ~99 total image references across 39 pages, with a single image xref being reused (shared) on multiple pages. This appears to overflow an internal MuPDF buffer. The crash is deterministic and reproducible.

How to reproduce the bug

import pymupdf
# Open any PDF where the same image xref is shared across many pages
# (e.g., a logo or watermark repeated on every page)
# The test PDF has ~99 image references across 39 pages.
doc = pymupdf.open("shared_image_xref.pdf")
# This segfaults:
doc.rewrite_images(dpi_threshold=150, dpi_target=100, quality=50)

Expected behavior: Images are rewritten/compressed without crashing.
Actual behavior: Segmentation fault (SIGSEGV) / memory corruption.

Workaround
Currently I bypass doc.rewrite_images() entirely and implement image rewriting per-xref using lower-level PyMuPDF APIs. But this is probably not ideal

import sys
import math
import pymupdf

def safe_rewrite_images(doc, dpi_target=None, dpi_threshold=None, quality=None, set_to_gray=False):
    """Workaround for segfault in doc.rewrite_images() with shared image xrefs."""
    if not (dpi_target or quality is not None or set_to_gray):
        return

    # Collect unique image xrefs and their smask info
    xref_info = {}
    for page in doc:
        for img in page.get_images(full=True):
            xref, smask = img[0], img[1]
            if xref > 0:
                xref_info.setdefault(xref, {"smask": smask, "min_dpi": float("inf")})

    # Calculate effective DPI for each xref across all page usages
    for page in doc:
        for info in page.get_image_info(hashes=False, xrefs=True):
            xref = info.get("xref", 0)
            if xref not in xref_info:
                continue
            bbox = info.get("bbox")
            w, h = info.get("width", 0), info.get("height", 0)
            if bbox and w > 0 and h > 0:
                disp_w = abs(bbox[2] - bbox[0])
                disp_h = abs(bbox[3] - bbox[1])
                if disp_w > 0 and disp_h > 0:
                    dpi = min(w / disp_w * 72, h / disp_h * 72)
                    if dpi < xref_info[xref]["min_dpi"]:
                        xref_info[xref]["min_dpi"] = dpi

    effective_threshold = max(dpi_threshold or 0, (dpi_target or 0) + 10) if dpi_target else None

    # Rewrite each image xref individually
    for xref, meta in xref_info.items():
        min_dpi = meta["min_dpi"]
        smask_xref = meta["smask"]

        needs_downscale = bool(
            dpi_target and effective_threshold
            and min_dpi != float("inf")
            and min_dpi > effective_threshold
        )
        if not needs_downscale and quality is None and not set_to_gray:
            continue

        try:
            pix = pymupdf.Pixmap(doc, xref)

            if set_to_gray and pix.colorspace and pix.colorspace.n > 1:
                pix = pymupdf.Pixmap(pymupdf.csGRAY, pix)
            elif pix.alpha:
                pix = pymupdf.Pixmap(pix.colorspace or pymupdf.csRGB, pix)

            if needs_downscale:
                ratio = min_dpi / dpi_target
                shrink_n = max(0, min(7, int(math.log2(ratio))))
                if shrink_n > 0:
                    pix.shrink(shrink_n)

            q = quality if quality is not None else 85
            jpeg_bytes = pix.tobytes("jpeg", jpg_quality=q)

            cs_name = "/DeviceGray" if pix.colorspace and pix.colorspace.n == 1 else "/DeviceRGB"
            smask_entry = f"/SMask {smask_xref} 0 R " if smask_xref else ""
            new_obj = (
                f"<</Type /XObject /Subtype /Image /BitsPerComponent 8"
                f" /ColorSpace {cs_name} /Filter /DCTDecode"
                f" /Height {pix.height} /Width {pix.width}"
                f" {smask_entry}>>"
            )
            doc.update_object(xref, new_obj)
            doc.update_stream(xref, jpeg_bytes, compress=0)
            pix = None

        except Exception as e:
            sys.stderr.write(f"[pymupdf] safe_rewrite_images xref {xref}: {e}\n")

PDF used:

PyMuPDF version

1.27.1

Operating system

MacOS

Python version

3.14

Please provide the problem PDF.

