Multiple tabs in Firefox with plugin

[bugmenot]

I installed the free version PDF-XChange Viewer today, and I had a question about the Firefox plugin. I am using Version 2.0, Build 0036 of the Viewer with Firefox Version 2.0.0.14. I am running Windows XP, SP 2. Whenever I open multiple PDF files in Firefox in different tabs, I get a new instance of PDF-Xchange viewer. So, if I have opened 5 PDFs in different tabs in Firefox, I will have 5 instances of PDFXCview.exe in the Task Manager. Is this the expected behavior?

I often have 10+ pdfs open in various tabs in Firefox, which would often cause the Adobe plugin to freeze. Which is why I wanted to try a different PDF viewer. However having 10+ instances of XChange Viewer running at once is certainly not an improvement... Actually, I can't even get Firefox to startup with all the PDFs visible and XChange viewer as the PDF plugin. It freezes when trying to open that my instances of XChange Viewer.

Thanks for any help on this.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

It seems to be stable here using Opera 9.27 and the plugin with fifteen documents and a few other tabs open. Task Manager also shows fifteen instances of PDF-XChange, each instance uses about 30 Mbytes of memory. I have 1 Gbyte or RAM and an AMD64 3500 Mhz CPU.

My advice is to use the plugin for single documents and to launch PDF-XChange from the icon at bottom right if you need to open more than two or three PDF files at once.

Edit: I scrolled around in a long document to see if I could make Opera crash. Interestingly, although memory usage for that instance of PDF-XChange increased (as expected) to over 200 Mbytes, memory usage for the other instances dropped to around 1 Mbyte — the same as happens when PDF-XChange is minimized.

Using task manager to end that instance using all the memory didn't cause any freeze or crash. The tab became blanked out, but Opera and the other tabs with PDFs open continued to run OK.

I think the plugin works very well.

[bugmenot]

Well, my current Firefox session has 19 PDFs open in tabs over two windows. The current plugin won't even let Firefox start correctly with trying to fire up that many instances at once. Windows doesn't like it. I've got 3 GBs of memory, so it's not purely a memory issue.

The Adobe plugin does allow me to start up Firefox, but it can be flakey opening further PDFs, which is why I went searching for an alternative. I like PDF Xchange standalone viewer, but the plugin behavior seems incorrect to me. At least, I don't see other plugins behaving that way, which is why I was curious if this was intended or not.

[bugmenot]

I just wanted to post a quick follow up on this. I downloaded the 2.0.0037 release this morning and tried again. This time I was able to get Firefox to start, however there were 21 instances of PDF-XChange Viewer running (one for each tab, as before). Most of them were using around 15 MBs of memory, a few were using some more, presumably on larger documents. The total memory used by all of those instances was over 400 MBs.

Opening up the exact same tabs using the Adobe Acrobat plugin, shows Acrobat using only 45 MBs of memory, which seems much more reasonable...

[bugmenot]

I'm going to try one more bump. It is still doing this using Firefox 3 RC1 and the latest 2.0037 version of the XChange Viewer. I'm still curious if this is the intended behavior or if it is going to be changed in the future. Thanks.

[Ivan - Tracker Software]

For now it is by design -- one instance for each tab.
By the way, we are working on changing of this, but for now I cannot promise it will be done into build 38. hopefully into build 39.

[bugmenot]

Thanks for the reply! I'll keep an eye out for the future updates then, because in every other way, I much prefer Xchange Viewer to Acrobat Reader. Thanks again!

[bugmenot]

I just downloaded build 39, RC 2, and this does not seem to have changed. Was this pushed off to a later release? Thanks.

[Ivan - Tracker Software]

This behaviour when each tab requires separate instance of the viewer will be changed into build 40 or 41 of the viewer.