network drive docs not restored&crash after standby (b302)

[jpaul]

Hi,
I am using the PDF-Xchange editor version 3.0 (build 302.0) editor on w7 pc
If documents are being accessed across a network drive, and the computer running PDF-Xchange is standby'ed
(a) it fails to re-load the document after resuming from standby and document appears as blank pages
(b) If I open the document again pdf-xhange crashes (I have not attempted to close the blank non-restored document tab
in the meantime, and was hoping this would just re-display the document).

Ironically, I was trying this new pdf exchange expressly because the old reader was very slow/cumbersome at restoring
network documents see
https://forum.pdf-xchange.com/ ... 35&t=12677

I had also downloaded this version thinking it was the latest beta as a result of reading thread
https://forum.pdf-xchange.com/ ... 35&t=16870
and downloading https://www.pdf-xchange.com/PDFXVE3.zip
I think this thread could be updated to reflect that, as I later surmised, the production version which this s/w link now
refers to has been released.

Regards, Paul

[Paul - PDF-XChange]

Hi jPaul,

thanks for the post and details. I have tried to reproduce this here but am not seeing the effect. When I bring my PC back from 'sleep' the network files are all there and responsive. I find this in both he Viewer and Editor.

I will try this with leaving it in sleep mode overnight to see if that makes a difference but I don't know how much help that will be. Does this always happen for you even if you were to simply put the PC to sleep for a few minutes? Are there specific files or network resources that do this when others do not or is it consistent regardless of file and location?

[jpaul]

Hi,
You are correct that putting computer in standby over a short period of time minutes
does not cause the problem, just overnight (so leaving work and returning next day
to un-standby and continue); I have not tried experiments like relinquishing/requesting a
new dhcp IP address to see if this can reproduce issue.

These are ntfs file mounts of pdf documentation from a unix file system but I do not not
know what specific software/protocols are used.
All the pdf documentation I access is on the same remote drive.
Let me know about additional debug information that would help.

In term of debugging issue : the marked difference of behaviour between this version
and Viewer version 2.5.205.0 may correspond to a known code change and s/w
development team can deduce issue.
The old version on resuming PC explicitly said document was no longer accessible and did
I want to re-load it, so there was explicit code/popups to handle this scenario.
(and annoyingly with old version had to one by one accept/OK these popup messages
for each doc before you could continue to use session)

In a business environment I would have thought network mounted documents were common.
From the previous ticket I mentioned, at that time there appeared to be no mechanism where
network documents could be automatically cached locally on opening to give maybe faster and
more resilient access.

Regards, Paul

[Paul - PDF-XChange]

Thanks Paul

I did rest a number of network documents overnight and they all were available the next day after hibernation. I'll ask the dev team if there have been any explicit changes to the code for this since build 205.

Thanks for the input.

[jpaul]

Hi,
Do you have any instructions on how to obtain additional diagnostic
information (eg stack trace) for your R&D, after a pdf-xchange viewer/editor crash ?

Potentially the software itself is writing this to some file or ... maybe
you have symbol tables available so that software can be run under the
windbg environment to get diagnostics ? (ie. https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/H ... ith_WinDbg)

Regards, Paul

[Paul - PDF-XChange]

Hi again jpaul,

certainly network shares are common and we should be able to use them. We are using the Windows API to connect and so far we haven't been able to reproduce the issue here. If there are other users experiencing this I'd be interested in hearing.

Regards the debugging, this is what my development team leader had to say:

I'm not sure we will fix the issue with restoring the documents opened from the network when the network connection has been lost.

Just imagine - you open a document in the Editor/Viewer from the network. Send your computer to standby (or disconnect network cable), now modify the remote document (doesn't matter how) or remove it, and restore the connection.
The editor cannot recognize if there where any changes (I'm not even saying that the Windows API handle which is used by the application is already invalid).
I guess we will notify user that the document has been 'disconnected' and should be reopened. All changes that maybe had been made will be lost.

And for sure we should not be crashing, we will try fix that.

I hope that helps.

[jpaul]

Hi,
Thanks, in the case where there is a crash do you have a thread or faq that describes
what data maybe useful to you (and how to collect it) ?

about R&D's comment : the frustrating issue about the restoration of network docs in viewer after
a resume from standby, is that as the mouse is passed across non-selected document
tabs in pdf Xchange (see example picture) viewer immediately prompts(popup) for re-load of that file
which can take a while - this was described in older post, it would be better if re-load only occurred when
tab was selected.
[from lack of comments it seems I am the only one with restore/crash problems though]

Regards, Paul

[Paul - PDF-XChange]

Hi jpaul,

thanks for understanding our position here. Regards the crash I believe we have everything here we need, I'll let you know if we do need something from you.

