Issue with NPrinting May 2022 creating Excel Content

[Anonymous]

Hello All,

We recently upgraded from NPrinting November 2019 SR1 to May 2022 SR2. We have a task that send Excel report to 100 users per group and there are 14 groups. 

This task is connected to Qlik Sense Apps with version August 2021 SR4. The report used to run fine without issues before the upgrade but after the upgrade every one of the task is getting frozen in between. The error on the engine logs is always the same and there is no definite pattern on how this happens. There is no particular user or a particular point of time this happens. 

We reached out to Qlik Support and they could not find a solution and we are in talks to roll back the application to Nov 19 again. Please let us know if you guys faced anything similar and found a fix or a possible solution.

Thank You,

Aslam

The error we see is the following:
Engine.Navigator.QlikSense.SDK 22.15.8.0 Engine.Navigator.QlikSense.SDK.SenseApp 20221103T095706.172-04:00 WARN QLK-NPR-PUE-001 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Content request Qlik.Reporting.Engine.Messages.Requests.ColumnNodeRequest 82f5198e-9941-45d0-a723-e0b0a5612a1e: resolution aborted with exception Qlik.Reporting.Engine.Messages.Exceptions.NavigatorStuckException: Navigator navigator=qliksense;proxyurl=https://qlk-ana-pue-001.fitch.corp/;appid=d5605ae4-cbb7-4bcd-84e2-ec49b0adc32e;identity=FITCH\svc-qliknprint is stuck and can't be used anymore to resolve requests ---> Qlik.Engine.MethodInvocationException: Error creating output xlsx file. Usually a permissions error. [23007]:Error creating output xlsx file. Usually a permissions error.()↵↓ at Qlik.Engine.Communication.QlikConnection.AwaitResponseTask[T](T task, String methodName, CancellationToken cancellationToken)↵↓ at Qlik.Engine.Communication.QlikConnection.AwaitResponse[T](Task`1 task, String methodName, CancellationToken cancellationToken)↵↓ at Engine.Navigator.QlikSense.SDK.Extensions.EngineExtensionsEx.ExportDataEx(GenericObject sheetObject, SenseApp app, NxExportFileType fileType, String path, String fileName, NxExportState exportState) in C:\Jws\release-may2022-RaCZqayAl\server\NPrinting\src\Engine.Navigator.QlikSense.SDK\Extensions\EngineExtensionsEx.cs:line 17↵↓ at Engine.Navigator.QlikSense.SDK.Extensions.SdkExtensionMethods.ExportToBiffUsingQrs(GenericObject sheetObject, SenseApp app, String tempFile) in C:\Jws\release-may2022-RaCZqayAl\server\NPrinting\src\Engine.Navigator.QlikSense.SDK\Extensions\SdkExtensionMethods.cs:line 652↵↓ --- End of inner exception stack trace ---↵↓ at Engine.Navigator.QlikSense.SDK.Extensions.SdkExtensionMethods.ExportToBiffUsingQrs(GenericObject sheetObject, SenseApp app, String tempFile) in C:\Jws\release-may2022-RaCZqayAl\server\NPrinting\src\Engine.Navigator.QlikSense.SDK\Extensions\SdkExtensionMethods.cs:line 628↵↓ at Engine.Navigator.QlikSense.SDK.Resolvers.Contents.SheetObjectRequestResolver`1.ExportToBiff(SenseApp app, GenericObject qlikSenseSheetObject, Boolean keepSourceFormat, Nullable`1 excelColumnIdx, Nullable`1 rowIdx) in C:\Jws\release-may2022-RaCZqayAl\server\NPrinting\src\Engine.Navigator.QlikSense.SDK\Resolvers\Contents\SheetObjectRequestResolver.cs:line 45↵↓ at Engine.Navigator.QlikSense.SDK.Resolvers.Contents.SheetObjectRequestResolver`1.ExportToBiffAndProcessWorkbook(SenseApp app, GenericObject qlikSenseSheetObject, Boolean keepSourceFormat, Action`1 processWorkbook, Nullable`1 excelColumnIdx, Nullable`1 rowIdx) in C:\Jws\release-may2022-RaCZqayAl\server\NPrinting\src\Engine.Navigator.QlikSense.SDK\Resolvers\Contents\SheetObjectRequestResolver.cs:line 80↵↓ at Engine.Navigator.QlikSense.SDK.Resolvers.Contents.SheetObjectColumnNodeRequestResolver.Resolve(SenseApp doc, ColumnNodeRequest columnRequest, GenericObject genericObject) in C:\Jws\release-may2022-RaCZqayAl\server\NPrinting\src\Engine.Navigator.QlikSense.SDK\Resolvers\Contents\SheetObjectColumnNodeRequestResolver.cs:line 45↵↓ at Engine.Navigator.QlikSense.SDK.Resolvers.Contents.BaseBaseContentRequestResolver`1.Resolve(SenseApp doc, IContentRequest request, IQixClassBase senseObject) in C:\Jws\release-may2022-RaCZqayAl\server\NPrinting\src\Engine.Navigator.QlikSense.SDK\Resolvers\Contents\BaseContentRequestResolver.cs:line 52↵↓ at Engine.Navigator.QlikSense.SDK.Resolvers.Contents.BaseBaseContentRequestResolver`1.Engine.Navigator.QlikSense.SDK.Resolvers.Contents.IContentRequestResolver.Resolve(SenseApp doc, IContentRequest request, IQixClassBase senseObject) in C:\Jws\release-may2022-RaCZqayAl\server\NPrinting\src\Engine.Navigator.QlikSense.SDK\Resolvers\Contents\BaseContentRequestResolver.cs:line 24

