3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

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prr
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3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by prr »

I have just started using the Editor, and I have verified that it is up to date via the update checker.

I find about 30-50% of the time, that after double clicking on a pdf file, that it will take 3-5 seconds to open. I have never seen this behavior in other pdf viewers before. This occurs even with small, one page files, and files that I have not viewed before, so I wouldn't think that searching for previous settings for that specific document would be the issue here.

Is there some option that I can check to speed up the display?
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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Paul - Tracker Supp »

Hi prr,

is it taking a long time to start the editor and open the file or is the Editor already open when you double click the file in Explorer and then it takes a long time to open?

I am trying to determine if the issue is the Editor starting or opening the file that is slow. If the Editor is already open does that speed up opening the file?
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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by prr »

Paul, I know I have seen this issue when the Editor was already open.

Of course, after reading your reply, I tried doing it both ways (Editor open and closed), and it opened up just fine, either way. Take a car to the mechanic, and the noise goes away.

I will look into this several times today and verify, but like I said, I recall this morning this pause was when it was already open, and had 2-3 other files being displayed already.
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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Paul - Tracker Supp »

he he - that's always the way. Right? Go see a doctor and the symptoms go away?

Delays starting the Editor are more likely something we can tweak - delays opening the files not so such.

Keep us informed as to how that progresses?

Paul
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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by prr »

OK it just happened when PDFXChange was not open at all. It took an extra 5 seconds to open a one page pdf file. It has happened before this, but I forget if the Editor was already open at all, but this time I know it was not already open.
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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Willy Van Nuffel »

Myself, I have the impression that the delay when starting PDF-XChange Editor is only there when it is started the first time after a (re-)start of my computer.

The next time that I launch PDF-XChange Editor, or double click on a PDF in Windows File Explorer, it starts within a second.
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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Giraffe »

I don't know how typical this is, but I've just selected PDFs totalling 15MB and, with Editor 'cold', they were all fully open in 6s.
From 'warm' Editor will open, by double-clicking a PDF, in ~1s
When open, another PDF is open in ~1s also.
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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by prr »

Those numbers aren't outlandish (in the sense of being unacceptably slow), but I did post here b/c these PDFs on my machine have been opening up noticeably slower with the Editor, than with the Viewer, or any other PDF viewer for that matter. 6 seconds for a 15 meg pdf file doesn't sound that bad; its just that at least on my box, its not as fast as its been before.
Giraffe wrote:I don't know how typical this is, but I've just selected PDFs totalling 15MB and, with Editor 'cold', they were all fully open in 6s.
From 'warm' Editor will open, by double-clicking a PDF, in ~1s
When open, another PDF is open in ~1s also.
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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Giraffe »

prr wrote:Those numbers aren't outlandish (in the sense of being unacceptably slow), but I did post here b/c these PDFs on my machine have been opening up noticeably slower with the Editor, than with the Viewer, or any other PDF viewer for that matter. 6 seconds for a 15 meg pdf file doesn't sound that bad; its just that at least on my box, its not as fast as its been before.
Giraffe wrote:I don't know how typical this is, but I've just selected PDFs totalling 15MB and, with Editor 'cold', they were all fully open in 6s.
From 'warm' Editor will open, by double-clicking a PDF, in ~1s
When open, another PDF is open in ~1s also.
6s for a 15MB file isn't too bad perhaps but, as I said, there were several other PDFs with it at the same time - 7 in all - totalling 15.75MB.
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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by prr »

Just experienced this with the Editor open, and a file already opened up within the editor. If there are any tweaks at all, I'd love to give one a try. Even if I could just cut down on the number of times this happened, that would be fine.
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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Will - Tracker Supp »

Hi guys,

This is, unfortunately, incredibly difficult for us to troubleshoot because of the sheer number of potential variables that could be at play. Can you please take a look at this KB article and try the steps outlined within, then advise on the results:
https://www.pdf-xchange.com/knowle ... ery-slowly

Thanks,
If posting files to this forum, you must archive the files to a ZIP, RAR or 7z file or they will not be uploaded.
Thank you.

