Upgrade StorageZotero search is slow and unusable inside of PDF documents
Hello,
Problem 1:
The search function inside a PDF file is not working and it consumes a lot of RAM (3-4 GB) and a considerable amount of CPU (15-20%)
Description of user interface: When I open a PDF (whether it's a small or big one in term of pages and/or size) and search for a key word the search takes forever (the word count increase in small increments with a big interval of time between them, and even when I press enter I can not view the few search results) and at the same time all of the PDF's page turn to a loading icon when I press enter, the problem persist even when I scroll the document or exit search
Things I tried that didn't work:
- Restarting in troubleshooting mode
- Disabling Hardware acceleration
PS: When I try opening a PDF (I tried the same documents and different ones) in Zotero 6 and use the search function I do not encounter the same issues (the search is smooth is instantaneous all of the pages load fast)
I use Zotero 7, not plugins installed
PC configuration (Windows 11 64 bit): RAM 16 GB, CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS
Debug ID: D1673963239
Problem 2:
Pages load slow when I open a PDF (whether it's a small or big one in term of pages and/or size) and try use the scroll bar to jump pages or scrolling fast using the mouse and the same thing happens with when I enter a specific page number (It's slow by a few seconds but not as slow as the search function which it takes forever)
PS: scrolling in Zotero 6 is much smoother
Debug ID: D505850834
Problem 1:
The search function inside a PDF file is not working and it consumes a lot of RAM (3-4 GB) and a considerable amount of CPU (15-20%)
Description of user interface: When I open a PDF (whether it's a small or big one in term of pages and/or size) and search for a key word the search takes forever (the word count increase in small increments with a big interval of time between them, and even when I press enter I can not view the few search results) and at the same time all of the PDF's page turn to a loading icon when I press enter, the problem persist even when I scroll the document or exit search
Things I tried that didn't work:
- Restarting in troubleshooting mode
- Disabling Hardware acceleration
PS: When I try opening a PDF (I tried the same documents and different ones) in Zotero 6 and use the search function I do not encounter the same issues (the search is smooth is instantaneous all of the pages load fast)
I use Zotero 7, not plugins installed
PC configuration (Windows 11 64 bit): RAM 16 GB, CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS
Debug ID: D1673963239
Problem 2:
Pages load slow when I open a PDF (whether it's a small or big one in term of pages and/or size) and try use the scroll bar to jump pages or scrolling fast using the mouse and the same thing happens with when I enter a specific page number (It's slow by a few seconds but not as slow as the search function which it takes forever)
PS: scrolling in Zotero 6 is much smoother
Debug ID: D505850834
Does this happen with all PDF files?
Could you send an example PDF file to support@zotero.org with a link to this thread?
Also could you provide a Debug ID for it happening?
after investigating further - and waiting for ~3 minutes - I can verify the pages do indeed load slowly and the search does have performance issues but this is easily explained by the large size of the document and the absence of a search index.
After due consideration I believe this is only an optimization issue, not a bug per se.
There is no error log in the console and the page as well as the search highlight does load after a while.
Maybe adding a more prolific / eager search index as a plugin for certain PDFs could be a sane way to go about this. Unsure weather this is a feature every Zotero user would need.
Thank you!
Search in PDFs takes quite some time. Nevertheless I didn't experience any crashes so far.
I searched for the word 'first'.
Zot7 average on 3 runs, no plugins: 40sec
Zot6: 24sec
Firefox: 7sec
Chrome: 7sec
Edge: 35sec (wow, this surprised me. maybe it's all the browser plugins??)
I'm on Win11. Zot7 also takes much more memory compared to Zot6.
Another issue I've had on Zot7 is very very rarely some files will never find ANYTHING with search in PDF. Debug shows nothing either. When I open Zot6 and open the file, search finds without issues and afterwards the file also works in Zot7. I've only had this happen twice and could not reproduce however.
I am using Zotero 7.0.8 (64-bit).
Search for one word in a 600-page 3.5MB pdf took:
35s in Zotero
6s in Evince (GNOME Document Viewer)
Also, page rendering sometimes lags in Zotero.
Specs:
Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS
i5-5300U
8GB ram