topic Re: Alfresco Share Flash Preview in Alfresco Archive

Alfresco Share Flash Preview

benswitzer — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 16:55:40 GMT

Good day.Been kicking the tires on the latest beta of 3.0 and have been having an issue with the flash document preview. I have only ever seen the dark grey box with the spinning patter in the middle.I've installed the Windows Setup as per the instructions with MySQL. There no exceptions being thr

Re: Alfresco Share Flash Preview

zaizi — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 18:01:26 GMT

Have you got pdf2swf installed?

Install pdf2swf to enable the Flash preview functionality. Make sure you use the last development snapshots because 0.8.1 from 2007-02-28 does not support some functionalities Alfresco needs to render the preview.

as per http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Installing_Labs_3

Re: Alfresco Share Flash Preview

benswitzer — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 18:34:45 GMT

Hi Zaizi.

Yes, I've subsequently installed SWF Tools (swftools 2008-08-21-2105). Its on the path. Restarted Tomcat, no luck.

Thanks

Re: Alfresco Share Flash Preview

kraemer — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 12:30:21 GMT

Hi,

got exactly the same problem on Kubuntu 8.04, newest swftools installed.
Anyone solved that problem?

pdf2swf works:
alfresco@alfresco-dev:/root$ pdf2swf /usr/lib/vmware-tools/GuestSDK/GuestSDK_Terms_and_Conditions.pdf /home/alfresco/test.swf
NOTICE processing PDF page 1 (612x792:0:0) (move:0:0)
NOTICE processing PDF page 2 (612x792:0:0) (move:0:0)
NOTICE Writing SWF file /home/alfresco/test.swf

swftools version
alfresco@alfresco-dev:/root$ pdf2swf -V
pdf2swf - part of swftools 2008-10-27-2255

Thanks a lot!

Re: Alfresco Share Flash Preview

benswitzer — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:30:31 GMT

Turns out, for me it was a browser issue. Works fine in IE 7, but doesn't work with Firefox 3.0. Firefox being my main browser of course.

Re: Alfresco Share Flash Preview

mikeh — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 22:21:36 GMT

Turns out, for me it was a browser issue. Works fine in IE 7, but doesn't work with Firefox 3.0. Firefox being my main browser of course.

Make sure you've got Flash 9 installed for Firefox - it's a separate download from the IE7 one.

Mike

Re: Alfresco Share Flash Preview

benwah1983 — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 08:25:04 GMT

I've been trying to get Alfresco to work on a virgin Ubuntu 8.10 Interpid Ibex server edition installation and ran into this same problem (amongst others…). I am not sure how to fix it.

The symptoms are:
When I load a document (click on a document from the document library), it loads a page, the flash applet loads and the little arrows in the middle just keep spinning forever.

This only happens when I upload documents processed by OOo (.doc, .odt, .pdf). Images are handled perfectly by the flash preview.

I've tried with Firefox 3.03 (Linux) with Flash 9 AND 10, Internet Explorer 6 with Flash9, Internet Explorer 8 with Flash 10 and none seem to work.

I'm currently running alfresco as root until I can get it to work properlly, then I will give run it as its own user.

Here is what I did so far:
-Installed sun-java6-jdk (1.6.0-10) (Deb)
-Installed mysql server (Deb)
-Installed the latest Alfresco Labs 3 (the version available today at Alfresco.com's main download link)
-Installed ImageMagick (Deb)
-Installed all required libs to compile swftools
-Downloaded, and compiled swftools-2008-10-27-2255
-Tested swftools (pdf2swf works fine)
-Downloaded and installed OpenOffice.org 3.0's debs
-Configured Alfresco to use MySQL (based mainly on instructions provided on http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Installing_Labs_3_on_Linux_with_command_line_interface)

My alfresco.sh:


