Attach (recommended) or Link to PDF file here: I cannot provide the PDF file due to NDA.

Configuration:

• Web browser and its version: all browsers, all versions
• Operating system and its version: all operating systems
• PDF.js version: 4.0.379 and newer, the bug was introduced in PR Attempt to further reduce re-parsing for globally cached images (PR 11912, 16108 follow-up) #17428.

If the PDF file contains an image which cannot be decoded, rendering fails trying to dereference a
null object.

Unfortunately, I cannot attach the PDF file due to NDA but I did some debugging and here are my
findings:

When PartialEvaluator#buildPaintImageXObject() fails to decode an image it sends null as
imgData to the main thread this._sendImgData(objId, /* imgData = */ null, cacheGlobally);.

The WorkerTransport object receives null in the imageData parameter in the "obj" handler and
calls this.objs.resolve(id, imageData); where imageData == null in the case "Image"
branch.

The PDFObjects#resolve() method replaces INITIAL_DATA in obj.data with null.

The PDFObjects#*[Symbol.iterator]() method filters out only data === INITIAL_DATA but not data == null.

The case "CopyLocalImage" branch in the "commonobj" handler iterates over pageProxy.objs:

for (const [, data] of pageProxy.objs) {
  if (data.ref !== imageRef) {               // `data` can be `null` here.
    continue;
  }
  ...
}

and because data can be null the code crashes trying to access the ref property with an error
message in the console:

Warning: getOperatorList - ignoring XObject: "UnknownErrorException: Cannot read properties of null (reading 'ref')".

A simple fix data.ref !== imageRef -> data?.ref !== imageRef makes the PDF renderable again but
probably it just fixes the symptom, not the cause of the issue.