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
    2024-07-24T13:24:44+00:00

    I find it kind of interesting that it seems noone is complaining about the circumstance that, in case that a user clicks on on a PDF found in search results or provided in the Quick Links Webpart, and after having the PDF open clicking on the X to close it, the user finds himself in the document library where the PDF is physically stored. Pretty confusing for the users.

    I mean, think of you have the Quick Links Webpart on a content page in your intranet, providing a link to a PDF stored on a totally different site collection...what may a user think when he finished reading the document and close it. I guess something like "huh where the hell am I now and whats all about those documents I am seeing"

    Is it just us or are you guys already aware of this wierd behavior?

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-06-21T03:53:51+00:00

    Not specifically related to performance, but saw a lot of replies mentioned other issues, so thought I'd add the below.

    We are getting some very inconsistent behavior depending on where we open the files from.

    • If we are within the library and open a PDF, it opens in the new file viewer.
    • If we add a Quick Links webpart in our SharePoint page and add a link to the PDF, it redirects you initially to the library, then opens in the old file viewer.
    • If we add a Library webpart in our SharePoint page and click on the PDF from within there, it redirects you initially to the library, then opens in the old file viewer.

    Also, not sure if related (seems like it is based on timing), but we are getting a lot of users across the business over the last month saying that when they used to click on links to documents from Quick Links or a Library webpart on the SharePoint page, etc. it would take you back to the page when you closed the PDF. Now, it redirects you do the source library the PDF is located. This is a major issue for us. We have links on pages to documents that live on different sites, and we absolutely don't want our users being redirected to those libraries after closing the PDF.

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-05-22T19:29:14+00:00

    Hi Nick,

    I am the product manager for the file viewer, thank you for your feedback.

    We’ve identified and resolved an issue with the search and filter functionality that was affecting the file viewer. The solution has been deployed, and we would like to ensure that it has resolved the issue on your end. Please let us know if you are still experiencing any problems.

    Best,

    Emanuele

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-05-15T10:22:48+00:00

    This started on one client PC a couple of weeks back and I have been trying to pin down the cause. It is now happening on more users and on different Microsoft Orgs.

    Clicking on the 3 dots top left of new black display and hitting "info" does display the metadata as the i button used to and you can cycle through using the left right arrows in the display body (this didn't work initially but is now thank god).

    If you filter and then open previews do not hit the X to close the preview as you will lose the filters, hit the browser back button instead and the filter list will still be there.

    I did try a support call with Microsoft but we can not work out what element is changing. Is a Windows issue, SharePoint, MIcrosoft Edge, Microsoft 365? Can anyone help in this regard and I will open another support call in the correct area.

    It certainly sync's across with users profiles so reinstalling windows doesn't help.

    I have upvoted your feedback and will ask clients to do so.

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  5. Anonymous
    2024-05-03T14:34:16+00:00

    Please upvote this post. Please ask all the users in your company to upvote as well. I spoke to Microsoft about this and they claim it's not a bug and will not fix the issue without an upvoted post.

    https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/4385eef6-bc01-ef11-a73d-6045bd841c15

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