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Bhikkhu Pesala
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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

For me, PDF-XChange Editor takes about 7 seconds to open a 13 page 1.4 Mbyte PDF file from a cold start, and about 1 second from a warm start. File size makes no noticeable difference. A file of 159 Mbytes opens just as fast as one of 1.4 Mbytes.

By way of comparison, PDF-XChanger Viewer took only 3 seconds for a cold start.

I know everyone is always too busy at work, but 5-10 seconds does not seem like too long. I often wait 5-10 minutes for a bus. If I don't want to wait, then I start walking.
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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Will - Tracker Supp »

Hi Bhikkhu,

I love that philosophy and wish that more of us could/would be like that! But I can definitely understand the frustration that persistently long load times can induce.

Cheers,
If posting files to this forum, you must archive the files to a ZIP, RAR or 7z file or they will not be uploaded.
Thank you.

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prr
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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by prr »

I did the troubleshooting linked to, which was to open up Windows task manager and shut down the program from there by ending the task. I've tried that 2 times, but by the time I was able to find the task, it had opened up the file, so there seemed like there was no need to do this.

Honestly this pause isn't enough to make me want to change a program, or even get a drink. :lol: Its just that if there is a noticeable difference in times between the two programs, I want to troubleshoot what causes it, if I can. It seems like I'm not the only one, so if this is simply the price for using the Editor, I'm more than willing to pay it--if I have no other choice.

At this point it looks like this is simply what happens when people use the Editor, so I can live with this.
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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

It's definitely worth diagnosing problems because if you do some task 100 times a day, the seconds add up. A delay of 15 seconds or longer to launch a program is significant.

I have done extensive comparative testing on searching PDF files for text, and for loading multiple documents.

I can load 50 PDF files in 3-4 seconds using PDF-XChange Editor, whereas Adobe Reader DC takes about a minute for the same file set. The viewer takes about 10-12 seconds.
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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Will - Tracker Supp »

Hi guys,

I agree with Bhikkhu on this and understand that this is a frustration for a number of users. There is likely no single cause, but is a combination of several factors. The opening speed is something that we're attempting to gradually improve as things are found, but this will likely take some time.

Thanks,
If posting files to this forum, you must archive the files to a ZIP, RAR or 7z file or they will not be uploaded.
Thank you.

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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Zunar »

Hello,

I also have the problems. Windows 10 1607 64bit.

Editor 6.0.321: opening a PDF takes 5-6 seconds.
Viewer 2.5 (321.0): opening takes 1 second.
Size of PDFs 10-20 KB.

The long start is only when the editor has been closed before.
The program core should remain in memory when exiting.

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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello Zunar,

Have you tried to clear up the files kept in the recent list (Edit -> Preferences -> Manage History & Recents...) and see if that helps with load times?

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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Zunar »

Hi!

There were 836 entries. Erasing did not help.

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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Will - Tracker Supp »

Hi Zunar,

Thanks for the info. - Usually the history hels quite a bit, so I suspect it's either UI customization, or one (or more) of the plugins. Please take a look at the KB article posted earlier in the thread:
This is, unfortunately, incredibly difficult for us to troubleshoot because of the sheer number of potential variables that could be at play. Can you please take a look at this KB article and try the steps outlined within, then advise on the results:
https://www.pdf-xchange.com/knowle ... ery-slowly
Try the tests outlined there and see if you're able to identify a particular cause.

Thanks,
If posting files to this forum, you must archive the files to a ZIP, RAR or 7z file or they will not be uploaded.
Thank you.

Best regards

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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Zunar »

404 - PAGE NOT FOUND
Please send the complete link again


I have now removed all XChange PDF readers and deleted existing reg entries manually. XChange Editor reinstalled. Did not help. I also disabled all extensions.

I still have two VM test environments. The editor loads very quickly.

