That's great news. Until then... what workaround is recommended to show my PDFs? While nothing freezes or crashes, some PDFs just aren't rendered.
Will setting the "Insecure: Display all attachments inline" option still come with the possibility of crashing our Confluence instance?

ingomar https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONF-26417 was resolved as 'Won't Fix' two years ago. A lot changed since that time - pdf.js matured and server side rendering is not that much efficient anymore.

One of teams is currently working on client side renderring of pdf/word/excel and other document types. pdf.js is one of technologies used. There is no ETA on release date though.

Hi All

There still seems to be rather a lot of discussion around this issue and I wanted to provide an update. I've update the fix version of this issue as there were further changes made after the release of 5.3.1. We believe that we have now fixed the specific issue relating to Confluence crashing when visualising a PDF with Diagrams that have cubic bezier curves and as such this issue will remain resolved.

We are aware that there are still issues in the rendering of PDF documents. A number of you have commented that you're are seeing a lot of noise in your log files. We are currently tracking these issues: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONF-32266 (ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException), https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONF-33107 (NullPointerException).

For those of you with issues relating to the instability caused by the office connector there is a separate issue for this: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONF-25421.

I hope that this helps clear some of the noise around this issue. We are working hard on improving the stability of this feature. Please keep watching the other tickets listed here for further updates.

Regards
Steve Haffenden
Confluence Bugmaster
Atlassian

What is the solution for this bug? The ticket status says Resolved, but besides the workaround (which, I prefer not to comment on that...) I couldn't find the instructions to resolve the issue. Please, can anybody point me out to the instructions to solve this issue?

I'm also seeing errors on Confluence 5.5 and Office Connector 3.3.3

Confluence is not crashing, but it fails to preview certain PDFs and logs the following error:

[com.benryan.conversion.PPTSlideServlet] doGet Conversion task timed out for attachment : Bonusbond_Retailer_Checksheet.pdf with page number 0, waited : 300, now executing in background.

We've had 650 instances of this since my server restart this morning. We're running Confluence 5.5 with Office Connector 3.3.3.

Using Confluence 5.2.5

We have upgraded the Office Connector Plugin to version 3.14.1 and disabled the viewfile and viewppt macros. This solution appears to have stopped the problem that caused the application to fail when viewing the PDF files, but it is less than 'acceptable'.

If these macros are enabled the application still hangs up when viewing some pptx files especially if the Powerpoint presentations have bullet points. PPT files do not seem to have this problem, but some PPTX files appear to have an adverse impact.

It is just not acceptable to have a plugin macro enabled if the result causes application instability. We also found that if these macros are enabled and the content wont render then a bunch of threads get created. These threads just keep running until a restart without returning to the thread pool.

Please let me known when an if this plugin works correctly in Confluence.

HERCULES pointed me to this ticket on the mentioned error message in the log file,
though the file mentioned is a pptx, not a pdf !
(though it is PPTSlideServlet as in this ticket)

2014-06-04 13:38:35,181 WARN [http-8180-80] [com.benryan.conversion.PPTSlideServlet] doGet Conversion task timed out for attachment : testfile.pptx with page number 0, waited : 300, now executing in background.

Our Confluence version is 5.4.4, so according to this ticket, the issue should have been resolved already.

What does this error mean? Is it critical, as this ticket indicates?
Is it the same issue or a different one?
Is it a Hercules mistake pointing to this ticket?

I have the same Issue, We run CF 5.2.5 and Office Connector 3.1.1
We need a fix, urgency

Confluence v5.2.5 with Office Connector Plugin v3.1.1

grammsc What version are you on?

We need you to support the current versions of Confluence! Some of us are not going to be allowed to upgrade from Confluence 5.x at this time.

How can this be fixed in the current versions?

scott.sard Bad news - I installed 5.3.1 locally and can reproduce jvm crash. And I have to say that root cause is different from what I observed in Panasonic_NiMH_HHR70AAAJ.pdf.

Good news - I tried this file on latest version(5.5) and your files renders just fine with modest -Xmx1024M -XX:MaxPermSize=256m.

5.5 is not made public yet, but it's very closed to be released - most likely with next two weeks.

coral I could confirm that your file doesn't render properly with latest version of confluence (5.5 is affected as well), but for me it doesn't cause whole instance to crash. Only errors in log files. Could you please let me know what OS and java version are you on?

