A few users have been experiencing problems compiling large documents, but thanks to a new compling interface and some backend infrastucture changes these documents shouldn't pose any problems now. For most users this will be a minor user interface update, although the mobile view has been significantly improved. These are the first components of the new editor which will be rolled out slowly in small chunks like this over the next few months.

Technical Details

Previously when a document was compiled, a request would be sent to the ScribTeX servers which would send a request to the compile server. Both of these connections would be left open while the compile was processed and eventually returned via the ScribTeX server back to your browser. This was fine for small documents, but larger compiles would take long enough that the server would timeout and close its connection. The user would be returned an error, despite the fact that the compile would still succeed after the connection was dropped.

Now the compile happens behind the scenes without needing to keep a connection open. The ScribTeX server sends a request to the compile server and then immediately returns a page to your browser. Your browser will then keep asking the compile server if it is finished and when it has the PDF and log are downloaded. This way nothing will timeout even if the compile takes a long time.