#!/bin/sh
# Start or stop Alfresco server
# Set the following to where Tomcat is installed
ALF_HOME=/opt/Alfresco
cd "$ALF_HOME"
APPSERVER="${ALF_HOME}/tomcat"
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.10/
# Set any default JVM values
export JAVA_OPTS='-Xms128m -Xmx512m -XX:MaxPermSize=128m -server'
# Following only needed for Sun JVMs before to 1.5 update 8
export JAVA_OPTS="${JAVA_OPTS} -XX:CompileCommand=exclude,org/apache/lucene/index/IndexReader\$1,doBody -XX:CompileCommand=exclude,org/alfresco/repo/search/impl/lucene/index/IndexInfo\$Merger,mergeIndexes -XX:CompileCommand=exclude,org/alfresco/repo/search/impl/lucene/index/IndexInfo\$Merger,mergeDeletions"
#
if [ "$1" = "start" ]; then
  if [ -r "$ALF_HOME"/start_oo.sh ]; then
    sh "$ALF_HOME"/start_oo.sh
  fi
  "${APPSERVER}/bin/startup.sh"
#  if [ -r ./virtual_start.sh ]; then
#    sh ./virtual_start.sh
#  fi
elif [ "$1" = "stop" ]; then
  "${APPSERVER}/bin/shutdown.sh"
#  if [ -r ./virtual_start.sh ]; then
#    sh ./virtual_stop.sh
#  fi
  if [ -r "$ALF_HOME"/start_oo.sh ]; then
    killall soffice.bin
  fi
fi‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

This is the content of my start_oo.sh:

/opt/openoffice.org3/program/soffice "-accept=socket,host=localhost,port=8100;urp;StarOffice.ServiceManager" "-env:UserInstallation=file:////opt/openoffice.org3" -nologo -headless -nofirststartwizard -nocrashrep -norestore &‍

I can confirm soffice.bin runs fine, everytime I upload a document, soffice.bin shows up in "top". In addition, a thumbnail of the documents is created (doc, odt and pdf), so I guess OOo reads the document fine.

Here is the output of Alfresco:

CompilerOracle: exclude org/apache/lucene/index/IndexReader$1.doBody
CompilerOracle: exclude org/alfresco/repo/search/impl/lucene/index/IndexInfo$Merger.mergeIndexes
CompilerOracle: exclude org/alfresco/repo/search/impl/lucene/index/IndexInfo$Merger.mergeDeletions
4-Nov-2008 3:11:49 AM org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11BaseProtocol init
INFO: Initializing Coyote HTTP/1.1 on http-8080
4-Nov-2008 3:11:50 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina load
INFO: Initialization processed in 7573 ms
4-Nov-2008 3:11:51 AM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService start
INFO: Starting service Catalina
4-Nov-2008 3:11:51 AM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine start
INFO: Starting Servlet Engine: Apache Tomcat/5.5.23
4-Nov-2008 3:11:51 AM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost start
INFO: XML validation disabled
4-Nov-2008 3:11:57 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig deployWAR
INFO: Deploying web application archive share.war
03:12:28,874  INFO  [web.site.FrameworkHelper] Successfully Initialized Web Framework
4-Nov-2008 3:12:29 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig deployWAR
INFO: Deploying web application archive alfresco.war
03:15:15,823  INFO  [config.xml.XMLConfigService$PropertyConfigurer] Loading properties file from class path resource [alfresco/file-servers.properties]
03:16:51,377  INFO  [domain.schema.SchemaBootstrap] Schema managed by database dialect org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLInnoDBDialect.
03:16:57,314  INFO  [domain.schema.SchemaBootstrap] No changes were made to the schema.
03:17:15,006 User:System INFO  [repo.admin.ConfigurationChecker] The Alfresco root data directory ('dir.root') is: /opt/Alfresco/alf_data
03:17:15,524 User:System INFO  [admin.patch.PatchExecuter] Checking for patches to apply …
03:17:18,011 User:System INFO  [admin.patch.PatchExecuter] No patches were required.
03:17:18,030 User:System INFO  [repo.module.ModuleServiceImpl] Found 0 module(s).
03:17:24,726 User:System INFO  [service.descriptor.DescriptorService] Alfresco JVM - v1.6.0_10-b33; maximum heap size 506.313MB
03:17:24,730 User:System INFO  [service.descriptor.DescriptorService] Alfresco started (Labs): Current version 3.0.0 (b 1164) schema 131 - Installed version 3.0.0 (b 1164) schema 131
03:17:26,480 User:System WARN  [alfresco.linkvalidation.LinkValidationServiceImpl] LinkValidationService Update is not running (virtualization server not registered or started)
4-Nov-2008 3:18:35 AM org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11BaseProtocol start
INFO: Starting Coyote HTTP/1.1 on http-8080
4-Nov-2008 3:18:36 AM org.apache.catalina.storeconfig.StoreLoader load
INFO: Find registry server-registry.xml at classpath resource
4-Nov-2008 3:18:37 AM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina start
INFO: Server startup in 407283 ms‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Re: Alfresco Share Flash Preview

