Command line arguments not working

[GitHubRulesOK]

Discussed in #2964

^{Originally posted by exonie September 18, 2022}
Hello,
SumatraPDF does not respect any arguments I tried passing to it. It's the latest Sumatra ver. 3.4.6 64-bit on Windows 10 ver. 21H2.

Neither arguments in shortcuts to PDF files, nor from the command terminal as shown in the attached images:

It does not open the indicated page, nor does it start in fullscreen. It worked fine before. Other programs on my system, like the Chrome browser, work alright with arguments.

Does anyone else have this problem or is something wrong with my set-up?

[GitHubRulesOK]

@exonie

OK I agree 3.4.6 does not work same as 3.4.5

@kjk
I confirmed there is a difference in both 32 bit and 64 bit compared to any previous so moved to issues

[hme3]

I noticed in 3.4.6 the shell open command in registry (specific to my user) for SummatraPDF.pdf
"C:\Users\Henry\AppData\Local\SumatraPDF\SumatraPDF.exe" "%1"
changing it to:
"C:\Users\Henry\AppData\Local\SumatraPDF\SumatraPDF.exe" "%1" "%2" "%3"
allows the -page 10 to work
It does generate a load error message on documents without a -page xx but the document opens

[GitHubRulesOK]

@kjk I am reminded by this issue that Something changed in the way sumatraPDF exe is called
which may or may not have a bearing on other problems such as use by LaTeX

I am uncertain which combinations fail to work as previous since a simple command from command line seems to work well but sent via shortcuts the options dont always seem to be respected so unclear if its a registry issue or due to exe parameter handling.

[kjk]

I can't reproduce this.

> ."C:\Users\kjk\AppData\Local\SumatraPDF\SumatraPDF.exe" "C:\Users\kjk\!sumatra\1.pdf"
> ."C:\Users\kjk\AppData\Local\SumatraPDF\SumatraPDF.exe" "C:\Users\kjk\!sumatra\1.pdf" -page 3
> ."C:\Users\kjk\AppData\Local\SumatraPDF\SumatraPDF.exe" "C:\Users\kjk\!sumatra\1.pdf" -fullscreen

all work as expected.

Also made a copy of the shortcut and added pdf path an -page 3 arg and it worked.

One thing that doesn't work is naked -fullscreen but I don't know if that every worked or should work.

I would need a step-by-step repro that demonstrates the problem.

[GitHubRulesOK]

@kjk thanks I agree it is naked full screen seems the common one mentioned and perhaps that is the core of this issue?

If i use a shortcut with sumatrapdf.exe filename.pdf -fullscreen -page 12 it works

[GitHubRulesOK]

@kjk
I wonder if manual needs adjusted mention

List of command line options
-presentation : start in presentation view
-fullscreen : start in full screen view

List of command line options
-presentation : start with file in presentation view
-fullscreen : start with file in full screen view

[kjk]

made -fullscreen work even without any file opened

[exonie]

This still does not work for me (SumatraPDF 3.5.2 64bit). It turns out a bit more complicated as it seems to be connected with this bug #3992

1. In Settings: "Use tabs"-> uncheck
2. Open some file.
3. Try to open another file with the -page option - either through a shortcut or in the command line. It does not open at that page. The other bug also instantiates here as an additional copy of the first file is opened.

[GitHubRulesOK]

@exonie
fixes are only generally applied to newest pre-release (or in a few cases to a new minor release) thus if a bug was in 3.5.2 it stays in 3.5.2 unless especially a fix added and Oct 23, 2023 may not have been added to 3.5.2 (2023-10-25) even if the date is later

I suspect it was not added.

[exonie]

Alright, just checked it - it's fixed in the prerelease.