topic Re: Previewer never loads document. in Alfresco Archive

Previewer never loads document.

jrosengren — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:05:38 GMT

I'm trying to get the Flash previewer to work in Share. I'm using 3.2r and have OpenOffice 3 and swftools 0.9 installed on CentOS 5.4.When I click on a Word document in Share, the document information page displays correctly, and the flash previewer loads correctly, however, the spinning progress i

Re: Previewer never loads document.

mikkoko — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:45:22 GMT

Just to confirm I see this also on 3.2r, running on Linux with OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 installed from the official tar.gz packet and swftools compiled from version 2009-08-24-2042

For example, I have one 6MB Word 2003 document with a lot of pictures which loads almost instantly - and then there's one 305KB Word 2003 document with just some text, and that never loads, the "progress circle" just keeps spinning..

I'd also like to know how to debug this.

Re: Previewer never loads document.

mikeh — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:20:55 GMT

You can raise the logging level on the org.alfresco.repo.content.transform package to try and see what's happening.

Thanks,
Mike

Re: Previewer never loads document.

jrosengren — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:53:48 GMT

Sorry, I'm fairly new to Alfresco - can you post the magic incantation for doing that?

Thanks!

Re: Previewer never loads document.

mikeh — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:37:58 GMT

Set

log4j.logger.org.alfresco.repo.content.transform=debug‍

in dev-log4j.properties. This wiki article will help you with the properties file: http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Developer_Runtime_Configuration#Configuring_Log4J

Thanks,
Mike

Re: Previewer never loads document.

jrosengren — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:38:43 GMT

Thanks, Mike. I'll do some logging and see what shows up.

Re: Previewer never loads document.

jrosengren — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:37:13 GMT

I enabled DEBUG logging for the transform subsystem and this is what I see in the log for a file that never loads:

09:30:40,118 DEBUG [org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.ContentTransformerRegistry] Searched for transformer:
   source mimetype: application/msword
   target mimetype: image/png
   transformers: [ComplexContentTransformer[ average=0ms]]
09:30:40,119 DEBUG [org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.ContentTransformerRegistry] Searched for transformer:
   source mimetype: application/msword
   target mimetype: image/png
   transformers: [ComplexContentTransformer[ average=0ms]]
09:30:40,119 DEBUG [org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.ContentTransformerRegistry] Searched for transformer:
   source mimetype: application/msword
   target mimetype: image/jpeg
   transformers: [ComplexContentTransformer[ average=0ms]]
09:30:40,119 DEBUG [org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.ContentTransformerRegistry] Searched for transformer:
   source mimetype: application/msword
   target mimetype: image/png
   transformers: [ComplexContentTransformer[ average=0ms]]
09:30:40,120 DEBUG [org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.ContentTransformerRegistry] Searched for transformer:
   source mimetype: application/msword
   target mimetype: application/x-shockwave-flash
   transformers: [ComplexContentTransformer[ average=0ms]]
‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Here's what I see when I select a document that *does* load the preview:

09:31:55,141 DEBUG [org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.ContentTransformerRegistry] Searched for transformer:
   source mimetype: application/msword
   target mimetype: image/png
   transformers: [ComplexContentTransformer[ average=0ms]]
09:31:55,156 DEBUG [org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.ContentTransformerRegistry] Searched for transformer:
   source mimetype: application/msword
   target mimetype: image/png
   transformers: [ComplexContentTransformer[ average=0ms]]
09:31:55,165 DEBUG [org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.ContentTransformerRegistry] Searched for transformer:
   source mimetype: application/msword
   target mimetype: image/png
   transformers: [ComplexContentTransformer[ average=0ms]]
09:31:55,175 DEBUG [org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.ContentTransformerRegistry] Searched for transformer:
   source mimetype: application/msword
   target mimetype: image/png
   transformers: [ComplexContentTransformer[ average=0ms]]
09:31:56,322 DEBUG [org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.AbstractContentTransformer2] Completed transformation:
   reader: ContentAccessor[ contentUrl=store://2009/11/13/13/51/031902f3-a54e-4fa4-8c47-389a8d88bf46.bin, mimetype=application/msword, size=100352, encoding=utf-8, locale=en_US]
   writer: ContentAccessor[ contentUrl=store:///export/home/alfresco/tomcat/temp/Alfresco/ComplextTransformer_intermediate_doc_7091404937296537632.pdf, mimetype=application/pdf, size=170154, encoding=UTF-8, locale=en_US]
   options: org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.magick.ImageTransformationOptions@452467ec
   transformer: ProxyContentTransformer[ average=1166ms]
09:31:56,620 DEBUG [org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.AbstractContentTransformer2] Completed transformation:
   reader: ContentAccessor[ contentUrl=store://2009/11/13/13/51/6fdd880d-0f7b-43ce-a5ee-f7f76fad6853.bin, mimetype=application/msword, size=50176, encoding=utf-8, locale=en_US]
   writer: ContentAccessor[ contentUrl=store:///export/home/alfresco/tomcat/temp/Alfresco/ComplextTransformer_intermediate_doc_8858888978201441383.pdf, mimetype=application/pdf, size=137030, encoding=UTF-8, locale=en_US]
   options: org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.magick.ImageTransformationOptions@452467ec
   transformer: ProxyContentTransformer[ average=1304ms]
09:31:58,242 DEBUG [org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.AbstractContentTransformer2] Completed transformation:
   reader: ContentAccessor[ contentUrl=store:///export/home/alfresco/tomcat/temp/Alfresco/ComplextTransformer_intermediate_doc_8858888978201441383.pdf, mimetype=application/pdf, size=137030, encoding=UTF-8, locale=en_US]
   writer: ContentAccessor[ contentUrl=store:///export/home/alfresco/tomcat/temp/Alfresco/ComplextTransformer_intermediate_pdf_5239028089224982420.png, mimetype=image/png, size=64763, encoding=UTF-8, locale=en_US]
   options: org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.magick.ImageTransformationOptions@452467ec
   transformer: PdfToImageContentTransformer[ average=1622ms]
09:31:58,254 DEBUG [org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.AbstractContentTransformer2] Completed transformation:
   reader: ContentAccessor[ contentUrl=store:///export/home/alfresco/tomcat/temp/Alfresco/ComplextTransformer_intermediate_doc_7091404937296537632.pdf, mimetype=application/pdf, size=170154, encoding=UTF-8, locale=en_US]
   writer: ContentAccessor[ contentUrl=store:///export/home/alfresco/tomcat/temp/Alfresco/ComplextTransformer_intermediate_pdf_8802906912177945054.png, mimetype=image/png, size=91581, encoding=UTF-8, locale=en_US]
   options: org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.magick.ImageTransformationOptions@452467ec
   transformer: PdfToImageContentTransformer[ average=1775ms]
….SNIP…..‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

