3.4c Community OpenOffice not previewing

[martin_main]

I have just loaded up Alfresco 3.4c community and openoffice previewing no longer works. I had noted that this was disabled in the config file and enabled this, but it still does not allow previewing stating that 'The preview could not be loaded from the server'. No errors are evident in the log file that suggest any problem. Any idea what this might be?

[mboyd]

I'm assuming you are running windows with default installation path…

Rename C:\Alfresco\OpenOffice\Scripts\OpenOffice_serviceinstall.bat to serviceinstall.bat

Run C:\Alfresco\serviceinstall.bat INSTALL

Make sure you have 3 Alfresco services running on server.

[martin_main]

Sorry, I should have mentioned that I am runnning on Centos 5.5

[heiko_robert]

I manually installed 3.4.c on Ubuntu and this works fine (not using the installer).
What is configured in your tomcat/shared/classes/alfresco-global.properties for # External locations?
e.g.
ooo.exe=soffice
ooo.enabled=true

In my example soffice has to be in the path to work. If not, try to configure the full path to your soffice binary.
could you see an soffice process after starting alfresco? Do a 'ps aux|grep soffice'

Alfresco tries to start a command line process defined in: tomcat/webapps/alfresco/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/subsystems/OOoDirect/default/openoffice-transform-context.xml
You could try to start the process manually on the command as alfresco user e.g.:
<full-path-to>/soffice.bin -accept=socket,host=127.0.0.1,port=8100;urp;StarOffice.ServiceManager -env:UserInstallation=file:///opt/alfresco/alf_data/oouser -nologo -headless -nofirststartwizard -nocrashrep -norestore

[martin_main]

I have the following configuration and soffice is a running process

### External executable locations ###
ooo.exe=/opt/alfresco-3.4.c/openoffice/program/soffice.bin
ooo.enabled=true
ooo.port=8100

[heiko_robert]

please try to start the open office process manually executing the following command as OS user starting alfresco

/opt/alfresco-3.4.c/openoffice/program/soffice.bin -accept=socket,host=127.0.0.1,port=8100;urp;StarOffice.ServiceManager -env:UserInstallation=file:///opt/alfresco-3.4.c/oouser -nologo -headless -nofirststartwizard -nocrashrep -norestore‍

If everything is ok you should be able to see the process using 'ps aux|grep soffice'
If not try to install open office in the latest version (3.2.0) http://download.openoffice.org/other.html#tested-full and change the variable ooo.exe= to reflect your installation.

[marcozanella]

Hi, I have a similar problem: I can upload a .doc file (Word 2010 - compatibility mode) and I can see the thumbnail image in the Document Library, but then, when I click on it and expect to see a bigger Flash preview, I get a message that says: "Impossible to create the preview in teh server" [Translation from the italian] [How can I say Share I would like to run in English, although I have an IT setting somwhere?]

I have followed this thread and ended installing openoffice -headless from the net. I, then, changed the path in alfreasco-global.properties and restarted alfresco. All went fine.

I renamed the alfresco.log and restarted.
All is known or fine but this:
13:27:48,694 WARN  [org.alfresco.util.OpenOfficeConnectionTester] An initial OpenOffice connection could not be established.
13:27:48,745 INFO  [org.alfresco.repo.management.subsystems.ChildApplicationContextFactory] Startup of 'OOoDirect' subsystem, ID: [OOoDirect, default] complete

FYI my port 8100 doesn't seems toi be open when the concole becomes available (I use nmap)
So the problem may also be that there is not an openoffice listening on that port

Any help would be highly appreciated.
Thanks
Marco

[heiko_robert]

Hi Marco,
unfortunately in share you can't set the language manually. You have change the browser config to accept e.g en, en_US instead of it, it_IT and to delete the cookies from alfresco to take affect.
Do you run Alfresco on Linux? Could you start soffice on the command line as descibed before?
If you have a thumbnail in the list mode soffice should have run at least once, because alfresco first converts from office to pdf and then from pdf to png (in detail alfresco converts the office to pdf twice - once to get the thumbnail and second to get the flash).
In most cases there is an error in the soffice launch command or you try to start the wrong binaries on your platform.
I like to resolve these issues to use the OpenOffice version from the package manager of your OS-distribution or to install from OO downloads (3.2. version would be best), because this works and allows to choose a version which supports also your primary language. If you installed OO this way you can try to run soffice as described above and if this works change the ooo.exe=soffice
If you still get a preview for new office documents an no flash works, the error seems to be related to pdf2swf. Install SWFTOOLS from your package manager and correct the path in alfresco-global.properties (e.g. swf.exe=/usr/bin/pdf2swf). You have to restart alfresco after these changes.

[marcozanella]

Hi Robert,
I have a Linux machine with no GUI, just command line. I could change it, but rather stay like that.
When I said that I installed OO I made sudo yum install openoffice.org-headless
That brought a bunch of dependancies and firxed the thumbnail problem. Before doing this even the thumbnail were not working.
Of course I changed the alfresco-global.properties file to the new install. So nnow ooo.exe is pointing in /usr/lib….. and not anymor ein /opt/alfresco-3.4.c/openoffice…
I will have a try soon to pdf2swf, that may help.
I will keep you posted
Marco

[heiko_robert]

Hi Marco,
there is no need for any GUI. All the systems we take care of just have a terminal / command line.
Heiko