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Problems with PDF in Production but works fine in test [message #119299] Fri, 27 January 2006 19:19 Go to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: pcasey.earthlink.net

I've got some reports that I render server side as either HTML or PDF.
The reports worked fine with both 1.0.1 and 2.0 RC 2. I had to tweak the
reports a little to make them work on 2.0 release, but nonetheless, all was
well on my test machine.

This afternoon, I pushed out the new war to my production box and,
although the HTML rendering still works, any PDF I create is, for lack of a
better word, smashed vertically into about 50 pixels of height. So a report
with, say 15 pages, might be 50 pixels of garbage, but a report with 5 or so
pages might be only 20 pixels of garbage.

There are two obvious differences I can find between test and
production:

1) Test is windows XP. Production is Linux (we're a java app, we
shouldn't care, but sometimes we do). Yes, I know this is bad practise, I'm
working on it :).
2) Test isn't just Linux, it's a linux install without x. I've had
problems before with a lot of graphic libraries like jfreechart which go
sideways if there isn't xwindows around.

So ... my question is, are there any known issues with running on a
headless linux box? If so, what's the workaround? Like I said, HTML renders
fine. No errors show up anywhere in any logs, the results just look like
they got smashed, which makes me suspicious that somewhere, some graphic
library got seriously confused.

Please help; if I don't get this sorted fairly quickly I'm going to have
to roll back to RC 2 which I'd really rather not do :(.

--- Pat
Re: Problems with PDF in Production but works fine in test [message #119313 is a reply to message #119299] Fri, 27 January 2006 20:21 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: pcasey.earthlink.net

Some more information:

It's definately LINUX related and doesn't seem specific to an x-less linux.
So far I've tried it on (and bear in mind this is exactly the same war in
each case so each machine is getting the same BIRT install, same jars, same
everything):

Production Fedora Core 2 (no X): PDF squashes to 50 pixels or so
Test Box Fedora Core 3 (with x): PDF squashes to 50 pixels or so
Dev Box Windows XP Professional: PDF renders great inside eclipse, or
through the app & browser
Test Box Windows Xp Professional: PDF renders great

What's going on here? I know PDF worked in 2.0 RC 2 on linux because I was
running that version in production, so I know BIRT works fine on Linux. Is
there some sort of 2.0 release configuration change I have to make?

--- Pat
Re: Problems with PDF in Production but works fine in test [message #119326 is a reply to message #119313] Fri, 27 January 2006 21:36 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: dougw.iplatinum.com.au

Patrick Casey wrote:
> Some more information:
>
> It's definately LINUX related and doesn't seem specific to an x-less linux.
> So far I've tried it on (and bear in mind this is exactly the same war in
> each case so each machine is getting the same BIRT install, same jars, same
> everything):
>
> Production Fedora Core 2 (no X): PDF squashes to 50 pixels or so
> Test Box Fedora Core 3 (with x): PDF squashes to 50 pixels or so
> Dev Box Windows XP Professional: PDF renders great inside eclipse, or
> through the app & browser
> Test Box Windows Xp Professional: PDF renders great
>
> What's going on here? I know PDF worked in 2.0 RC 2 on linux because I was
> running that version in production, so I know BIRT works fine on Linux. Is
> there some sort of 2.0 release configuration change I have to make?
>
> --- Pat
>
>

I have been having the same problem on FC4. I am a bit disappointed really.
For an open source tool it does seem to rely on a Windoze environment a little too much.

For instance I can not run the frameset servlet in Firefox 1.0 or 1.5 in a Linux environment.
I have to test these in a WinXP virtual machine. The irony is that I can test these features using
Wine and Internet Explorer?

We are planning using both Linux and Windows in production. But as all our core development in done
in Linux it looks like I have to now do a comparison to see what features are supported in each
environment.

However, other than these inconsistencies we are happy with BIRT as a reporting alternative.

Doug.
Re: Problems with PDF in Production but works fine in test [message #120034 is a reply to message #119326] Mon, 30 January 2006 11:43 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: pcasey.earthlink.net

The only update I can give here is that I've been working with some of the
devs to see what's afoot here. Or, more accurately, they've been working and
I've been running debug scenarios for them. I don' t know if they've tied
down the problem yet, but as of Saturday it looked to be pretty high on
their to-do list.

--- Pat

>
> I have been having the same problem on FC4. I am a bit disappointed
> really.
> For an open source tool it does seem to rely on a Windoze environment a
> little too much.
>
> For instance I can not run the frameset servlet in Firefox 1.0 or 1.5 in a
> Linux environment.
> I have to test these in a WinXP virtual machine. The irony is that I can
> test these features using Wine and Internet Explorer?
>
> We are planning using both Linux and Windows in production. But as all our
> core development in done in Linux it looks like I have to now do a
> comparison to see what features are supported in each environment.
>
> However, other than these inconsistencies we are happy with BIRT as a
> reporting alternative.
>
> Doug.
Re: Problems with PDF in Production but works fine in test [message #122313 is a reply to message #120034] Tue, 31 January 2006 22:36 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: dtsjunk.gmail.com

Hi I am having the same difficulty in getting my pdfs to display any text
when i run the birt web viewer on my headless linux server. I am using
Birt 2 and Tomcat 5.0.27. The pdfs will display embedded images and the
outlines of tables but no text. The HTML is rendering fine and no errors
are showing up in any of the log files. I have the exact same setup on my
windows xp dev box and everything works fine. I have read the posts
regarding the setting up of the truetype fonts but my linux box already
had one of the locations that is searched in
org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.emitter.pdf.FontHandler. I also tried
setting up my own font directory using the BIRT_FONT_PATH in the web.xml.
I am using -Djava.awt.headless=true in my java opts.

The displaying of the pdfs was working fine in Birt 1.

Any help much appreciated
dt
Re: Problems with PDF in Production but works fine in test [message #122333 is a reply to message #122313] Tue, 31 January 2006 23:12 Go to previous message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: pcasey.earthlink.net

The current theory that the devs have is that it's somehow font related
(at least all the log files I sent them were logging font related
information). It must be something subtle though, because I, like you,
tested with and without fonts in the search path and it failed in either
case. I'll post here when there's more news, but as of this afternoon, the
devs were still working, and I was running tests for them.

--- Pat

"dt" <dtsjunk@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:6de000297405ec02943fcbe591677469$1@www.eclipse.org...
> Hi I am having the same difficulty in getting my pdfs to display any text
> when i run the birt web viewer on my headless linux server. I am using
> Birt 2 and Tomcat 5.0.27. The pdfs will display embedded images and the
> outlines of tables but no text. The HTML is rendering fine and no errors
> are showing up in any of the log files. I have the exact same setup on my
> windows xp dev box and everything works fine. I have read the posts
> regarding the setting up of the truetype fonts but my linux box already
> had one of the locations that is searched in
> org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.emitter.pdf.FontHandler. I also tried
> setting up my own font directory using the BIRT_FONT_PATH in the web.xml.
> I am using -Djava.awt.headless=true in my java opts.
>
> The displaying of the pdfs was working fine in Birt 1.
> Any help much appreciated
> dt
>
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