kraemer — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:03:05 GMT

When I load a document (click on a document from the document library), it loads a page, the flash applet loads and the little arrows in the middle just keep spinning forever.
This only happens when I upload documents processed by OOo (.doc, .odt, .pdf). Images are handled perfectly by the flash preview.

Confirmed. Same here. Setup identical.
A normal 'pdf' transformed on commandline via 'pdf2swf' can be viewed in Firefox.

I guess the pdf file is transformed on demand using 'pdf2swf' and streamed to the browser, right? At least I could not find a .swf rendition in the repository.
How to debug this ? Only debugging output I could find (log4j) was something like this:

/api/node/workspace/SpacesStore/02a38305-ae29-40b1-ae0e-a41a5382493e/content/thumbnails/webpreview
15:02:21,509 DEBUG [web.scripts.DeclarativeRegistry] Web Script index lookup for uri /api/node/workspace/SpacesStore/02a38305-ae29-40b1-ae0e-a41a5382493e/content/thumbnails/webpreview took 0.592714ms
15:02:21,510 DEBUG [scripts.servlet.WebScriptServletRequest] Content Type: null
15:02:21,561 DEBUG [web.scripts.AbstractRuntime] Agent: null

Any hint would be greatly appreciated.

Re: Alfresco Share Flash Preview

jeckman — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 14:36:05 GMT

I'm having the same issue.

You can see in /opt/alfresco/tomcat/temp/Alfresco (exact path might vary based on where you've put temp files) the interim docs from the transform:

ImageMagickContentTransform_init_source_39434.gif
ImageMagickContentTransformer_init_target_39435.png
PDFToSWFContentTransformer_source_39453.pdf
PDFToSWFContentTransformer_target_39454.swf

I can even open the _target_39454.swf in an SWF player and see that it is a flash movie with each page from the pdf as a frame.

However, from the web side, in FF 3 or Safari, all I get is the spinning dark grey circle - no error message.

This makes me believe it is not an issue with pdf2swf, or ImageMagick, or soffice transformations, but an issue with the swf that is supposed to display the preview.

Image previews work fine, and the pdfs and office docs do get a custom thumbnail in the document library list.

Re: Alfresco Share Flash Preview

mikeh — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 14:48:25 GMT

Which version of pdf2swf do you have installed?

Re: Alfresco Share Flash Preview

jeckman — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 17:00:04 GMT

Which version of pdf2swf do you have installed?

swftools 2008-10-27-2255

Compiled from source out of CVS.

Re: Alfresco Share Flash Preview

chr_ypma — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 13:18:03 GMT

i have exactly the same problem, anybody already came up with a solution?

Re: Alfresco Share Flash Preview

gaebriel — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:26:31 GMT

Same problem here. As mentioned by previous posters, the image preview works so I get a thumbnail of the first page in the document library list, but the flash movie only comes across as the spinning arrows on a dark grey background.

I've experienced the same result on CentOS 5.2 x86 and x64 builds - both with the most recent updates. I followed the documentation at http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Installing_Labs_3_on_Linux_with_command_line_interface and switched to a MySQL database server. I downloaded and compiled the latest version of swftools (2008-11-12) http://www.swftools.org/swftools-2008-11-12-0905.tar.gz.

