JODConverter issues

Question

I am using the JODConverter library V 3.0 Beta 4 along with Open Office 3.4 and am trying to convert some files into PDF/A-1 format. However after the office manager process starts up it simply hang and nothing happens. Here is the output:

Jul 26, 2012 12:04:03 PM org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.ProcessPoolOfficeManager <init>
INFO: ProcessManager implementation is PureJavaProcessManager

C:\Users\Chris\AppData\Local\Temp\ArFile\PDF\blah.pdf : C:\Users\Chris\Documents\blah.txt

Jul 26, 2012 12:04:04 PM org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.OfficeProcess start
INFO: starting process with acceptString 'socket,host=127.0.0.1,port=2002,tcpNoDelay=1' and profileDir 'C:\Users\Chris\AppData\Local\Temp\.jodconverter_socket_host-127.0.0.1_port-2002'
Jul 26, 2012 12:04:04 PM org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.OfficeProcess start
INFO: started process

The line in the middle there is the output of printing the output file name and the input file name separated by a colon, as you can see they are valid values...

Here is my converter class:

package com.allcare.arfile;

import com.sun.star.beans.PropertyValue;
import java.io.File;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;
import org.artofsolving.jodconverter.OfficeDocumentConverter;
import org.artofsolving.jodconverter.document.DocumentFamily;
import org.artofsolving.jodconverter.document.DocumentFormat;
import org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.DefaultOfficeManagerConfiguration;
import org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.OfficeManager;


public class FileConverter 
{
OfficeManager officeManager;
String tempFilePath;

public FileConverter() 
{
    officeManager = new DefaultOfficeManagerConfiguration()
            //.setRetryTimeout(30000L)
            //.setTaskExecutionTimeout(60000L)
            .buildOfficeManager();
    tempFilePath = System.getProperty("java.io.tmpdir") + "\\ArFile\\PDF\\";
}

// if possible this function converts a file to a PDF/A-1 compliant file
public File convertToPdf(File inputFile, Log logger, User user)
{        
    if (isConvertableToPDF(inputFile.getName())) // REMEMBER TO CHANGE THE IF STATEMENT IN THE createMetadata() section to reflect this 
    {
        new File(tempFilePath).mkdirs();
        String filename = inputFile.getName();
        filename = filename.substring(0, filename.lastIndexOf("."));

        File outputFile = new File(tempFilePath + filename + ".pdf");

        System.out.println(outputFile + " : " + inputFile);

        officeManager.start(); // may tweak the start and stop code to appear elsewhere for additional efficiency

        DocumentFormat docFormat = new DocumentFormat("Portable Document Format", "pdf", "application/pdf");
        Map map = new HashMap();
        map.put("FilterName", "writer_pdf_Export");
        PropertyValue[] aFilterData = new PropertyValue[1];
        aFilterData[0] = new PropertyValue();
        aFilterData[0].Name = "SelectPdfVersion";
        aFilterData[0].Value = 1;
        map.put("FilterData", aFilterData);
        docFormat.setStoreProperties(DocumentFamily.TEXT, map);

        OfficeDocumentConverter docConverter = new OfficeDocumentConverter(officeManager);
        docConverter.convert(inputFile, outputFile, docFormat);

        officeManager.stop();

        return outputFile;
    }

    return inputFile;
}

// returns true if the file format is known to be convertible into the PDF/A-1 format
public boolean isConvertableToPDF(String filename)
{
    if (filename.endsWith(".doc") || filename.endsWith(".txt") || filename.endsWith(".xls") 
            || filename.endsWith(".ppt") || filename.endsWith(".docx"))
    {
        return true;
    }

    return false;
}

}

I am using java sockets, and before I used sockets the converter worked just fine, but after I changed to sockets it began to hang. I have no idea why...

Answer 1

The problem could be here:

officeManager.start(); // may tweak the start and stop code ...

If the code is waiting for the started process to finish, it may wait until you kill the OpenOffice service after which it fails the rest of the program. Make sure you start the service in a background service, so the main program can continue. Or start the OpenOffice server manually (outside your program). Don't waitFor() since the service will never end.

Your System.out.println() above does get printed, so up to there it is still working.

Answer 2

The problem solved itself after restarting the PC, I have no idea why....

Answer 3

We have been developing a project which have on-the-fly transforming capabilities and we have also stumbled across this strange problem. Solution was to use use sigar process manager than pure java process manager. It is more robust and consistent, but it needs native libraries.

Answer 4

Seems like it was a issue with your port you selected, I know I have ran across funky stuff like that using java socket objects.