SharePoint Online PDF Viewer changed and performs very slowly now

Anonymous
2024-04-11T19:26:20+00:00

Hello,

Our users noticed a change when viewing PDFs in their SharePoint Online document library. Occurred Monday 4/8/24.

They have it set up where when you click on the document from the library, it brings it up with the SharePoint Online PDF Viewer, it does not open in a new tab, and that's the way we prefer. With the viewer, you can click on the info button to bring up the info pane on the right, and you can edit your metadata from there.

They noticed several things.

-The background is now black, like in a dark mode, thats what initially tipped them off that something has changed.

-The info button is no longer available, it is now buried in the ... menu on the top left.

-It is now EXTERMELY slow to load. When they click on the next arrow to view the next PDF, it is very slow to load and also the info pane is very slow to load.

-When they filter or sort the library, and then start viewing the PDFs, it does not bring them up in the same order as the filter/sort. It's completely different.

I as the IT admin, have tried many things to improve performance, here's some notes.

-Not everyone has this new viewer experience. The older experience has a white background, and also the info button. See screenshots to see the difference.

-I am able to reproduce the slowness on other test pcs, though there are a few that seem to load fine.

-I have cleared browser cache, cookies

-Tried with different user accounts

-Tried with private browsers, and tried with Edge Firefox, and Chrome.

-Tried using a hotspot to be on a different network

I have opened up a ticket to Microsoft, but no response yet. I have also not seen any announcement of this change.

Has anyone else noticed this? Any workarounds or suggestions? Any way to roll back to the old viewer? (wishful thinking). I'm wondering if laptop specs are factoring in, which would surprise me because it's basically just web browsing here.

Thanks!
nick

Microsoft 365 and Office | SharePoint | For business | Other

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-05-23T01:56:01+00:00

    Hi Hagan,

    I am the product manager for the file viewer. I apologize for the trouble caused. We moved the previous/next arrow from the top of the page to the side of the document to make it more intuitive for users that were not familiar with the file viewer. But the functionality has not changed.

    We deployed a solution for the search and filter functionality, let us know if you are still experiencing an issue.

    Best,

    Emanuele

    Hi Emanuele,

    Thank you for your updates, we can see the arrows at the side of the documents but they no longer show you how many documents are available to scroll through, it used to say for example 2 / 9 so you knew where you were in a list - can that information be reinstated to be visible in the view again?

    Also the info button that opens the properties side panel window, that is now buried in a menu in the top bar of the preview screen - is it possible to also reinstate the info button to be visible on the top menu bar instead of inside that menu please?

    Thank you.

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-05-23T08:24:35+00:00

    Hello Emanuele,

    Thank you for your feedback. We are currently experiencing issues with accessing the form customized with PowerApps; the "Edit All" button is not functioning. Additionally, the "QuickEdit" feature is disabled in our SharePoint list, and the fields are editable in the new File Viewer.

    At present, we are facing significant problems as we rely on these for central processes. We urgently need a solution.

    Thank you very much.

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-05-23T11:35:55+00:00

    @Emanuele, as mentioned before, the arrows are no longer displayed in my organization's site when I was able to see them before. Plus, I would also again like to see the number of docs left.

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-05-23T16:32:00+00:00

    Hi Hagan,

    We are looking at other ways to pass the information about the number of files in the folder. We removed because often users not familiar with the file viewer could not understand what those numbers were.

    We received enough feedback about the info button, we are considering re-surfacing it in the main toolbar.

    Best,

    Emanuele

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  5. Anonymous
    2024-05-23T16:44:22+00:00

    Hi Emanuele,

    I have confirmed with my team that the sort issues look to be resolved. And the speed issue is improving, but still not as fast as the original experience.

    But there is another related issue that they encounter daily. They are times where the viewer will randomly switch to a different PDF. They are not entering in metadata, or toggling between files, or clicking anywhere. They simply have the file up on their screen as a reference, and then when they look over, it will be displaying a different PDF. When this happens, it always seems to go back to the same file.

    Has anyone else seem this behavior before? This started happening after they got switched over to the new dark mode experience.

    Thanks!
    nick

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