This isnt going to help you, but I dont seem to have any problems and the chrome pdf viewer works ok here.
On the very odd occasion I may get a message saying parts of the document couldnt be displayed may be missing but would I like to view in Adobe Reader, but even that will still open without me having to download and save the document.
Ive had a look on the chrome help site and can only find this on the internal pdf viewer, which again doesnt solve your particular answer
http://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1060734so Ive had a poke around under the hood in chrome to see perhaps where it could be that stopping yours and Ive found the following settings which may be affecting things and perhaps compare any setting differences.
From the spanner icon top right
>> Settings
>> LH Menu "Under the Hood"
>> Privacy Section
>> Click the Content settings tab
New window opens
>> Scroll down to "Plug-ins" section
I have this setting as "Run automatically"
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Check your chrome plugins - use
about:plugins in the nav bar
Check that Chrome PDF Viewer isnt disabled
I notice in mine I also have the Adobe PDF Plugin for Firefox