JOD Converter is not working anymore

[nettania]

Since serveral week, I cannot preview office documents anymore. Therefore I shutdown the alfresco instance. During restart the following jodconverter error is displayed in alfresco.log:

2020-05-05 09:13:48,482 ERROR [org.alfresco.repo.content.JodConverterSharedInstance] [localhost-startStop-1] Unable to start JodConverter library. The following error is shown for informational purposes only.
org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.OfficeException: failed to start and connect
        at org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.ManagedOfficeProcess.startAndWait(ManagedOfficeProcess.java:62)
        at org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.PooledOfficeManager.start(PooledOfficeManager.java:96)
        at org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.ProcessPoolOfficeManager.start(ProcessPoolOfficeManager.java:60)
        at org.alfresco.repo.content.JodConverterSharedInstance.afterPropertiesSet(JodConverterSharedInstance.java:364)
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.invokeInitMethods(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1837)
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1774)
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:593)
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:515)
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.lambda$doGetBean$0(AbstractBeanFactory.java:320)
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:222)
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:318)
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:199)
        at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.preInstantiateSingletons(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:845)
        at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.finishBeanFactoryInitialization(AbstractApplicationContext.java:877)
        at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:549)
        at org.alfresco.repo.management.subsystems.ChildApplicationContextFactory$ApplicationContextState.start(ChildApplicationContextFactory.java:824)
        at org.alfresco.repo.management.subsystems.AbstractPropertyBackedBean.start(AbstractPropertyBackedBean.java:1098)
        at org.alfresco.repo.management.subsystems.AbstractPropertyBackedBean.onApplicationEvent(AbstractPropertyBackedBean.java:637)
        at org.alfresco.repo.management.SafeApplicationEventMulticaster.multicastEventInternal(SafeApplicationEventMulticaster.java:221)
        at org.alfresco.repo.management.SafeApplicationEventMulticaster.multicastEvent(SafeApplicationEventMulticaster.java:186)
        at org.alfresco.repo.management.SafeApplicationEventMulticaster.multicastEvent(SafeApplicationEventMulticaster.java:206)
        at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.publishEvent(AbstractApplicationContext.java:402)
        at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.publishEvent(AbstractApplicationContext.java:359)
        at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.finishRefresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:896)
        at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:552)
        at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.configureAndRefreshWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:400)
        at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.initWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:291)
        at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener.contextInitialized(ContextLoaderListener.java:103)
        at org.alfresco.web.app.ContextLoaderListener.contextInitialized(ContextLoaderListener.java:70)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.listenerStart(StandardContext.java:4699)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5165)
        at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:183)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal(ContainerBase.java:743)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChild(ContainerBase.java:719)
        at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.addChild(StandardHost.java:705)
        at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployDescriptor(HostConfig.java:614)
        at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig$DeployDescriptor.run(HostConfig.java:1823)
        at java.base/java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:515)
        at java.base/java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:264)
        at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1128)
        at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:628)
        at java.base/java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:834)
Caused by: java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException: org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.OfficeException: could not establish connection
        at java.base/java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.report(FutureTask.java:122)
        at java.base/java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.get(FutureTask.java:205)
        at org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.ManagedOfficeProcess.startAndWait(ManagedOfficeProcess.java:60)
        ... 41 more
Caused by: org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.OfficeException: could not establish connection
        at org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.ManagedOfficeProcess.doStartProcessAndConnect(ManagedOfficeProcess.java:141)
        at org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.ManagedOfficeProcess.access$000(ManagedOfficeProcess.java:29)
        at org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.ManagedOfficeProcess$1.run(ManagedOfficeProcess.java:56)
        ... 5 more
Caused by: org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.OfficeException: office process died with exit code 77
        at org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.ManagedOfficeProcess$6.attempt(ManagedOfficeProcess.java:135)
        at org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.Retryable.execute(Retryable.java:34)
        at org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.Retryable.execute(Retryable.java:24)
        at org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.ManagedOfficeProcess.doStartProcessAndConnect(ManagedOfficeProcess.java:139)
        ... 7 more
2020-05-05 09:13:48,512 INFO  [org.alfresco.repo.management.subsystems.ChildApplicationContextFactory] [localhost-startStop-1] Startup of 'OOoJodconverter' subsystem, ID: [OOoJodconverter, default] complete

After some research I found the same error in the jodconverter google user group (https://github.com/sivanthiinfowave/jodconverter/issues/109). The only solution provided is to change the implementation how the JODConverter object is created.

Has someone the same problem and found another solution?

System:

• Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS
• LibreOffice 6.0.7.3 00m0(Build:3)
• Community - 6.2.

Thanks,

Florian

[ryo39 · Accepted solution]

Hi, Florian

I think the exit code 77 shown in the log is a permission denied.

Do you launch your alfresco process as a correct user?

Correct user means that the user you use to launch alfresco process has a permission to execute 'soffice.bin'.

Best,

ryo

[nettania]

Hi,

thank you for your repsonse, you are right, there is a permission issue. If I start alfresco as root user it is working. However I can run soffice.bin also with the user who runs alfresco.

Does someone knows how to test the user privileges required to execute JOD conveter, I do not want to run alfresco as root.

Thanks,

Florian

[ryo39]

Hi,

How did you install your alfresco?  at that time which user was used to install?

JODConverter creates and use  temporary directory : $ALFRESCO/tomcat/temp/(like .jodconverter_socket_host-127.0.0.1_port-8100) on my environment and also tomcat puts various log files into $ALFRESCO/ , $ALFRESCO/tomcat/logs. I think that you would better to be an owner of alfresco.

Best,

ryo

[nettania]

I installed Allfresco from scratch, meaning without Docker.

I am just wondering, because everything has worked fine since month, and suddenly I get this error. Therefore I am not sure if this is not a result of an update.

Alfresco runs under his own user and that user has full access to /usr/local/alfresco which contains al required application and libraries except PorstgreSQL, openoffice, and imagemagick which I installed as debian packages.

I will check the again permission and ownerships.

Florian

[nettania]

Hi,

finally I found the reason for thic exception during startup. Thank you to @ryo39 it was a permission problem with the libreoffice cache. After I changed the permission of WHATEVER_YOUR_LIBREOFFICE_DIRECTORY_IS/share/uno_packages/cache/uno_packages/ to a+rx (chmod a+rx WHATEVER_YOUR_LIBREOFFICE_DIRECTORY_IS/share/uno_packages/cache/uno_packages/) it resumed working.

I am not sure what was the reason for this wrong permissions, but I still think that probably an update changed the permissions.

However thank you for your help!!!

Florian

[EddieMay]

Hi @nettania,

Great news to see that you've resolved your problem - thanks for reporting back. So helpful to other users.

Take care, 

[Giuliano]

Thanks for sharing your solution.

I had a similar problem on zip instal with Ubuntu20.04 on arm64.

Incredibly, a similar (parallel) install on  Ubuntu20.04 + amd64 di not show this issue in the log file.

You tip solved the "error 77" problem...

PS

May I aks how did you find the "specific" directory that was preventing the jodconverter to run (there are a lot of them in libreoffice installation tree) ?