[Frank_S]

Your case is still under active investigation with one of our tech support engineers and has not closed.

In the meantime, 

Check the following:

NP Verifications for each connection and connection reloads should be performed for each NP connection to ensure that the NP engines are running normally and that connections are reloading successfully.

• Is each engine working as shown in the verification of your NP connections? See the following link for testing instructions.
  • https://help.qlik.com/en-US/nprinting/Content/NPrinting/GettingStarted/HowCreateConnections/Connect-...
• If any one engine in your multi engine environment is not working properly, those issues then need to be addressed to optimize task performance
  • https://help.qlik.com/en-US/nprinting/Content/NPrinting/Troubleshooting/Verify-connection-to-Sense-e...

Check the NP engine service user accounts in the QMC

• Open the QMC
• Check that each user is
  • ROOTADMIN
  • not in a blocked state

Check for active executions and abort:
It is possible that you may have had active executions running during the upgrade. So if this is the case,I suggest checking the Task Executions pages, choose '100' from the bottom of the page and select any running task executions. The use the abort option to multi abort all running executions. If you have more than 100 executions running, go to the next 100 page and abort those as well.

Also recommend that you provide your Qlik Sense server hardware specification onto the support case as we do not see them. We only see the NPrinting server specs. It is possible that your Qlik Sense server is not responding and further I would recommend rebooting both NPrinting and Qlik Sense to remove any residual memory leakage caused by day to day usage. Then schedule a monthly reboot of both servers.

Kind regards...

[Anonymous]

Hello Frank,

Thank you for Reaching out. I did check all the Connection verification for both the Engines and they are completely fine. The NPrinting Service accounts have RootAdmin Privileges and also has access to all the apps used in connections.

We did make sure to abort all tasks before the upgrade. We restarted the Whole Server, Both Qlik Sense and NPrinting to make sure that every service is started fresh. We have got two production sites so we even tried to move the Applications to the second Production server and modified the connections accordingly as a last resort but even this resulted in the same error.

The Qlik Sense server hardware configs  were discussed when we had a meeting with Qlik Support as well and everything looked okay.

Regards,

Aslam 

[Frank_S]

Hi Aslam

If you haven't already done so or if it has not yet been requested, please perform a backup of your NP database and include an NPrinting test user account with NP administrator role privileges so that when we restore it, we can log into it.

for example

• user: npuser@user.com
• password: yourpaswordhere
• NP role: Administrator

Also provide 

• the name of the publish task(s) most affected
• The source QVF file(s)

Upload exclusively to the support case (not public here).

We will restore to our environment and check the NPrinting report ourselves in detail and will not distribute to distribution lists in your publish task externally.

UPDATE (PM) 

Ensure that you go to your NPrinting and Qlik Sense servers and perform important antivirus exclusions if you haven't already done so.

• https://community.qlik.com/t5/Official-Support-Articles/Qlik-NPrinting-Server-and-Designer-Anti-Viru...
• https://community.qlik.com/t5/Official-Support-Articles/Antivirus-exceptions-for-Qlik-Sense-McAfee-S...

Kind regards...

[Anonymous]

Hello Frank,

Would a copy of the QVFs without data work for you?

[Frank_S]

Hi Aslam.

We will need the data within the QVFs in order to reproduce the issue as you are seeing it. It appears to be a performance load issue given that their appears to be no issues with NP connection and user service accounts.

Let's continue this conversation directly on the case to ensure against any data privacy concerns.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Hello Steve,

I checked with the Infrastructure team and they said they use Crowdstrike Falcon that doesn't really need these exclusions. Could you also post your previous comments requesting for NP_Backup and QVFs on the Case itself so that I can officially send it to the MDs for approval.

Regards,

Aslam

[Frank_S]

I don't know who 'Steve' is 

 but it is Done

[Anonymous]

Apologies Frank. It is 1:30 AM here and my Mind isn't working proper 🙂

[Frank_S]

No worries! 🙂