Bluebeam cache issues — thumbnails wrong, pages blank, or corrupt display
Pages render blank, show wrong content, or thumbnails in the Pages panel look garbled. This is almost always a corrupted Bluebeam cache problem.
Step-by-step fix · 7 steps
- 1
Identify the symptom: Is the problem on the Pages panel thumbnail strip only, or is the actual drawing content also blank/garbled? If only thumbnails are wrong but the drawing renders correctly when you click the page, it is purely a cache display issue. If the actual page content is blank, it may be a file corruption or rendering engine issue.
- 2
Force a page re-render: Click anywhere on a blank or garbled page and press Ctrl + 0 (zero) to fit the page to the screen. Bluebeam will attempt to re-render the page from scratch. If it draws correctly after this, the cache was simply stale.
- 3
Close and fully reopen Bluebeam: File → Close (the document), then File → Exit (the application). Wait 10 seconds for all processes to stop (check Task Manager to confirm no REVU.EXE processes remain), then reopen Bluebeam and the file.
- 4
Clear the Bluebeam display cache manually: Navigate to C:\Users\[YourUsername]\AppData\Local\Bluebeam Software\Revu\20. Delete the contents of the 'Cache' folder (keep the folder itself). Also delete the contents of the 'Temp' folder. This forces Bluebeam to rebuild the cache from scratch on next open — it may feel slightly slow on the first open while it rebuilds.
- 5
Clear Windows thumbnail cache: Open File Explorer → View → Options → View tab → click 'Always show icons, never thumbnails' (optional step if Windows File Explorer thumbnails are also affected). Then separately, go to Settings → System → Storage → Temporary files → check 'Thumbnails' and delete.
- 6
If specific pages remain blank after clearing cache: The pages in the PDF source file may genuinely be empty, or the PDF has rendering layers that Bluebeam cannot process. Open the same file in Chrome (drag the file into a Chrome window) — if Chrome also shows the pages as blank, the file is the issue. Contact IT to get a fresh copy from the sender.
- 7
Reset Bluebeam's display preferences: Go to Edit → Preferences → Display → set Anti-aliasing to 'Normal' and disable 'Smooth text' temporarily. These settings affect how aggressively Bluebeam caches rendered text, and corrupted settings here can cause display artefacts.
Tip
The AppData folder is hidden by default. In File Explorer, click View → Show → Hidden items to make it visible. Alternatively, press Win + R and type %localappdata%\Bluebeam Software\Revu\20 to jump directly to the folder.