Also, since it's power point, not pdf file I've created separate issue - https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONF-33107. Right now it has major priority, but if we will found a way to crash jvm it will be Critical.

I have uploaded the file, "Scrum Basics (1).pptx", that seems to be the one leading to crashes most often. It always fails to render in 5.4.2 but it does not always lead to a crash (and only when shown in a pdf preview).

As a workaround, I have disabled the modules in the Microsoft Office Connector plug-in that seem related to pdf conversion for preview. I can see the the logs that the renderer/converter is no longer running. So far three days without a crash. My longest period since 5.4.2 was 6 days so we will see.

Related docs: https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Configuring+the+Office+Connector

I disabled:

Link for previewing an attachment(preview)
viewdoc (legacy)
viewdoc (viewdoc)
viewppt (viewppt-legacy)
viewppt (viewppt)
viewpdf (viewpdf-legacy)
viewpdf (viewpdf)
PPT slide web service(pptslideservlet)

scott.sard coral sorry to hear that you are having crashes. Would you be able to attach offending files to this issue?

Path wit cubic bezier curve is well tested and it's low chance that this issue need to be reopened, Most likely it's quadratic or one of higher-order curves which causes problems.

I think these comments are saving my sanity. We have been experiencing random crashes on 5.4.2. With the information in your comments I have been able trace the same set of events. The renderer never works on problem documents and in the logs prior to a crash there is always issues with the renderer, sometimes resulting in an exception being thrown. I am going to clone my site into an AWS instance so I can do some destructive testing and see if I can find repeatable steps that lead to a crash. I hope we can get Atlassian to reopen this issue.

I am also experiencing the same result, I generated several PDF files yesterday for our network documentation and while most worked using the pdf display macro one did not.

This one caused the Atlassian service to stop. Like the description to this case this was also the only .pdf to use bezier curves.. It was generated in Microsoft visio.

In the logs were the same type of message Chris Johnson posted several comments above (waited 300, now executing in background ones)

2014-03-24 17:53:42,714 WARN [http-8090-4] [confluence.extra.calendar3.DefaultJodaIcal4jTimeZoneMapper] getTimeZoneIdsSupportedByJodaAndIcal4j Time zone IDs not supported (58): [HST, EET, GMT0, Etc/GMT+7, Etc/GMT+6, CST6CDT, UTC, Etc/GMT+5, Etc/GMT+4, EST5EDT, Etc/GMT+3, Zulu, MST, Etc/GMT+2, Etc/GMT+1, Etc/GMT+0, Etc/GMT, Universal, Asia/Katmandu, WET, EST, Etc/Greenwich, GMT-0, Etc/UTC, ECT, Etc/GMT-14, Etc/GMT-13, Etc/GMT-12, Etc/GMT-11, Etc/GMT-10, PST8PDT, MST7MDT, Etc/GMT-1, GMT, Etc/GMT-0, Etc/GMT+11, Etc/GMT+12, Etc/GMT-5, Etc/GMT+10, Etc/GMT-4, Etc/GMT-3, Etc/GMT-2, Etc/GMT-9, Etc/GMT-8, Etc/GMT-7, Etc/GMT-6, Etc/GMT+8, Etc/GMT+9, Greenwich, UCT, Etc/UCT, MET, CET, Etc/Universal, Etc/Zulu, AST, GMT+0, Etc/GMT0]
– url: /display/netsup/Network+Support+Home+Page | userName: <redacted> | action: viewpage | page: 852332
2014-03-24 17:53:49,188 WARN [http-8090-4] [atlassian.confluence.cache.TransactionalCacheFactory] put Transactional cache update outside transaction. All updates to this cache should be performed from a thread with a valid transaction context.
– referer: http://tmcwiki:8090/display/netsup/Network+Support+Home+Page | url: /rest/ia/1.0/spaces/recent | userName: <redacted>
2014-03-24 17:54:05,927 WARN [http-8090-7] [com.benryan.conversion.PPTSlideServlet] doGet Conversion task timed out for attachment : CCTV IBC 1.pdf with page number 0, waited : 300, now executing in background.

The last message was repeated 21 more times.

I am (hopefully) attaching the offending .pdf file to this comment.

gargouri22 original issue is about java process completely crashing, so whole confluence goes down.

Are you seeing the same, or it's warning messages in log files?

If process crashes - can you attach sample pdf?

Could you please reopen this issue as it is not fixed using the latest versions: Confluence v5.4.3 and Office connector v3.1.4.1?

