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andriesb
Creator II
Creator II

NPrinting type QlikEntity - pdf output reports error 'Exceeded maximum number of retries'

I have installed the latest NPrinting V21 (May 2021 , 21.14.3.0 ) combined with qlikview server V 12.60.2  and Qlikview client  V12.6. (all latest versions) The original Nprinting environment  is populated with a working V16 NPrinting import. 

All connections, tasks and reports has been checked and  seems to work correctly except for creating pdf reports (report from qvw document). I did as a test also create a new test-report with only one logo on it, so nothing difficult to be calculated. 

NPrinting fails in all cases with this pdf report with an error "ERROR: Exceeded maximum number of retries" . I did expand the retry options to 30  and I checked the server configuration 'enable export images and excel'.

I  upgraded my server and NPrinting to the latest versions, but this did not resolve my problem.

The windows event on both server and nprinting are both empty for any related issues: AntiVirusn has been disabled on both server and NPrinting. Print spooler services are running on both machines.

server has 12 core, 128 gb ram; nprinting 8 core, 32 gb ram. 

Any more suggestions ?

 

 

 

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1 Solution

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andriesb
Creator II
Creator II
Author

I finally achieved a breakthrough and finally a solution!  . Somewhere during installation the specific installation of the pdf printer nPrinting uses did go wrong. 

Qlik "NPrinting Engine" should install a working printer with the exact name "Qlik NPrinting PDF Printer" . This is a PDF XChange printer 5.0 . PDF-XChange 2012 is the PDF virtual printer installed by Qlik NPrinting Engine.

andriesb_2-1637826126194.png

 

At C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\x64\3 the file  PXC50f.DLL. (version 5.0) should have been installed. This is in my case an old dll of year 2013 specificaly installed by this PDF  XChange 5.0 printer setup. 

There is no solution to install this printers afterwards as the Engine requires/uses a specific PXC50f.DLL installed . Another version  of PDF XChange will provide another version of this dll and that will fail .

This printer has also to be set as the default printer. There is a possibility that this printers has not been correctly installed if the windows "Print spooler" services was disabled at the time of installation .  (Print spooler was a vulnerability issue of microsoft in 07-2021 and had to be disabled waiting for a patch)

However, I uninstalled the whole suite after creating making a zip backup of my enviroment and renamed\deleted the previous installed folders of nprinting in  \program files and \programData. Also install all PDF XChange printers versions manually as uninstalling Nprinting engine will not uninstall these printers.

There after I installed it again in  the order server, engine and designer. Installing the engine at first triggers the installation of this printer before proceeding to install the Engine software. Add your license key and restore the environment from your backup zip.

At last, do not forget to re-activate (or create) the 'Engine manager' from within the web interface https://localhost:4993/#/admin/engines  :  | Admin | Engine manager  . The status should have been set to Online or create a Engine manager if missing. There is no error message during executing a task if this manager is still offline  ;( 

Now creating a report should work without any delay.

The powershell command 'Get-PrinterDriver -Name *'   should show you what printers had been installed. In my case, after my re-installation I did see both "PDF-XChange 3.0" and "PDF-XChange 5.0" installed ! ? 

However, if it ain't broke, don't fix it , so i will leave this at this time. 

-----

P.s. creating a backup to a zip file could be done by a cmd line : (I have this scheduled by task scheduler on a daily base 😞

start /b "" "C:\Program Files\NPrintingServer\Tools\Manager\Qlik.NPrinting.Manager.exe" backup -f "D:\Qlik\Backup\NPrinting_Backup.zip" -p "C:\Program Files\NPrintingServer\pgsql\bin" --pg-password myPassword

 (replace 'myPassword' with your password)

Restoring the environment use command :

start /b "" "C:\Program Files\NPrintingServer\Tools\Manager\Qlik.NPrinting.Manager.exe" Restore -f "D:\Qlik\Backup\NPrinting_Backup.zip" -p "C:\Program Files\NPrintingServer\pgsql\bin" --pg-password myPassword   

 

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17 Replies
Frank_S
Support
Support

What type of report?

QlikView desktop report (NP entity report) or one of the NPrinting PxP, HTML or MS office reports?

Please remember hit the 'Like' button and for helpful answers and resolutions, click on the 'Accept As Solution' button. Cheers!
andriesb
Creator II
Creator II
Author

The source is a plain old simple Qlikview internal report (report saved within the qvw) and connected within the nprinting v21 as a Qlikentity  with the task output format set to a pdf file.

It worked for many years without any problems in the old NPriting v16.  Stripping the report back to only a logo will not solve the problem. also changing the report to an Excel item does work. 

I think a problem with external RPC communication or a sort of port blocking could block the communication ? The Firewall logs and AV did not give me any hints (fails also when firewall is turned off). 

Just changed the output of another test (excel) task to pdf output and that worked ! I created another qvw + internal report, create a report as a QlikEntity and it failed. 

Therefore the problem seems to only occurs with reports of type QlikEntity. 

Frank_S
Support
Support

You might want to consider building the report using one of the NP designer template editors rather than using the old style QV desktop reports.

You should also check the QVW for unsupported items. Those are usually exposed after an upgrade or migration.

Please check the following to double check your migration steps and preparations which include checking for unsupported items.

 

NPrinting 16 to NPrinting 19+ Migration Playbook - Qlik Community - 1780278

Please remember hit the 'Like' button and for helpful answers and resolutions, click on the 'Accept As Solution' button. Cheers!
Lech_Miszkiewicz
Partner Ambassador/MVP
Partner Ambassador/MVP

Hi @Frank_S 

I have similar error with one of my client when using built-in QlikView report (entity report running QlikView Report). 