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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello Zunar,

Apparently the link didn't copy correcty in the quote.
The full one was available a bit higher up the page:
https://www.pdf-xchange.com/knowledgebase/446

Did I understand correctly that after a reinstall the Editor is still slow on your main machine, but very fast on two virtual ones?

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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Zunar »

Hi!

The instructions in the link did not help.
Did I understand correctly that after a reinstall the Editor is still slow on your main machine, but very fast on two virtual ones?
Yes!

Uninstalling the ESET NOD32 and disabling the MS Defender did not help.

I'm a bit irritated. If I log on the PC via Remotedesktop, then starts the editor immediately.
Is the editor dependent on a specific Windows service?

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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello Zunar,

Do you have any network drives linked/attached to your machine?
Can you try to disable the SharePoint plug in (Edit -> Preferences... -> Plug ins) - and see if that helps with the initial load time?

Cheers,
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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Zunar »

Hi Stefan!

I have already disabled -all- plugins.

Other PDF viewers run without problems.
Can I give you more information? What do you need?

When I start the program I can see in the task manager that the memory consumption goes up to 2.2 GB. After that, it is only 45 MB

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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello Zunar,

I was just going through the possible things that I've seen in the past to cause problems. I am afraid that at this time I am out of ideas, so I've passed this along to our dev team and asked them to take a look as well. Hopefully they will have some other suggestions how to resolve this! We will post again here as soon as we have any news!

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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello Zunar,

We've been discussing this with a colleague and given that your files are very small - we suspect that they do not have any fonts embedded in them.
When you start the Editor for the first time with such a file - it will force enumerate all fonts available in windows, and it seems like this enumeration is slow on your machine for some reason. (Normally the OS will cache font data and subsequent enumerations are much faster that the initial one).
A workaround we can offer is to not close the whole Editor, but just the files inside it.

As a side question do you have an unusually large number of fonts installed on your machine?

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Stefan
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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Zunar »

Hello Stefan,

Whether I open a PDF by double-clicking, or just the main program, makes no difference.

Workaround works first (Ctrl-W). But is not a real solution.

I have 1113 fonts installed.
In my VM it was only 197. This I have now expanded to 1685 pieces. Here it does not disturb the editor. He continues to start immediately.

Strange is, the editor by Remotedesktop connection also immediately starts.

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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Willy Van Nuffel »

Something to try, to check if it has anything to do with Tracker-files around the core program, is isolate the following three files in an empty folder and then start the Editor by double-click from there:
- PDFXEdit.exe
- PDFXEditCore.x86.dll
- Resources.dat
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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Zunar »

Hello Willy, Hello Stefan,
Willy's tip was unfortunately also no help.

But I've found something different. With ProcessMonitor I was able to filter out what the editor does at startup.

Each program startup of the editor creates an entry in the "ti_Shell.log" file of Acronis True Image. So whenever I open a PDF, or just the core program. This log is now 229 MB in size. I have completely stopped TrueImage, renamed Log and started the editor. The log file has been recreated.

XChange Editor now starts again immediately!
I suspect a bug in TrueImage 2017 Build 8029

greetings

PS: Why are the pictures displayed so large here?
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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hello Zunar,

Glad to hear that you figured out what was causing the problems and resolved them!

As for the images - I have just turned on an option that will only display images up to 800 x 600px when added in attachments - and all others will be displayed as links - so yours are now links only.

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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Zunar »

Hello Stefan,

Thanks for the pictures in the Attachment!
Thumbs/Preview pictures would be cool ;-)

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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hi Zunar,

Tried to set that one too - but it didn't seem to work for your existing files :( Maybe it will only work for future uploads.

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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Zunar »

Hi Stefan,

no problem :-)
Thank you very much!

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Re: 3-5 Second delay in opening a new document

Post by Tracker Supp-Stefan »

Hi Zunar,

Thanks for checking the thumbnails functionality as well - seems to work well and 400px is big enough so that the main idea of an image can be seen, and small enough to not make the forum formatting to break! :)

Cheers,
Stefan
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