WARN [http-12202-9] [com.benryan.conversion.PPTSlideServlet] doGet Conversion task timed out for attachment : xxxx.pdf with page number 0, waited : 300, now executing in background.
– url: /fpfis/wikis/plugins/servlet/pptslide

also getting these in 5.4.2
atlassian-confluence.log.2:2014-03-10 12:35:03,364 WARN [http-8080-174] [com.benryan.conversion.PPTSlideServlet] doGet Conversion task timed out for attachment : Learning_Python_Fourth_Edition-1.pdf with page number 0, waited : 300, now executing in background.
atlassian-confluence.log.2:2014-03-10 12:35:03,476 WARN [http-8080-2] [com.benryan.conversion.PPTSlideServlet] doGet Conversion task timed out for attachment : Python_for_Data_Analysis.pdf with page number 0, waited : 300, now executing in background.
atlassian-confluence.log.2:2014-03-10 12:35:03,602 WARN [http-8080-90] [com.benryan.conversion.PPTSlideServlet] doGet Conversion task timed out for attachment : Think_Bayes.pdf with page number 0, waited : 300, now executing in background.
atlassian-confluence.log.2:2014-03-10 12:35:03,931 WARN [http-8080-200] [com.benryan.conversion.PPTSlideServlet] doGet Conversion task timed out for attachment : Hadoop_The_Definitive_Guide.pdf with page number 0, waited : 300, now executing in background.
atlassian-confluence.log.2:2014-03-10 12:35:04,089 WARN [http-8080-174] [com.benryan.conversion.PPTSlideServlet] doGet Conversion task timed out for attachment : R_in_a_Nutshell.pdf with page number 0, waited : 300, now executing in background.
atlassian-confluence.log.2:2014-03-10 12:35:04,553 WARN [http-8080-90] [com.benryan.conversion.PPTSlideServlet] doGet Conversion task timed out for attachment : Hadoop_The_Definitive_Guide.pdf with page number 0, waited : 300, now executing in background.
atlassian-confluence.log.2:2014-03-10 12:35:04,596 WARN [http-8080-200] [com.benryan.conversion.PPTSlideServlet] doGet Conversion task timed out for attachment : R_in_a_Nutshell.pdf with page number 0, waited : 300, now executing in background.
atlassian-confluence.log.2:2014-03-10 12:51:09,125 WARN [http-8080-22] [com.benryan.conversion.PPTSlideServlet] doGet Conversion task timed out for attachment : Procyclicality.pptx with page number 0, waited : 300, now executing in background.
atlassian-confluence.log.2:2014-03-10 12:51:10,668 WARN [http-8080-51] [com.benryan.conversion.PPTSlideServlet] doGet Conversion task timed out for attachment : Procyclicality.pptx with page number 0, waited : 300, now executing in background.

hsuhailah thanks! I've created https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONF-32266 to track this one.

I don't think I'll be able to fix it soon because of other streams of work, but definitely will fix that during big-bang pdf rendering fix.

Hey psemeniuk,

I was referring to this warning message:

2013-09-10 16:33:37,774 WARN [http-8523-3] [com.benryan.conversion.PPTSlideServlet] doGet Conversion task timed out for attachment : Panasonic_NiMH_HHR70AAAJ.pdf with page number 0, waited : 300, now executing in background.
 -- url: /confluence/plugins/servlet/pptslide | userName: admin.

hsuhailah sorry for slow response on this one.

Can you specify which warning message are you referring to?

Hey psemeniuk, in 5.4 with the same PDF file attached, I still get the warning message (as per above) although there is no problem displaying the PDF file in Confluence page. It seems to be a noise in the logs, any way to get rid of it?

Hi colling current solution we're using for pdf rendering known to be prone to crashes and it's replacement is already on roadmap.

Regarding this particular issue (crash while rendering cubic Bezier curve) - it was resolved, fix was confirmed with customer and pdf document causing it was incorporated into our test suite.

I might be wrong, but you have different issues - could you please create another ticket (feel free to assign straightaway to me) and attach pdf file which causes problem. If it contains sensitive information you could set attachment visibility to 'Developers and Reporters' only.

We still see this error in Confluence 5.4 with Office Connector 3.1.4

Fix is in Office Connector version 3.1.3.

Attached stack.txt is typical jvm stack dump produced while crashing on computing cubic Bezier curve.