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
    2024-05-20T22:13:34+00:00

    This happens to use too. The reason is, the viewer is no longer caching the list view data in the browser as it was before. Functionally, this is like having the list page/view refreshed. However you have your view configured is removed and it returns to its original state. This will also occur unexpectedly when the list does its ajax refresh to get the newest data. I think that is where they are getting the "50%" faster from but this is insane compromise.

    Its like saying we did a weight reduction on a sports car by removing the wheels.....

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-05-20T18:47:37+00:00

    This issue just started happening today at my organization. I especially need the navigation arrows back, so I can easily move to the next doc. Is there a way to vote for the entire change, not just the filtering?

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-05-15T17:22:51+00:00

    SharePoint PDF document viewer just updated for me and what is most noticeable to me is that keyboard shortcuts no longer work, e.g., "i" to open the info pane, "s" to share a file, ctrl+p doesn't open the pdf in a new tab but opens a print dialog with the info pane in view and all sorts of formatting and size issues, and using L/R arrows no longer navigate between documents in the list view.

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-05-15T15:13:29+00:00

    Hey all, just an update.

    I opened up a support ticket on the same day as I reported the issue here, and there has not been much progress. We did a screen share and they gathered logs. I showed them examples of machines running slow on the new experience, and also of machines running fast on the new experience. Since then, our ticket has been escalated, but every update since then has been that they are still investigating.

    We're a small company so I suggest for others to submit their own ticket to support so we can keep pushing MS for some answers. I'll keep you all updated if I hear anything. Thanks!

    Nick

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  5. Anonymous
    2024-05-15T12:54:25+00:00

    Same for my organization too, more and more users are reporting to me that this is changing. first the speed issue is terrible, but the worst is that the view they are in, which has all their pdfs that they have to work on, keeps reverting back to a default view when opening each pdf. meaning that they have to close go back to their working view, and open the next pdf in line.

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