Regards the notification, I think it is supposed to still work the way you described. Can you reset your settings to defaults, in particular prompts and see if it does that again?

Edit --Reset all settings to defaults --> [un-check] Keep Prompts List:

regards

[jpaul]

Hi,
After changing to Build 306.1 PDF-Xchange Editor (from older viewer)
network documents are just shown with empty/blank pages after resuming from standby,
Q1. is there any way to force a re-load for individual documents ?
(other than closing and re-opening network documents individually ? or, more dramatically, closing and re-opening the complete session may restore all network documents.
[I have Options -> Initial_display -> 'restore last used ..' enabled ] )

By ' empty/blank ', I mean editor remembers how many pages are in the document and I can
scroll through pages, but they are all blank; the bookmarks and associated text are remembered

Q2. Without quitting the editor can I save the 'last used Pages/Layout/documents'
so that if the editor crashes (I have had a few), I can restore state quickly.

Regards, Paul

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hi jPaul,

When I started reading your post I thought that maybe scrolling through the "blank" documents will force the Editor to re-render the pages, but you seem to have already tried that and it's not.

Does the closing and reopening of the whole Editor help?
(It should be much faster than closing / opening files individually.)

As for storing the session as a precaution for a crash - no it's not currently possible but might be in the future.

Regards,
Stefan

[Vasyl - PDF-XChange]

Hi, Paul.

Q1. is there any way to force a re-load for individual documents ?

In future build we will add special "file-read error" message with "Reopen" and "Close" features which will be displayed automatically when connection to document's source file has been lost.
Also possible other options like "Automatically re-open network documents when connection has been lost and restored"..

Q2. Without quitting the editor can I save the 'last used Pages/Layout/documents'

I'm not sure that this feature can be implemented but we will think about this, thanks..

Best
Regards.

[jpaul]

Stefan,
Hi, per your proposal an explicit re-open/close for network documents after a
lost/restored connection would be good.

On your earlier comment
"
Does the closing and reopening of the whole Editor help?
(It should be much faster than closing / opening files individually.)
"

still using editor 306.1 I have a more basic problem with option "
Restore last used Pages Layout and Zoom settings for pages from the Recent List on
document opening "

even with only local permanent (not /tmp as mentioned in another problem
https://forum.pdf-xchange.com/ ... 35&t=20151 ) pdf documents these do not get restored after quitting and re-starting editor, functionality which had worked fine with previous tracker pdf viewer I was using.

The previous viewer remains installed at C:\Program Files\Tracker Software\PDF Viewer
but I am no longer using it, I wondered if there was some kind of collision with registry locations used
to save the open document list (so should uninstall all and re-install just editor ?)
The restore option documentation above also refers to a 'recent' list; the editor open menu only seems to show a pinned and unpinned recent list (both of which are populated), unlike earlier editor which I think
did not have pinned/unpinned, so maybe I have misunderstood how to add a document to recent list. ?

Regards, Paul

[Paul - PDF-XChange]

Hi jpaul,

items in the recents list are added by opening a file in the Editor, there is no other way to 'add' something to that list, it is literally a history of recently opened documents.

We are on build 307 now. There were a lot of changes between 306.1 and 307 so I'd ask you to update and text your file opening again - still for me here is is finding all my files and opening them very quickly. I'm keen to hear how 307 goes for you.

regards

[jpaul]

Hi,
Thanks I updated to editor 307; however despite selecting both the
page display -> initial display options - restore last used view & page layout
(there was only one option on previous editor version)
Documents are still not restored after I exit and re-start PDF-Xchange Editor.

The viewer had a restore last session option, so I am assuming the newer restore last view & page layout
are the replacements, these newer options could, alternatively tell editor how to display a document when I manually re-open it ? so maybe I have just failed to find the option I need to enable to restore the session.
(the old viewer had the manage recents lists menu as well, that I do not find on the editor)

I am not clear whether the recent files list can be viewed ?
the older viewer s/w had a menu 'Files -> recent files.'
In the newer editor I see just pinned and unpinned files in the 'Files -> Open menu'
I assume recents list that should be restored are the pinned documents.

Indeed I just realised that a similar problem is posted in the editor forum
https://forum.pdf-xchange.com/ ... 62&t=19418
maybe you could transfer this thread to that forum ? (it was initially a viewer problem but I
changed to editor hoping it would have resolved viewer problems)

Regards, Paul

[jpaul]

Hi,
I subsequently saw https://forum.pdf-xchange.com/ ... 62&t=20372

that confirms restore session is not working, in editor 307

so I will just use the pinned/unpinned recent lists to manually re-load the documents
in the meantime.

Cheers, Paul

[John - Tracker Supp]

Thanks Paul - understood and noted.