Preview consistently unstable on fullscreen

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Preview consistently unstable on fullscreen

Hi all,

I've recently been having real stability problems with Preview when viewing pdf documents in Preview (mainly text) on Macbook Pro OSX 10.13.3 (Early 2015 - 8GB Ram, 2.9GHz).

Tends to emerge when I have a few documents open in different tabs in split view and then change the reading view (i.e. single page to continuous scroll) - though its arisen spontaneously too. The toolbar then suddenly disappears, and all functionality (copy, highlight, add stickie etc) goes apart from scrolling through the text and highlighting.

Because the toolbar no longer appears, and cmd+Q doesn't work, I force quit and restart and the problem then re-emerges within about 15mins.

I've tried multiple reboots, all different kinds of document, tried running alongside no other apps, or incrementally alongside typical work apps (Safari, Mail, Word) but hasn't gone away.

Any tips would be much appreciated as it really gets in the way of workflow!

Many thanks in advance

MacBook Pro with Retina display, macOS High Sierra (10.13.3)

Posted on Mar 2, 2018 2:38 AM

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Answer 1

chris_g1

Community Specialist

Mar 2, 2018 3:49 PM in response to port-manteau

Hello port-manteau,

Thanks for asking the Apple Support Communities for help with your MacBook Pro and Preview. Thanks for letting us know the steps you have tried also. I am happy to recommend the next things for this issue.

The next steps for this are to test if this is also occurring in safe mode and/or a test user. Safe mode will tell us if the issue is related to a startup item or plugins, and sometimes is all that is necessary to correct some problems.

When you boot to safe mode, log in to your account and check if the issue is also occurring in safe mode or not. Use this article for the steps to get into safe mode: Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac

Be aware, certain things (such as the speakers) will not work in safe mode, and it may seem a bit slower, but it should not affect the functionality such as removing the toolbar or cmd+Q. If everything is working properly in safe mode, but then is not working after you restart the Mac, please check the section titled "If an issue doesn't happen in safe mode" for the next troubleshooting steps.

If the issue is also happening in safe mode, move on and test if this problem occurs in a newly created unmodified test administrator user account on your Mac. A test user will let us know if the issue is isolated to your account, or system wide. Please check this help article: How to test an issue in another user account on your Mac

After you are done testing, please check the section related to results, titled "If the issue happens in the other account" or "If the issue doesn't happen in the other account”.

Thanks again and have a great rest of your day.

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Preview consistently unstable on fullscreen

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