Failed to start and connect to soffice.exe on Windows

[GoogleCodeExporter]

What steps will reproduce the problem?

1. This code will fail with OfficeException: failed to start and connect at 
Windows platforms:

DefaultOfficeManagerConfiguration config =  new 
DefaultOfficeManagerConfiguration();
config.setOfficeHome("C:\\Program Files\\LibreOffice 3.5");
OfficeManager officeManager = config.buildOfficeManager();
officeManager.start();

Stack trace:

org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.OfficeProcess start
INFO: started process
Exception in thread "main" 
org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.OfficeException: failed to start and 
connect
    at org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.ManagedOfficeProcess.startAndWait(ManagedOfficeProcess.java:64)
    at org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.PooledOfficeManager.start(PooledOfficeManager.java:101)
    at org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.ProcessPoolOfficeManager.start(ProcessPoolOfficeManager.java:62)
    at Snippet.main(Snippet.java:13)
Caused by: java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException: 
org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.OfficeException: could not establish 
connection
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerGet(Unknown Source)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.get(Unknown Source)
    at org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.ManagedOfficeProcess.startAndWait(ManagedOfficeProcess.java:62)
    ... 3 more
Caused by: org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.OfficeException: could not 
establish connection
    at org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.ManagedOfficeProcess.doStartProcessAndConnect(ManagedOfficeProcess.java:142)
    at org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.ManagedOfficeProcess.access$0(ManagedOfficeProcess.java:117)
    at org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.ManagedOfficeProcess$1.run(ManagedOfficeProcess.java:58)
    at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Unknown Source)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(Unknown Source)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(Unknown Source)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(Unknown Source)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Caused by: org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.OfficeException: office process 
died with exit code -1073741515
    at org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.ManagedOfficeProcess$6.attempt(ManagedOfficeProcess.java:136)
    at org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.Retryable.execute(Retryable.java:40)
    at org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.Retryable.execute(Retryable.java:30)
    at org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.ManagedOfficeProcess.doStartProcessAndConnect(ManagedOfficeProcess.java:140)
    ... 8 more

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

Windows platform is not supported in method getOfficeExecutable() of class 
org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.OfficeUtils:

public static File getOfficeExecutable(File officeHome)
{
   if (PlatformUtils.isMac()) {
      return new File(officeHome, "MacOS/soffice.bin");
   } else {
      return new File(officeHome, "program/soffice.bin");
   }
}

This method should return the soffice.exe if platform is Windows:

public static File getOfficeExecutable(File officeHome)
{
   if (PlatformUtils.isWindows()) {
      return new File(officeHome, "MacOS/soffice.bin");
   } else if (PlatformUtils.isWindows()) {
      return new File(officeHome, "program/soffice.exe");
   } else {
      return new File(officeHome, "program/soffice.bin");
   }
}

Original issue reported on code.google.com by andreas....@gmail.com on 25 Jan 2012 at 9:03

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I'm sorry, the correct implementation should look like this:

public static File getOfficeExecutable(File officeHome)
{
   if (PlatformUtils.isMac()) {
      return new File(officeHome, "MacOS/soffice.bin");
   } else if (PlatformUtils.isWindows()) {
      return new File(officeHome, "program/soffice.exe");
   } else {
      return new File(officeHome, "program/soffice.bin");
   }
}

Original comment by andreas....@gmail.com on 25 Jan 2012 at 9:06

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hello Andreas,

the code in the OfficeUtils.getOfficeExecutable() for is correct.
For Windows it should return "program/soffice.bin" and not the .exe wrapper.

The issue with LibreOffice 3.5 on Windows has a different background.
There is a code in the 
org.artofsolving.jodconverter.office.OfficeProcess.addBasisAndUrePaths(ProcessBu
ilder) method which supposed to add path to the URE\bin folder of the office 
home to the PATH environment variable.

The problem is that the code checks for the presence of the "basis-link" file 
in the office home. This is the case for OpenOffice 3.3 and LibreOffice 3.4.

But in LibreOffice 3.5 there is no such file. So the PATH environment variable 
is not set correctly and I am getting an error connecting to the LibreOffice 
process (same as you).

The attached patch for the OfficeProcess class (against 3.0-beta-4 codebase) 
solved the problem for us.

Kind regards
Sergiy

Sergiy Shyrkov
Product Development
---------------------------------
Jahia Solutions Group
web: http://www.jahia.com
---------------------------------
Jahia's next-generation, open source CMS stems from a widely acknowledged 
vision of enterprise application convergence – web, search, document, social 
and portal – unified by the simplicity of web content management. 

Original comment by Sergiy.Shyrkov on 23 Feb 2012 at 11:56

Attachments:

• OfficeProcess.patch

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hi guys, any plan to release new version ?

Original comment by mletyn...@gmail.com on 24 Apr 2012 at 11:40

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Excellent Idea !! I don't know how to build the sources... If any one could 
apply this patch and ad the build to the project it would be find !

Original comment by r...@formaltis.fr on 28 Jun 2012 at 1:55

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hello,

if you are not building from source on your own, you could perhaps give a try 
to the patches version, we use:

https://devtools.jahia.com/nexus/content/groups/public/org/artofsolving/jodconve
rter/jodconverter-core/3.0-beta-4-jahia2/

Kind regards
Sergiy

Original comment by Sergiy.Shyrkov on 9 Jul 2012 at 5:02

[GoogleCodeExporter]

[deleted comment]

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I too have this problem, that it fails on windows with 
Apache_OpenOffice_incubating_3.4.1_win_x86_install_en-US.exe

I also have LibreOffice_4.0.1 installed, and it ignores that anyway.

Original comment by racu...@gmail.com on 22 Mar 2013 at 1:13

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I had to apply [#1 andreas....@gmail.com] and [#2 Sergiy.Shyrkov] to get it to 
work

Original comment by houman.b...@gmail.com on 26 Jun 2013 at 10:49

[GoogleCodeExporter]

[deleted comment]

[GoogleCodeExporter]

tl;dr Just put a blank file called basis-link in your LibreOffice folder (in 
the same place where a file called ure-link is located) and the problem is 
solved.

This is still an issue with LibreOffice 4 so I'm putting this on here in case 
someone stumbles upon it. The problem and its cause are as pointed in #2. I was 
able to fix it without patching the code though.

The addBasisAndUrePaths method mentioned in the comments above simply reads the 
basis-link file to figure out where the directory containing soffice.bin is. On 
Windows, the basis-link file does not exist. Therefore, if you look at the code 
for the addBasisAndUrePaths method, it just does nothing. This means that it 
cannot find the soffice.bin file and the service cannot start.

If you create a file called basis-link and put it where the code expects to see 
it, everything works fine. The contents of the basis-link file should be the 
relative path from the directory containing the basis-link file to the 
directory(called program) that contains soffice.bin.

To make that clearer, if LibreOffice is installed in C:\LibreOffice4, both 
ure-link and the directory called program will be in C:\LibreOffice4. Create a 
file called basis-link and put it also in C:\LibreOffice4. The directory called 
program and the file basis-link are in the same directory => the relative path 
that you put in the basis-link file is just a blank line.

That's it - really think the developers should fix this bug for Windows users. 
It wasn't at all obvious to solve, seems to have been around for a while and 
hardly seems like a difficult fix once you know what the problem is.

Original comment by karthik....@gmail.com on 21 May 2015 at 11:07