Error when running through Jenkins

[graue70]

When I run OfficeToPDF on the command line in Windows Server 2016 with Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2019 installed, everything works perfectly. If instead I let Jenkins run the same command on the same machine, I get the following message: 'Object reference not set to an instance of an object.' The task manager shows the process 'Microsoft Word' with 51% CPU load. It runs indefinitely and I need to stop it manually. It then adds 'Did not convert' to the output.

I tried the versions 1.3.0.0, 1.8.0.0 and 1.8.22.0 which show equal behaviour.

Can you tell me what's going on? What is the difference between me running the command and Jenkins running the command?

These seem to be similar problems, but there is no solution mentioned: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24860351/object-reference-not-set-to-an-instance-of-an-object-did-not-convert https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11796414/convert-ms-office-to-pdf/11796615

[vittala]

Could be a permission issue. Is Jenkins running as a service?

It's possible the user Jenkins is running under doesn't have sufficient permissions to properly run Word. Have a look at https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsdesktop/en-US/742e4b7c-594d-4c10-8bae-f8d398d0e190/windows-service-running-word-via-dcom?forum=windowscompatibility#ec7bea31-4d88-4128-b09d-4cf40421d545 for some suggestions, namely:

• Create a desktop folder that the Jenkins user can make use of. All the Office applications assume they're running in an interactive environment so assume there's a desktop they can access.
• Set up the DCOM permissions for Word to ensure it run interactively

Regards Vittal

[graue70]

I could not change the DCOM permissions because “HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AppID\WINWORD.EXE” does not exist.

Before, I had already tried fixing the problem by creating "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\config\systemprofile\Desktop". I thought this was the correct location because it is a 64 bit system. However, this reasoning seems to be wrong, because creating "C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\Desktop" did indeed fix the problem. The directory at the "SysWOW64" location is not even necessary.

Problem solved. Thank you for your help.