Since the PDF is 32MB and can't be attached, I have provided the direct google link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OkIq3XJuKiFfKDWBIcAk8_fLLjpNkuHQ/view?usp=sharing

Thank you

@JorjMcKie

@JorjMcKie I have attached the link above. Thank you

Confirming the crash. Will pass to the MuPDF team.

Thank you for your prompt response

MuPDF issue reference https://bugs.ghostscript.com/show_bug.cgi?id=709168

For some reason, dealing with / converting lossless images (like PNG) causes the problem. Changing the call like this will work and shrink the file by almost 25%:

import pymupdf

doc = pymupdf.open("test.pdf")
doc.rewrite_images(dpi_threshold=150, dpi_target=100, quality=50, lossless=False)
doc.ez_save("test-out.pdf")

Thanks for the suggestion. lossless=False does work and avoids the crash.

I also tried building a per xref workaround to handle lossless images too (downscale + Flate re-encode instead of JPEG) since I am basically building a compress feature. I am not 100% sure this approach is correct, but here's what I found:

We extract each image as a Pixmap, optionally downscale it, then write it back using update_object() + update_stream(). For lossless images we compress the raw samples with zlib.compress() and set /Filter /FlateDecode on the object.

However, I ran into an issue: update_stream() appears to strip the /Filter key from the object dictionary that was previously set by update_object(). For example:

doc.update_object(xref, "<< /Type /XObject /Subtype /Image /Filter /FlateDecode ... >>")
doc.update_stream(xref, compressed_data, compress=0)
# After this, /Filter is no longer in the object dict

This caused corrupted images as the stream was Flate-compressed but the PDF had no filter, so readers tried to use the raw zlib bytes as pixel data.

I worked around it by setting the filter after update_stream() using xref_set_key():

doc.update_stream(xref, compressed_data, compress=0)
doc.xref_set_key(xref, "Filter", "/FlateDecode")

This is just a workaround and might not be the right way to do it, but with this approach we were able to bring the PDF size down by ~76%

No, you cannot do this by directly modifying the /Image objects. That's at least risky.
What should work however is using page.replace_image().
You first extract the image by xref. Then convert it to the desired format, e.g. JPG (but don't forget to adequately handle image masks like they may occur with PNGs).
This is more or less analogous to what the base library function rewrite_images() does.
When done with this, you can still finally execute the document.rewrite_images() on top.

Here is my recommendation. Handles PNGs separately. Result size is almost 80% smaller.

import pymupdf

doc = pymupdf.open("test.pdf")
handled = set()  #already handled PNG xrefs
for page in doc:
    imgs = page.get_images()
    for img in imgs:  # handle PNG images separately
        xref = img[0]
        if xref in handled:  # already done this one, skip
            continue
        handled.add(xref)
        maskxref = img[1]
        filter = img[-1]
        if not "FlateDecode" in filter:
            continue  # skip if not a PNG
        base = pymupdf.Pixmap(doc, xref)
        if base.alpha:  # make sure base has no alpha
            base = pymupdf.Pixmap(base, 0)
        if maskxref:  # transparent PNGs have a separate xref
            mask = pymupdf.Pixmap(doc, maskxref)
            base = pymupdf.Pixmap(base, mask)  # original image with mask
        base.shrink(1)  # shrink to 25% of original size
        page.replace_image(xref, pixmap=base)
        print(f"Replaced image xref {xref} on page {page.number}")
doc.rewrite_images(
    dpi_threshold=100,
    dpi_target=72,
    quality=50,
    lossless=False,
)

doc.ez_save("test-out.pdf")

Really appreciate the help and the detailed code example!

We'll integrate our DPI based shrink calculation into this instead of the hardcoded shrink(1), so we can compute the appropriate factor based on each image's actual display DPI vs target DPI.

The upstream mupdf bug is marked as fixed. And there is no segv from pymupdf built with mupdf branch master.

So this will be fixed in a future release. [Possibly even in the next release, depending on what mupdf branch/tag it is built with.]

Fixed in release 1.28.0.

changes.txt: retrospectively marked #4918 fixed in release 1.28.0.

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pdf_rewrite_images() segfaults with shared image xrefs across many pages (buffer overflow) #4918

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pdf_rewrite_images() segfaults with shared image xrefs across many pages (buffer overflow) #4918

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JorjMcKie commented on Feb 26, 2026

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