Print composer extremely slow outputting PDF's

[qgib]

Author Name: Simon McGowan (Simon McGowan)
Original Redmine Issue: 18487
Affected QGIS version: 2.18.9
Redmine category:map_composer/printing

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I'm using QGIS version 2.18.9. When outputting an atlas as PDF's performance is terrible. I spent hours yesterday trying to output 48 pdfs from an atlas suffering multiple crashes. Whilst searching on here I found similar issues reporting the same thing and people also reporting that it was working in a previous version of QGIS. I tried with version 2.16.3 and did not suffer the same performance issues. Some numbers for you:

QGIS V2.16.3 - Outputting 48 no. PDFs as Raster took 5 minutes.
QGIS V2.18.9 - Outputting the same PDFs as Raster started 40 minutes ago and is only up to number 39.

I also noticed that before I selected output as Raster the file size was 4x bigger in 2.18.9 as it was in 2.16 approximately 100mb as opposed to roughly 25mb.

Unfortunately I cannot share the data due to the project I am working on. As an example of the data set I have in the project here are some stats:

There are 200 vector layers, mainly GeoDB files with a few shapefiles.
There are 282 background raster images from ordnance survey open data. (display controlled by the scale)

[qgib]

Author Name: Nyall Dawson (@nyalldawson)

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There's really not enough info here for any meaningful debugging... I'd suggest trying with no plugins, testing on a different machine, remove layers one by one, etc and see if you can narrow down what causes the issue. It's not a common issue.

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• status_id was changed from Open to Feedback

[qgib]

Author Name: Simon McGowan (Simon McGowan)

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That's fine. I've made you aware that somewhere between 2.16.3 and 2.18.9 there is a problem. It works as expected in 2.16.3 so I will use that version for my work, unfortunately I haven't got time to trial and error every layer I have.

I disagree that its not a common issue, others have reported similar problems with 2.18: #25016, #24728, #23701

It finally took 55 minutes to output the PDFs by the way. 2.16 for the win!

[qgib]

Author Name: Nyall Dawson (@nyalldawson)

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Ok - but be aware that none of those reports are reproducable either. End result is that this bug is never going to get fixed unless someone who experiences it can share a project and data which demonstrates it.

[qgib]

Author Name: Nyall Dawson (@nyalldawson)

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Closed due to lack of feedback

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• status_id was changed from Feedback to Closed