Performance issues in Reader 7

[Former Community Member]

Hi there,

We are developing complex e-forms that need to be compatible with Reader 7 as well as later versions.  We have noticed that while filling out the form in version 7 the memory usage for AcroRd32.exe process in Task Manager climbs higher and higher but doesn't come back down.  Eventually this makes performance unbearable (30 seconds to move between fields), at one point the memory usage for this process rose to 1.3 gigs.  This does not happen in Reader 9 where we notice that the memory usage rises with use but falls again when left idle.

Can anyone help us diagnose this problem?  Is there any way we can flush the memory using JavaScript?

Many thanks,

Kieran

[Niall_O_Donovan]

Hi Kieran,

The only suggestion I would have is to eliminate script in events that fire very frequently, like Layout:Ready. Also check for potential loops in the script. I am fairly sure that Acrobat/Reader v9 stops an infinite loop after a short period, but I am not sure about older versions.

John Brinkman had excellent debugging tools:

http://blogs.adobe.com/formfeed/2010/09/javascript-lint-check-in-designer.html

Updated Form Debugger

If you do a search on his blog.

Good luck,

Niall

[daver1234]

I'm working with Kieran on the same form and I think I have tracked the issue down to a difference between rendering methods in Adobe reader 7 and adobe reader 9.  I drew up a benchmark test script and ran it before and after I disabled direct rendering.  When runing the form in adobe reader 9, but with direct rendering forced to off.  I see the same symptoms that I saw on the adobe reader 7 client. 

I disabled direct rendering using:

<?originalXFAVersion http://www.xfa.org/schema/xfa-template/2.4/ LegacyRendering:1?>

Does anyone know of particular objects or methods that might be handled poorly by the legacy rendering mode found in adobe reader 7 (XFA 2.4 and earlier)?

Thanks

David