I see a ton of other stuff at the end of the successful preview log entries, which I won't paste unless it looks necessary.

Any idea what's going on here? Does it seem significant that the .docx file was successful while the .doc file wasn't?

Thanks,

– jeremy

Re: Previewer never loads document.

jrosengren — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:52:29 GMT

Bump.

Any suggestions? It'd be nice to have preview working for all documents. If there's any other information I can dig up or things to try, I'm game.

Re: Previewer never loads document.

mikeh — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:32:27 GMT

Nothing obvious in the log trace. Can OpenOffice (standalone) open the .doc file ok?

Thanks,
Mike

Re: Previewer never loads document.

jrosengren — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:16:53 GMT

Right after bumping this thread, I went out to look for updates and noticed that 3.2 r2 was available.

I upgrade to 3.2 r2 and now the document previewer does finish loading, except that the now what happens is that the size of the window seems to be really, really large - you have to scroll all the way to the left and all the way up to see the document, which by default is extremely tiny. Changing the zoom slider does work, although it resets the sliders on the previewer frame so that you have to scroll again to see the larger document.

So something in the latest build seems to have resolved the problem of the previewer never loading, but now doesn't seem to completely understand how to size the previewer window.

Has anybody seen anything like this with 3.2 r2?

Thanks!

Re: Previewer never loads document.

tstolpma — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 11:48:08 GMT

I have experienced exactly the same problem with Alfresco 3.2 r2 under CentOS 5.4. The solution here was to uninstall the swftools-0.8.1 RPM via yum which resides at a different path than the precompiled swftools-0.9.0 package mentioned at http://wiki.alfresco.com/wiki/Installing_Alfresco_Community_3.2r_WAR_on_Centos_5.4.

Probably alfresco always picked up the older binary.

HTH

Re: Previewer never loads document.

chrisb — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 10:05:39 GMT

I know this thread is a little old now, but I have seen a very similar issue with Share on Alfresco 3.0SP1 (enterprise) and came across some related information on swftools that may be useful to others.

The issue we are seeing is large complex PDFs (200+ pages with images and tables) are not previewing in Share. The thumbnails generate OK but as soon as you try and preview the docs you just get the spinning preview wheel indefinitely. After chatting with support and doing some googling and a few tests with different PDFs, it seems that the issue I am seeing is related to a limitation within the SWFTools library - there is a maximum complexity of PDF that the SWFTools library can process before it runs out of resources. From what I have read, the complexity is based on the number of objects SWFTools needs to create to process the PDF, so its hard to give guidelines as to when the failure will occur. A long, simple text only PDF may preview fine, but the limit may be reached in fewer pages on a PDF document with a lot of images / tables or diagrams.

The limits are discussed briefly in the last thread in this discussion here:

http://www.mail-archive.com/swftools-common@nongnu.org/msg01965.html

Although the post is 2008, it seems the limit is still a factor based on my own tests with the latest 0.9.1 version of SWFTools. You can test whether non previewing docs are falling foul of the limit my trying to convert the PDF manually using the SWFTools command line tools under Linux, or running the test app that ships with the Windows installer for Windows platforms.

Does anyone know if there are any alternatives to SWFTools or a workaround for this?

At the moment the only solution that comes to mind is asking users to split up longer / more complex PDFs into separate documents which (quite understandably) doesn't go down too well! It does seem to be possible to configure SWFTools to generate previews by converting all content to bitmaps, but the resulting text quality is quite poor and the file sizes are huge.

Re: Previewer never loads document.

zaizi — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 12:18:30 GMT

You can specify a page range argument for pdf2swf and combine the subsequent swf files. You'll have to write a custom transformer to do this in Alfresco.

Ainga

Re: Previewer never loads document.

chrisb — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 12:56:44 GMT

Thanks Ainga - will look into that if there are no easier options.

I did notice when testing with the SWFTools gui app on Windows that if you configure the option to "convert fonts to fonts, everything else to bitmap" transforming the problem PDF completes OK. The image/graphics quality is not fantastic, but I think its acceptable. I just need to work out the bean config settings for the SWF->PDF transform process to make the transform use an equivalent setting.

https://issues.alfresco.com/jira/browse/ETHREEOH-3023 gives some suggestions on this, but it refers to a 3.2 config setup, which is different to the 3.0SP1 setup we are currently running.

If anyone knows the bean config settings I would need to use to make the "convert fonts to fonts, everything else to bitmap" the default for the transformation I would appreciate any pointers. Ideally I'd like to use the extension override mechanism to make the change so as not to interfere with the default Alfresco install.

Thanks