Upgrade StorageZotero 7 beta | High memory/CPU usage when reading PDF with external display
Platform: Macbook Air M1 8G 2020
*edit* System: macOS Sonoma 14.1
*edit* Z7 versions that have this glitch: from beta.somewhere to beta.55
Issue: I usually connect a 4K external display (3840 * 2610) to my Mac. When I read PDFs (just typical academic papers, especially review articles with >20 pages) with odd spreads and scroll down for several pages, the PDF reviewer would become extremely laggy and my laptop burns like hell. I checked the activity monitor, and it tells that Zotero is taking >70% CPU and >5G memory usage. This is abnormal.
Then I disconnected the external display and try to read them on my Mac's screen. This time everything goes well and no issues at all. I noticed an obvious change: when I read PDFs with external display, the PDF reviewer tends to save those pages I have scrolled over, so when I scroll back, the pages are still there, and no loading was needed. However, when I use my Mac's own display, the PDF reviewer seems to delete those pages that are not currently on screen, and when I scroll back, they would be reloaded. I assume there's some bugs that let Zotero keep saving the unnecessary pages when it's connected to external display, which causes this issue?
I have been using Z7 beta from beta 1. From my experience, this issue has been there for like few months, but it did not happen from the first few beta releases.
*edit* I turned off all the plugins, and I still have the same issue.
*edit* After test, I think the laggy issue comes when I set the PDF reader to full screen (3840 * 2610). If the PDF reader only occupies half of the screen of my external display, it is very smooth. But I still don't know if it's the performance issue of Z7 or my Mac.
*edit* System: macOS Sonoma 14.1
*edit* Z7 versions that have this glitch: from beta.somewhere to beta.55
Issue: I usually connect a 4K external display (3840 * 2610) to my Mac. When I read PDFs (just typical academic papers, especially review articles with >20 pages) with odd spreads and scroll down for several pages, the PDF reviewer would become extremely laggy and my laptop burns like hell. I checked the activity monitor, and it tells that Zotero is taking >70% CPU and >5G memory usage. This is abnormal.
Then I disconnected the external display and try to read them on my Mac's screen. This time everything goes well and no issues at all. I noticed an obvious change: when I read PDFs with external display, the PDF reviewer tends to save those pages I have scrolled over, so when I scroll back, the pages are still there, and no loading was needed. However, when I use my Mac's own display, the PDF reviewer seems to delete those pages that are not currently on screen, and when I scroll back, they would be reloaded. I assume there's some bugs that let Zotero keep saving the unnecessary pages when it's connected to external display, which causes this issue?
I have been using Z7 beta from beta 1. From my experience, this issue has been there for like few months, but it did not happen from the first few beta releases.
*edit* I turned off all the plugins, and I still have the same issue.
*edit* After test, I think the laggy issue comes when I set the PDF reader to full screen (3840 * 2610). If the PDF reader only occupies half of the screen of my external display, it is very smooth. But I still don't know if it's the performance issue of Z7 or my Mac.
Apple MacBook Air M1 2020 16 GB, Mac OS 13.6.4:
* No difference with or without external monitor (2560x1440 27 inch 75 Hz)
* Yes, when scrolling fast through a PDF (or ePub), I can "scare up" Zotero CPU usage to high levels, even 134 %, but then goes back to 4 % or so.
* I get equal readings when opening same PDF in Apples Preview and scroll fast in the same way, CPU temporarily shoots high up, but goes back.
* No lags noticed, I haven't inspected CPU for Zotero until this thread since I have not experienced any problems, but maybe my 16 GB RAM helps. RAM usage for Zotero 1,84 GB (with a few PDFs open), going up to 2,11 GB when scrolling fast through a book.
7.0.0-beta.55+9151fb355
https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/453287/#Comment_453287
I also tested the same doc on apple's preview, PSDF's PDF viewer, and readdle's PDF expert. Very smooth and no issue at all.
I can't stress enough how awesome Zotero is as a reference manager, I have been raving to my colleagues about it. I just wanted to chime in with this tiny issue so hopefully developers can zero in on what's going on.
Zotero 7 should generally be much faster than Zotero 6, including in the reader.
Sure I can send the PDF through, though it's not really isolated to any particular one. I'm running Zotero on M1 Pro and M2 Pro macs running macOS 14.3.
I just feel that there's a very small amount of stutter when scrolling quickly through a PDF, annotations or not. Visually, it looks like "dropped frames" if that would be the correct way to describe it. When directly compared to the built in macOS Preview app it is more noticeable, though I understand this might not be a fair comparison as the programs do different amounts of work. I did notice something similar in Z6 when I double checked, but I have to stress, for me it's a very minor thing.