I've tried Firefox 3.0.4 on windows and Linux, with flash 10 on windows and flash 9 on linux. I've also tried IE7 on Windows with Flash 10 and it fails. I'd happily provide any additional details for anyone that thinks they might be able to solve this. TIA.

Re: Alfresco Share Flash Preview

benswitzer — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:24:52 GMT

When I started this thread, I thought this was a server side issue. Turns out it was client side, at least for me.

Running the latest build of Share from the SVN, along with the latest build of SWFTools I can see the Flash preview in IE 7 with Flash 9 or 10. It doesn't work (other than the spinning wheel) in Firefox.

I know this isn't all that helpful, but just wanted to let people know what my experiences have been thus far.

Re: Alfresco Share Flash Preview

jeckman — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:30:00 GMT

There's definitely a client side part of the issue, but I still think the problem is something server side that some clients manage to handle and others don't.

Without changing anything in my install, but hitting it from a windows machine on my local network, I can see the previews fine in IE 7. (This IE 7 tells me it is running flash player 9,0,45,0 says http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/about)

Same windows machine, Firefox 3, just the spinning beach ball. (With flash player 10,0,12, 36).

Different windows machine (VMWare Fusion running on the mac) with Flash Player 10,0,12,26 - spinning beach ball.

Safari, Cruz, Camino, FF 3, on Mac OS all failed - all running flash player 9,0,124,0).

Maybe the trick is a flash player old enough?

Re: Alfresco Share Flash Preview

jeckman — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:44:38 GMT

Upgraded Flash Player on Mac OS X to the latest - still has same problem (spinning beach ball).

Maybe it is an older Flash PLayer 9 that's required?

Re: Alfresco Share Flash Preview

gaebriel — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:24:06 GMT

I found a link to install previous versions of Flash at http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html. Installing the version 9 ActiveX control content debugger from http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flashplayer/updaters/9/flashplayer_9_ax_debug.exe got me running version 9.0.151.0 according to http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=tn_15507.

My windows workstation I'm testing with is an XP Pro install with SP3 as a VMware Server 2.0 guest. Firefox 3.0.4 with Flash 9.0.151.0 installed still doesn't work, and since I installed that from an old download I had, it's not giving me any debug information. Running IE6 on this machine pops up these errors now when I try to preview a PDF file.

VerifyError: Error #1107: The ABC data is corrupt, attempt to read out of bounds.
ReferenceError: Error #1065: Variable MainTimeline is not defined.

After taking a snapshot and upgrading to IE7 and installing the debugging flash 9 ActiveX control again and verifying I'm runing version 9.0.151.0. I still get the same errors.

VerifyError: Error #1107: The ABC data is corrupt, attempt to read out of bounds.
ReferenceError: Error #1065: Variable MainTimeline is not defined.

Do these debugging errors help anyone?

Re: Alfresco Share Flash Preview

gaebriel — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:38:56 GMT

According to http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/SDK-14054 at least one of these errors - #1107 started happening after Flash version 9.0.45. Looking more closely at a couple posts ago, I see the guy who got it working in IE7 was running Flash 9.0.45. Perhaps a different version of the swftools… I'll try to test this when I get a chance and let you all know what I find. In the meantime, anyone that has a good solution, please let me know! Thanks.

Re: Alfresco Share Flash Preview

chr_ypma — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 09:36:40 GMT

I will test different versions of Flash on both Vista(firefox and IE8) and MacOSX (firefox and Safari), post my results later this day.

from http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=tn_14266 I downloaded all versions, from v9r115 on it doesn't work anymore. The latest release working as far as I can see now is v9.47.

Re: Alfresco Share Flash Preview

jeckman — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:41:18 GMT

I will test different versions of Flash on both Vista(firefox and IE8) and MacOSX (firefox and Safari), post my results later this day.

Thanks - I was not very rigorous in my testing to note the trio of OS version (Windows XP), Browser Version (IE 7) and Flash version (10,x,x,x). It would be good to have verification, though I think we'll find nothing later than 9.0.47 works.

I didn't see a specific issue for this in the Alfresco Enterprise 3.0 Jira - once you gather the data, can you open one?