Roll20 uses cookies to improve your experience on our site. Cookies enable you to enjoy certain features, social sharing functionality, and tailor message and display ads to your interests on our site and others. They also help us understand how our site is being used. By continuing to use our site, you consent to our use of cookies. Update your cookie preferences .
×
Create a free account

PDF Search and Miscellaneous menu are hidden behind the window

I saw someone else posted this a while ago but never got a response. I have exactly the same issues. "... any time I try to use the search button or the miscellaneous button, those options only show up behind the PDF rendering them unusable. Anyone else have this problem and/or know a solution??" Same. Both the Search box and the Miscellaneous menu are behind the PDF window, you can just see a tiny bit of them sticking out to either side, so the buttons work, but the search box and the menu are impossible to use. Trying to click in them to bring them to the front does nothing. I'm using the latest Chrome browser, which I figure someone is going to say just use a different browser, but seeing as Chrome is the most widely used browser in the world, that seems like just ignoring the problem. I'm hoping someone knows a fix for this, and hopefully it can be fully remedied in the near future.
Hey Joel Thanks for bringing this back into focus! Can you post a screenshot of the entire window? I'd love to see exactly what you're seeing. Also, I agree, it's no excuse to just use another browser. It should WORK in chrome for sure! Thanks again.
1678403128
keithcurtis
Forum Champion
Marketplace Creator
API Scripter
I recommend testing on other browsers frequently, but it's never a suggestion to switch , but a diagnostic to see if an issue is localized to a browser or user setup on that browser. A supported browser should be supported.
1678478191

Edited 1678478443
Joel
Pro
I want to start by saying this was not an isolated incident, in fact it was the only way the PDFs had ever displayed for me, so I didn't use them. It was not important to me until yesterday, so I started looking into it, saw the other posts about the exact same behavior, and posted my own experience.  Now I'm thrilled to say that today it is working normally. It's the only time it has worked normally for me in Chrome, and I didn't change anything, so I think maybe possibly someone actually fixed it, which is awesome. If so, thanks so much, it works fine for me now. However, in case it happens again, in case it has not been actually fixed and today I just got lucky for some reason, whatever... here is what it looked like yesterday. In one shot, it's the miscellaneous menu on the right, in the other, the search box on the left. In either case, the menu or the seach bar appears only behind the PDF window. You can only see the edges and can't click on any of the contents. I'm very happy to say it is fixed now, but here they are.... (I also just realized you asked for the whole screen, I trimmed these down to the important part, I could re-submit if it's important.)
Hey Joel, Thanks for providing that screenshot. I understand better what you're talking about. That definitely should not be happening. I am also using the latest Chrome browser and I am also not able to replicate this currently. If you experience it again, please let me know. I'd like to get to the bottom of it if we can get reliable steps to reproduce the issue.
Hello, sorry to say the issue is back. I'm using the same up-to-date chrome browser, nothing on my end has changed. I had the problem for as long as we could upload PDFs, then it magically went away last week, and now it is back. As you can see, the hamburger menu (and the search bar) will only display "behind" the PDF window, making them unusable. I saw a couple other posts about it so at least I know I'm not the only one. For what it's worth, all the other PDFs that had started working ok, they are displaying the same bad behavior again, as well as new PDFs that I uploaded. similar posts: <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/11005410/slug%7D" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/11005410/slug%7D</a> &nbsp;(this one on Chrome) <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/11262246/slug%7D" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/11262246/slug%7D</a> <a href="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/11197001/slug%7D" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/11197001/slug%7D</a> &nbsp;(this one using Firefox)
Andrew Searles said: Hey Joel, Thanks for providing that screenshot. I understand better what you're talking about. That definitely should not be happening. I am also using the latest Chrome browser and I am also not able to replicate this currently. If you experience it again, please let me know. I'd like to get to the bottom of it if we can get reliable steps to reproduce the issue. I meant to quote you so maybe you'd see that the problem is back. Look one message up ^^^
Hey Joel, This is a hard one. It seems to be happening with other users (thanks for the links to other forum posts). Also, it is not on a consistent browsers. It is also not consistently reproduced. Unfortunately, until we can figure out how to consistently reproduce the error, we won't be able to fix it. I think it would be good if we can troubleshoot together while you have the problem active. Let's set up some time to chat where we can look into it together. Here's a link to my Calendar. We can use it to find the best time for us to meet. When&nbsp; you schedule it, please make sure to reference this thread and the problem so I can remember what we're talking about. <a href="https://calendly.com/acsearles/office-hours" rel="nofollow">https://calendly.com/acsearles/office-hours</a> Thanks!
Joel said: Hello, sorry to say the issue is back. I'm using the same up-to-date chrome browser, nothing on my end has changed. I had the problem for as long as we could upload PDFs, then it magically went away last week, and now it is back. As you can see, the hamburger menu (and the search bar) will only display "behind" the PDF window, making them unusable. I saw a couple other posts about it so at least I know I'm not the only one. For what it's worth, all the other PDFs that had started working ok, they are displaying the same bad behavior again, as well as new PDFs that I uploaded. Hey Joel, Thanks for meeting with me today. It really helped us move this issue forward. Something we've not been able to do for a while (based on the older forum threads you posted). So we think we know what is happening. It's related to something called the z-index which is what controls the order ( from back to front)&nbsp; of webpage elements across the entire internet. We use it to control which handouts are over others. The logic on this can get VERY complicated as I'm sure you can imagine and we have some interesting algorithms that try to manage this. Most of the time it works without you having to think about it BUT, in this case, The z-index algorithm that we use is working against us. But why is the problem going away and coming back? I'm glad you asked! So the z-index of opened handouts will change as you use the VTT. But the z-index of those pop-out menus on the PDF are set statically so they do not change. Initially, the z-index works properly which is why it was hard for me to reproduce, but when you are playing a game (clicking around and increasing the z-index algorithm) it will make the z-index of those handouts high enough to exceed the pop-out menus. We've also found that if you use it EVEN MORE, it will reset back to it's original state as well. Which is happening for other interesting reasons that we won't get into here. All that to say, thank you for helping us get to the bottom of that. Now that we have reliable steps we can use to reproduce this, we can start looking at how we'll fix it. No promises on timeline! Also, in the meantime, you now have an unacceptable workaround (unacceptable because we do NOT want it to stay like that going forward). Just keep clicking! Sorry about the inconvenience. I'll let you know here when we fix it.