pdfSaver does not recognize existing "groups"

[bqxmprij]

pdfSaver was the reason I purchased the pro version, but it is not living up to its billing. I thought it would be the equivalent of queuing print jobs available with pdfcreator. See http://www.pdfforge.org/pdfcreator. However, pdfSaver has an issue of not recognizing existing "groups" when print jobs are sent very quickly.

I use Firefox with the Universal Print extension (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefo ... sal-print/), which allows you to print all tabs sequentially with a single click. The extension rapidly sends print jobs for each tab that is open. I routinely save a single pdf of 30+ tabs. The time saving using the Universal Print extension in comparison to manually printing individual tabs is substantial. I never had a problem with pdfcreator.

When using pdfSaver, the first print job has zero available jobs (which is correct because there are none), so I select "create new group." In that step the software works as expected and I created "1st Available Group." But, when the print job for the second tab comes up in pdfSaver, there is no "available jobs group" to select. In other words, the group created by the print job from the first tab (i.e., 1st Available Group) is not recognized/present. It is simply not available to select. So, I selected "create new group" and created "2nd Available Group." When the third tab is sent to the pdfSaver, the first group (i.e., 1st Available Group) and now the second group (i.e., 2nd Available Group) are both available. It seems that the print jobs are being sent too fast for the software to recognize the existence the first group created.

The behavior then gets really strange if the process using Universal Print to print multiple tabs sequentially is repeated without clearing the two existing "available jobs groups" (i.e., 1st Available Group and 2nd Available Group are still available groups). After waiting 10+ minutes from the first run above, I printed all tabs again. With the first tab, pdfSaver had two "available jobs groups" from the first session (i.e., 1st Available Group and 2nd Available Group). This seemed to make sense and used the "append to selected" button to select 1st Available Group. With the printing of the second tab, only 2nd Available Group was recognized/present. In other words, 1st Available Group, the one just selected with the "append to selected" button was not recognized/present.

I don't know what I can attach to show this behavior. However, I would appreciate it if you look into this issue.

Although not ideal, is there a way to combine "available jobs groups" to a single group? I would also like to suggest a setting where all prints are sent to the same group (thereby hopefully mooting any other option but to be in the same group). Having multiple groups seems like it might be nice, but I personally will probably only ever use 1 group.

Thanks.

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Hi bqxmprij,

thanks for the posting. We will certainly look into this, though I'm not sure at this point what the future looks like for job management using PDFSaver. If you are prepared to work on this with us I can set up a test machine. I'm sure that between us we can nail down exactly what to do to reproduce this.

One thing that's I'd like you to try in the meanwhile is changing the save settings ion the printer from used PDFSaver to "Append Current Job to the Last Active Job" and see if it catches all the tabs. The downside to this is that each time you want to create a new job group you'd need to "Save Generated PDF File" for the first job then back to "Append..." for subsequent tabs. It will however give us some useful information.

In order to set up a valid test I'd like to know your OS version (Win 7, Win 8?) and architecture (32 or 64 bit)

[bqxmprij]

Thanks Paul. I tried the above workaround and two "Job Groups" were still created.

The environment is Windows 7, 32 bit. I can try it at home on a Win7 64 bit system and a Win8 64 bit system. How can we set up a virtual session?

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Thanks for that bqxmprij,

the best way to do this is for us to set up a test environment that recreates your issue. We set up here a virtual machine, clean installation of Win 7 x64, Firefox, the Universal Print Extension and see if we get the same issue.

It would be best if we were to use the same edition of Win 7 that you are running - can you tell me if it is "Home Starter", "Home Premium", "Professional", "Ultimate" etc?

[bqxmprij]

Sure.

First, it is a 32 bit machine.

Second, I think this is the information that you are looking for regarding the operating system: Win7 Enterprise, SP1.

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Thanks bqxmprij

oops - did misread that architecture. OK - will need to download and set up a Win 7 Enterprise SP1 x86 OS , set it up and try to recreate the issue. That's all we need for now.

It is going to take a few days and we have New Years Day tomorrow so hopefully by the end of the week we'll have something.

regards

[bqxmprij]

Thanks Paul. Happy New Year!

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

[bqxmprij]

Paul-

I re-created the issue on two different computers.

First Computer: Win7 Home Premium,x64 using Waterfox (http://www.waterfoxproject.org/) and Universal Print.
Second Computer: Win8 Pro, x64 using Waterfox (http://www.waterfoxproject.org/) and Universal Print.

The timing of when the prior Job Group(s) is/are not recognized changes (sometimes it is the second tab being printed, sometimes it is later). But, inevitably, pdfSaver seems to not recognize prior Job Group(s) at some point.

I look forward to a solution. Again, Happy New Year! Thanks.

[Nico - Tracker Supp]

Hi bqxmprij,

Thank you for the update.
We will try to reproduce it and let you know about the results of our tests.
Happy New Year!

Sincerely,
Nicolas

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Hi bqxmprij,

OK - I've reproduced this in a Win 8 Enterprise x64 environment and raised a support request ticket for it. RT#1720: pdfSaver does not recognize existing "groups"

Given the nature of this issue and the relatively small number of users who are expected to be impacted by this it may not be that we will be able to devote resources to investigating this before the release of V3 in March. It is however formally on the radar and will eventually be investigated.

hth

[bqxmprij]

Thanks for the follow up.

I've given this some more thought. Although certainly not ideal, two workarounds would be to (i) allow "groups" to be combined or (ii) allow "job documents" to be moved to different groups (hopefully allowing multiple "job documents" to be moved at once).

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Hi bqxmprij,

thanks for the input. The Support Request Ticket I referred to itself refers to this thread so your comments are noted. If you have any other thoughts or suggestions around this just do as you did here and post them to this thread and they will be a part of the ticket.

hth

[Ivan - Tracker Software]

The problem is fixed now. The fix will be available in the next build of the driver.

[bqxmprij]

Thank you for quick turn around. I am impressed.

One question. Can you give an estimate when the next build of the driver will be released? And, how will I know when it is released?

Thanks!

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Hi bqxmprij,

there is a new build planned for on or around Feb 8th.

hth

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Hi bqxmprij

This was resolved in the last build. Please update to 268 and confirm at your end.

[bqxmprij]

Paul-

I am not sure of the update process. If I run the live update from the view, it tries to update to v2.5.209. The download for PDF-XChange PRO is for v5.0.268.

Can I just update via the live update or do I need to download the entire PDF-XChange PRO install?

Thanks.

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hello bqxmprij,

Please download and install the whole package:
https://www.pdf-xchange.com/PDFX5.zip
As the Live updater is (for now) only updating the Viewer itself and not the PDF Tools or the printing drivers.

Best,
Stefan