iPad Pro [Files App] PDF preview crashing when using my Apple Pencil to annotate.

[Populus]

I’m not sure if there’s more people suffering this, and I suspect there’s a bug or memory leak in the Files app. Here’s the issue:

I open a PDF file to work on it. I grab my Apple Pencil 2, and start drawing or taking notes over the PDF. I use the double tap gesture to switch between the pencil tool and the eraser tool.

Then, there’s a moment, where the pencil switching gesture seems unresponsive. I mean, I can still change to the eraser with a double tap, but then, it still behaves as the pencil tool. Weird, I know.

Then I switch to another files’ window with a different PDD (all of this without using Stage Manager, no Stage Manager at all) and apparently works fine, back to the first PDF and still doesn’t respond. Even if I switch back and forth from one tool to another. Even if I close the “edit mode” and come back to “edit mode”. If I tap OK to close the quick view, and open the file again, it works again temporarily, until it stops responding again to the tool switches.

While doing this, sometimes the document will close itself and open again, and some of the last drawn lines will have disappeared.

My current M2 iPad Pro has 16GB of RAM, mind you. So I’m not quite sure what the problem is. However, I’ve observed for years already that when you do a search for a word on a PDF with thousands of pages, it will reboot itself instantly. Not sure if both issues are related or what.

Any clue? Is this solved in the recently released iPadOS 18.4.1?

Thank you

 

[Slartibart]

Does this happens always with any PDF after some time? Are the PDF store locally on your iPad or on e.g. a NAS? Does this happen in other apps when annotating a PDF? If you would create a few simple PDFs, does this

I have a few quite complex PDFs where the Files app (or the internal Windows or macOS preview for that matter) have problems with - my solution for these rare cases is - if I created the PDF - to reduce complexity and and work with that version then, or switching to a different app/program.

 

[Populus]

Does this happens always with any PDF after some time? Are the PDF store locally on your iPad or on e.g. a NAS? Does this happen in other apps when annotating a PDF?

While it is difficult to answer this questions due to the fact that I’ve been using an Apple Pencil for just a few weeks, for now yes, it happens on most PDFs, but the higher the complexity, the sooner it happens.

The first symptom usually is the pen-tool switch stopping working. I mean the oval with the tools shows the change of tool when I double-tap the pencil, but the tool itself keeps behaving the same way.

All the PDFs are stored locally on my iPad.

I don’t use other apps to annotate PDF because most of them are subscription based. But I will try Zotero app soon.

 

[sonicrobby]

Ive had similar issues, but slightly different. I open a PDF in Files to then annotate, then after writing out several sentences, the PDF essentially "refreshes" and all of my annotations disappear. Im on the M4 iPP, so it doesnt crash for me, but it wipes the PDF from annotations. The only workaround Ive found is to click "done" after every sentence to close/save the annotations. Then start annotating again and repeat. The PDFs were locally stored "On my iPad" also.

Not solved on 18.4.1 as this happened to me recently about 2 weeks ago.

 

[Populus]

Ive had similar issues, but slightly different. I open a PDF in Files to then annotate, then after writing out several sentences, the PDF essentially "refreshes" and all of my annotations disappear. Im on the M4 iPP, so it doesnt crash for me, but it wipes the PDF from annotations. The only workaround Ive found is to click "done" after every sentence to close/save the annotations. Then start annotating again and repeat. The PDFs were locally stored "On my iPad" also.

Not solved on 18.4.1 as this happened to me recently about 2 weeks ago.

Yeah, usually it just refreshes instead of crashing. My M2 iPad Pro has 16GB of RAM so I don’t think it is a memory leak… although, who knows.

I’ve decided to try alternative PDF annotation apps instead of Apple’s system Files. I’ll share my experience once I do it. But damn, Apple should really focus on polishing this bugs, especially with something as basic as reading and note taking a PDF. But I guess they have other priorities…