It works for 99% of the time. I could not find any error in windows event logs and the only on e in NPrinting was "ERROR: Exceeded maximum number of retries". 

QVW meets all requirements as per documentation.

Indeed it is a report which I will be unable to built in any other format as it is producing table which has 62 measures and all of them have to be conditionally hidden or shown depending on the scenario/filters used. Using Entity report in NPrinting to call that "RP01" report from QlikView was a lifesaver and as I said it works 99% of the time and it has been working for last 4 years, but in those rare occasions it throws the same error as the one in this topic ("ERROR: Exceeded maximum number of retries"). 

I only saw this in release notes:

Task fails with the error 'Exceeded maximum number of retries' Jira issue ID: OP-4839 Some Qlik NPrinting tasks fail with the error message: “Exceeded maximum number of retries”. This is due to a performance issue in QlikView that appears when it exports large unfiltered files to Excel.

In fact my final table is not big. It can have up to 70 columns (when you count dimensions) and couple hundred rows, but its calculation does not causes QlikView to struggle or perform poorly.

It may require a wait time of few seconds to get table calculated but its nothing unusual. I saw a lot worse performing apps and tables when used with NPrinting. 

I have all source objects minimized in my qvw and report gets filters applied before it starts producing report so the dataset does not seem to be an issue neither and qvw open time is very fast.

so,

On occasion of this topic I am keen on exploring why we recommend migrating reports from QlikView native reports to other native NPrinting templates? Is there any official documentation we can rely on (something in help document or release history). I agree that for most scenarios we would do native NPrinting templates (pixel perfect, excel etc...), but still:

  • are there any known issues with QlikView desktop entity report type (RP)
  • are there any know limitations?
  • are there any know bottlenecks it may cause?
  • are there any know issues with particular versions of NPrinting and/or QlikView?
  • are there any config settings we may try to change/explore?

I am asking the above questions as client would be willing to upgrade to newer versions of NPrinitng and QlikView but we cannot afford designing new report from scratch (or may not be able to at all chieve)in case when upgrade will break the existing ones. 

I may also add to it that those reports can be produced without any issues directly from QlikView access point.

 

If you heard about any known limitations which are currently not documented and potential reasons and solutions how to deal with them it would be great if you could share.

Thanks, Cheers!

Lech

cc @Ruggero_Piccoli 

cheers Lech, When applicable please mark the correct/appropriate replies as "solution" (you can mark up to 3 "solutions". Please LIKE threads if the provided solution is helpful to the problem.
Lech_Miszkiewicz
Partner Ambassador/MVP
Partner Ambassador/MVP

Ohh...

I did not change those settings yet: https://community.qlik.com/t5/Knowledge/NPrinting-ERROR-System-Exception-Exceeded-maximum-number-of/...

do you think this should be my first step? I guess I have no other option anyway so it is worth trying.

cheers and thanks

Lech

cheers Lech, When applicable please mark the correct/appropriate replies as "solution" (you can mark up to 3 "solutions". Please LIKE threads if the provided solution is helpful to the problem.
Ruggero_Piccoli
Support
Support

Hi,

We are not aware of similar issues. Please try with a different object to be sure it is not an issue related with the specific object or type of object.

If you will still have the issue I suggest you to open a ticket with a link to this conversation.

Best Regards,

Ruggero



Best Regards,
Ruggero
---------------------------------------------
When applicable please mark the appropriate replies as CORRECT. This will help community members and Qlik Employees know which discussions have already been addressed and have a possible known solution. Please mark threads with a LIKE if the provided solution is helpful to the problem, but does not necessarily solve the indicated problem. You can mark multiple threads with LIKEs if you feel additional info is useful to others.
andriesb
Creator II
Creator II
Author

Thanks for all the responces, but my issue(s) is still not solved and keep growing. 

Transferring the report (e.g. redesigning) to the Nprinting design would not be my first option as the same report is also used by a web user opening the same qlikview document via a web browser and opening the embedded report 

In my way to try to fix this issue, I also upgraded my qlikview server tot the latest version 12.6 sp1 . That broke the option to open embedded reports from the web server !!.  This means embedded reports can not  be opened any more using any web browser . This issue is not related to the type of complexity of a report as all reports fail instantly after selection with an error 'timeout  has been exceeded' . A test report also only contains a single label

As qlikview prohibit downgrading my upgraded server environment  , I'm now stuck in the middle of multiple problems  for more than a month.....

Reinstallation of my Qlikview server is not an option I'm considering at this stage : multiple uses rely on a daily base on my reports

Lech_Miszkiewicz
Partner Ambassador/MVP
Partner Ambassador/MVP

Hi @andriesb 

In that case dont wait on solution from community  - just open support case and let Qlik support deal with it. 

I also saw this support article which may be related to issues you are experiencing after upgrade: https://community.qlik.com/t5/Knowledge/QlikView-May-2021-12-60-running-Publisher-reports-on-a-Windo...

cheers Lech, When applicable please mark the correct/appropriate replies as "solution" (you can mark up to 3 "solutions". Please LIKE threads if the provided solution is helpful to the problem.
andriesb
Creator II
Creator II
Author

I opened at Qlik support, but still there is no solution to use embedded reports from Nprinting. (report type QlikEntity) 

Any suggestions are still welcome  : The only solution is to redesign my report to be exported as pdf within a new excel template ?.

--

The (new) Issue opening my report from ajax web client was indeed broken by the latest upgrade of my qlik server update 12.6 sp1 and was solved by qlik support by setting the printer directly within the Qlik settings : (https://community.qlik.com/t5/Knowledge/Print-Report-to-PDF-via-Ajax-Client-with-error-Timeout-has-b...)