Publisher 2.5.6/7 does not export files larger than 1 GB to PDF

[anto]

I needed to export a 168-page photo book and Publisher wouldn't do it. It exported for more than two hours and the progress bar remained stationary.
I restarted both the computer and Publisher several times, but it didn't help.
In the end, I exported 5 files of several pages each. In total, the total size of the PDFs is 3.5 GB.

Where is the problem? Why did Publisher hang and not want to export everything in one file?

[Hangman]

Hi @anto,

Are the photos in your photo book embedded or linked?

[anto]

34 minutes ago, Hangman said:

Hi @anto,

Are the photos in your photo book embedded or linked?

Linked

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, anto said:

Linked

And where are they located?

What exact release of Publisher are you using? What PDF Export options did you choose?

[anto]

4 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

And where are they located?

What exact release of Publisher are you using? What PDF Export options did you choose?

I have the files on my computer. I'm trying with 2.5.7 now. The same problem. The file has been exporting for 1 hour and 30 minutes, and the export is still far from complete. Up to half of the export was done in 10 minutes, and then Publisher thinks and thinks, although all the photos are in the same resolution and ready for printing.

Although, when I exported in parts yesterday, it was much faster.

[Latens]

Perhaps a silly question but where are you exporting to?
When external like nas or cloud it may go in to sleep mode during the exporting.
It may also be insufficient space on the internal hdd/ssd?
 

[walt.farrell]

7 minutes ago, anto said:

I have the files on my computer.

Are they on a local disk, and is the folder (or folders) entirely local or are they managed by a cloud service (Dropbox, OneDrive, etc.)?

 

[anto]

2 minutes ago, Return said:

Perhaps a silly question but where are you exporting to?
When external like nas or cloud it may go in to sleep mode during the exporting.
It may also be insufficient space on the internal hd/ssd?
 

The same place as the original Publisher file. There is free space because I exported it in parts.

And I'm still waiting, almost 2 hours have passed.

[anto]

It seems that at some point in time, Publisher does not interact with the disk at all.

 

 

[anto]

The export has just finished. It lasted 175 minutes. What if there is another error and I need to do the export again?
 

[Dejan]

You might have some 'special' layer effect somewhere on (at least) one object, you might try to find the exact page which is causing the issue and rasterize that effect.

By looking the graph I would say that the problem is in the second half of the document.

You can limit the number of pages in export options so you can narrow it down more quickly.

 

[anto]

2 hours ago, Dejan said:

You might have some 'special' layer effect somewhere on (at least) one object, you might try to find the exact page which is causing the issue and rasterize that effect.

By looking the graph I would say that the problem is in the second half of the document.

You can limit the number of pages in export options so you can narrow it down more quickly.

 

Part 2 contains more photos in tiff format. But there are not so many of them, 10-15. Does this mean that Publisher can't process them?

[walt.farrell]

18 hours ago, anto said:

Part 2 contains more photos in tiff format. But there are not so many of them, 10-15. Does this mean that Publisher can't process them?

We would need more information to be sure.

I would suggest (if you're willing to do the research) that you perform a binary-search version of the export. If the second half of the file is slow when exporting, then you will take that half and break it into two equal-size pieces. Continue testing, and splitting the chunks, and often this will allow one to find a specific page that is causing a problem. Analysis of that page can often reveal the cause, and allow an immediate workaround while also providing information to the developers about an area with a problem.

[anto]

I know that moderators and developers will not look at this thread. 

Staff request, could you add to the page export window the current page that Publisher is currently processing during the export. This will help to find errors faster and see the problem page at once.

[NotMyFault]

On 12/11/2024 at 3:18 PM, anto said:

It seems that at some point in time, Publisher does not interact with the disk at all.

 

 

Seems you are on windows. Use tools like Ressource monitor, or sysinternal tools (process monitor, process explorer) to check which files are accessed when the exports seems to freeze.

 

[anto]

On 12/12/2024 at 2:52 PM, walt.farrell said:

We would need more information to be sure.

I would suggest (if you're willing to do the research) that you perform a binary-search version of the export. If the second half of the file is slow when exporting, then you will take that half and break it into two equal-size pieces. Continue testing, and splitting the chunks, and often this will allow one to find a specific page that is causing a problem. Analysis of that page can often reveal the cause, and allow an immediate workaround while also providing information to the developers about an area with a problem.

I've just checked it another way.
There are 168 pages in the book.
I exported pages 1-84 in 8 minutes.
Then pages 1-112 in 10 minutes.
Then pages 1-129 in...
The process up to the middle, i.e. up to page 64, took 7 minutes. Then the slider stopped and stood still for more than 10 minutes. So, the conclusion is that this has nothing to do with the photos on the page, since page 64 is not a problem, because in the first case it passed the export.
Since I have exported 5 or 6 times in a row, it seems to me that the problem is that if Publisher is running for a long time, it loses its sense of reality and hangs or does whatever it wants.

[Patrick Connor]

44 minutes ago, anto said:

I know that moderators and developers will not look at this thread. 
@Patrick Connor Could you .....

DO 👏 NOT👏 @ 👏 STAFF👏 INTO👏 THREADS👏 THEY 👏 ARE👏 NOT👏 PARTICIPATING👏 IN (and no this doesn't count)

Staff look at every thread in this forum

If you have a suggestion then we have provided a suggestion forum

[anto]

18 minutes ago, Patrick Connor said:

Staff look at every thread in this forum

 

And why doesn't it respond?

[anto]

I wrote the problem a week and a half ago. And no response from the staff. Why? 

[anto]

Publisher 2.6 tried to exported pages 1-168 but it stopped halfway through, and the CPU utilization dropped to 20%.

Publisher did half of the exports in 7 minutes,  i.e. 84 pages.

51 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

sysinternal tools (process monitor, process explorer)

where i can find this?

[NotMyFault]

35 minutes ago, anto said:

Publisher 2.6 tried to exported pages 1-168 but it stopped halfway through, and the CPU utilization dropped to 20%.

Publisher did half of the exports in 7 minutes,  i.e. 84 pages.

where i can find this?

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/procmon

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer

 

Please only download directly from microsoft. web search lists many fake websites.

.

[anto]

A few more observations.
Neither 2.5.7 nor 2.6 wanted to export as a single PDF file.
Then in the settings I changed the RAM usage to 50GB (30GB by default), and the actual available RAM memory on my computer is 40GB. Version 2.6 exported all the pages in 16 minutes. The system monitor showed the memory usage as 33-34GB.
So, the conclusion is that Publisher does not know how to use the computer's RAM.

Question to the developers:
Why can I change RAM to 65GB in the RAM settings when my computer doesn't have that much memory? Maybe there should be a certain correspondence between the slider and the real memory of the computer? Or am I missing something?

[anto]

Another problem is that even Publisher can't open a file it has just created.

[Hangman]

Hi @anto,

Are you willing to upload your Publisher file and associated Photos so we can run some tests, if not publicly perhaps privately via a download link?

I'd be happy to run some tests if you want to provide a link but if that's not an option I completely understand. Without being able to test the file it's difficult to provide constructive feedback...

[anto]

7 minutes ago, Hangman said:

Hi @anto,

Are you willing to upload your Publisher file and associated Photos so we can run some tests, if not publicly perhaps privately via a download link?

I'd be happy to run some tests if you want to provide a link but if that's not an option I completely understand. Without being able to test the file it's difficult to provide constructive feedback...

I cannot.