PDF Creation not working

OS: 2012 Server R2
Tomcat Version: 8
Lucee Version: Lucee 5.2.9.31

Has anybody had an issue where creating pdf’s has stopped in the last few days?

I’ve also tried to update the PDF Extension to the latest version. While it was processing there was a lot of cryptic code that displayed as it was processing.

It finished, but when I go into the server administrator again and check the PDF Extension, it still says Upgrade Me. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

2 significant feature of my program is disabled to all of my clients.

Thank you, Dale

Here is my code.

<cfif form.ext eq "pdf">
<cfset filetype = "application/pdf">
<cfelseif form.ext eq "doc">
<cfset filetype = "application/msword">
<cfelseif form.ext eq "xls">
<cfset filetype = "application/msexcel">
<cfelse>
<cfset filetype = "application/rtf">
</cfif>
 
<cfif form.ext eq "pdf">
<cfdocument format="PDF"  
  marginTop=".25" marginLeft=".25" marginRight=".25" marginBottom=".25" 
   pageType="letter">
<cfcontent type="#filetype#" >
<cfheader name="Content-Disposition"   value="attachment;filename=#form.filename#.#form.ext#">
<cfoutput>#toString(toBinary(form.mycontent))# </cfoutput>
</cfdocument>
<cfelse>
<cfcontent type="#filetype#" >
<cfheader name="Content-Disposition"  value="attachment;filename=#form.filename#.#form.ext#">
<cfoutput>#toString(toBinary(form.mycontent))#</cfoutput>
</cfif>

Hi @trivalleybrewers,

Windows 2012r2 had a couple of out of bound updates this week.
Check to see if those patches are Pending, or have been applied. So far printing issues have been one of the main issues keeping me from sleep with the latest patches for Windows (KB5004945)

Additionally, Your version of lucee needs upgraded.
Tomcat 8 was end of life back in June of 2018

Upgrade Tomcat, Lucee, and (if you are using Tomcat as a separate install, your version of java.

You will find you will receive a performance boost plus serious security patches keeping your clients safe.

Terry,

I tried upgrading Lucee directly to 5.3.8.189 and it says that it failed.

I then tried upgrading to 5.3.1.91 first, which succeeded.

Then when upgrading to 5.3.8.189, it just continually runs without finishing.

Any ideas?

Dale

Hi @trivalleybrewers, this is difficult to understand. What failed and what succeeded? The Lucee upgrade/downgrade or the PDF creation?Then you said it failed. What exactly at which point failed? Do you have any stacktrace or log entries about the issues?

Andreas,

I was taking Terry’s advice to upgrade Lucee.

When I tried to upgrade to5.3.8.189 it failed. So tried to upgrade Lucee to 5.3.1.91. That succeeded. Then I tried to upgrade Lucee from 5.3.1.91 to 5.3.8.189 and it’s been running for over an hour.

Dale

How exactly did you upgrade? Through the admin?

Yes, through the Admin.

I just copied the 5.3.8.189 .jar to the /lib directory and restarted the service.

thank you,

Dale

@trivalleybrewers

You need to upgrade, Java (if you havent already) Apache Tomcat (If you haven’t already)
We use openJDK 8 in production, and so should you. (We do a lot of pdf files)

latest version of Tomcat 8 is 8.5.69. It safely runs with Lucee was a war on Windows 2012r2.

1 Like

I also noticed an issue with PDFs after upgrading to 5.3.8.189 - PDFs were created, but no CFCHART graphs appearing. No errors were logged.

Downgrading to PDF Extension 1.0.0.80 solved the issue.

I’m on Windows Server 2019 and Java 11.0.7. Haven’t tried with the new 11.0.11+9 however. Just wanted to let people know…

Thanks!

Terry,

Is there a simple way upgrade Apache Tomcat and OpenJDK on my existing Lucee Server?

Is it possible to save existing configuration files, uninstall Lucee, install Lucee using 5.3.8.189 installer and then restore configuration files. I have a lot of datasources and email server that I would like to preserve.

Dale

Depending on what you have installed

Backup before you do anything else.

CFconfig, if you enabled it - its a command box utility that lets you move your config files around.

I work in a highly virtualized enviroment, so for me… copy the production server to staging, snapshot / checkpoint the server after the copy, upgrade everything then copy the delta into production.

If you do not have that

copy your tomcat instance to backup_tomcat
copy your lucee instance to backup_lucee

These are your lucee config files, by default its installRoot\lucee\tomcat\config.

99.99 percent of all windows users, its C:\lucee\tomcat\conf

    ├── lucee-server.xml
    └── lucee-web.xml.cfm

These are the files that control your lucee configs

This is the clean install way

Stop IIS (If you are using it)
Stop Lucee Or tomcat (if lucee is a war)
uninstall lucee
move the old lucee folder to old_lucee
start iis
download and run the lucee installer as administrator (right click, run as administrator)
Install the connector
wait for the install to complete
stop lucee & iis
copy your new conf files to /new_sav-nameoffile.xml
copy your old conf files to /lucee install root/tomcat/conf
start lucee & iis
test your settings.

In c:\lucee\tomcat\conf I have server.xml and web.xml .

In c:\lucee\tomcat\lucee-server\context I have lucee-server.xml that contains my datasource connections.

Not sure if this will be helpful for you or not - but we abandoned the built-in PDF generation a long time ago and started using api service: pdfcrowd.com - which has been extremely reliable (we run about 35,000 pdfs per month).

You call the API with a destination URL, which pdfcrowd resolves in real-time, and passes a PDF back.

I’d always thought we’d come back to Lucee PDFs - but it doesn’t sound like the right time for that yet.

just copy it over and restart the lucee server. :slight_smile: