NPrinting single task cannot produce more than 2 GB total reports size (With or without cycle field)

[Digvijay_Singh]

Hi,

Can anyone suggest why my designer is installed as 32 bit version even though I am using Sept 2018 versions of Nprinting and Qlik Sense.

I was wondering why nprinting designer shows 32 bit in task manager. As I know Sept 2018 Nprinting is a 64 bit software. I don't see separate 32 and 64 bit downloads of Designer in Qlik software downloads page.

See the image attached for my task manager. 

 We found our reporting task cannot generate even a single report if the total size of generated reports  increases 2 GB. So trying to understand what is making difference. ( It fails after showing the message - 'Starting content production')

Error log message is as below.

Qlik.NPrinting.Scheduler.Service.ContentRequestDispatcher        20190502T103552.964-05:00                WARN              Nprinting Task Identity  0              0              0              0              0              0              0                0              Unexpected exception occurred while processing a report response. ERROR: System.IO.IOException: Stream was too long.↓↓   at System.IO.MemoryStream.Write(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 count)↓↓   at Ionic.Zip.CountingStream.Write(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 count)↓↓   at Ionic.Zip.ZipOutputStream.Write(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 count)↓↓   at Qlik.Utils.ZipUtils.CreateZipStream(List`1 fileBags) in C:\Jws\release-18.29.x\server\NPrinting\src\Qlik\Qlik.Reporting.Common\Qlik\Utils\ZipUtils.cs:line 104↓↓   at Qlik.NPrinting.Common.Scheduler.ArtifactGenerationPlanNode.ApplyResponse(IContentNodeResponse response) in C:\Jws\release-18.29.x\server\NPrinting\src\Common\Scheduler\ArtifactGenerationPlanNode.cs:line 368↓↓   at Qlik.NPrinting.Repo.Plan.BasePlanNodeExecutor`2.Process(IContentNodeResponse response) in C:\Jws\release-18.29.x\server\NPrinting\src\Repo\Plan\PlanNodeExecutor.cs:line 80↓↓   at Qlik.NPrinting.Repo.Plan.ArtifactGenerationPlanNodeExecutor.Process(IContentNodeResponse response) in C:\Jws\release-18.29.x\server\NPrinting\src\Repo\Plan\ArtifactGenerationPlanNodeExecutor.cs:line 107↓↓   at Qlik.NPrinting.Scheduler.Service.ContentRequestDispatcher.OnReportResponseReceived(ReportProductionResponseMessage message) in C:\Jws\release-18.29.x\server\NPrinting\src\Scheduler\Service\ContentRequestDispatcher.cs:line 251               

So here are our software versions - 

Nprinting server/engine - Sept 2018

NPrinting designer (Task manager shows 32 bit, image attached)

Qlik Sense Enterprise (Sept 2018)

Thanks,

DJ

[Digvijay_Singh]

We use power point template and our office 16 as well is a 32 bit version.

[Lech_Miszkiewicz · Accepted solution]

Hi,

1. are you saying that you are producing PowerPoint files greater than 2 GB? If that is what you are doing i would reconsider as it will be hard to open in power point anyway. Why is it so big?

2. regarding 32 bit designer - i do not think it matters. When you are running reports you don't use designer - engine process does the job.

[Digvijay_Singh]

The size is because of cycle field, individual reports are manageable. We tested it, once total folder size increases 2GB, it throws the error message I shown in my post.
Qlik support doesn’t have any clue on this.

Thanks,

[Ruggero_Piccoli]

Hi,

Qlik NPrinting Designer is used only to edit report templates. It uses local version of Microsoft Office and it is not involved in report generation so it doesn't matter that it is 32 bit.

About the error while producing the PowerPoint report:

- could you try to split it in, at least, two reports?

- could you upgrade to latest version of Qlik NPrinting and try it again?

Best Regards,

Ruggero 

[Digvijay_Singh]

Hi Ruggero,
I meant 2GB total folder size of reports to be generated by one task. Its not just one report, more than 500 reports based on cycle field values. If you see error message, there is something based on 32 bit which is not allowing Nprinting response to move ahead.
This is the starting point of the error -
Ionic.Zip.ZipOutputStream.Write(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 count)↓

Here is the support ticket # 01598743.

Thanks,

[Ruggero_Piccoli · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I checked and the support team is taking care of your issue. You will be contacted by them soon.

My suggestion, at the moment, is to split the task in two or more different tasks by applying filters so each one will create a zipped output with a smaller that 2Gb size.

Best Regards,

Ruggero

[Digvijay_Singh]

Thanks so much Ruggero!

You are right, they informed this week that they could  recreate the issue in their environment. We are talking to support tomorrow for further talks on this.

We have broken the tasks as a work around and its been working  for last few months but we want to avoid the situation like happened recently when all of a sudden one critical time bound specific tasks crossed the 2 GB limit and the task was running forever. We missed the important deadline.

But I still having intuition that it is something to do with my 32 bit version of office  and 32 bit designer  but at the same time I know it doesn't make sense as Server is 64 bit and the task is executed by Server.

I will post the solution here once we get more on this.

Appreciate all your time and effort on this.

Thanks,

DJ

[Digvijay_Singh]

We had a meeting with Qlik Support last week, We were informed by support that as per Qlik R&D this could be a product limitation where the reporting folder for a task cannot exceed 2 GB size. But more details will be shared by our support contact sooner.

This limitation shouldn't be there for 64 bit software and it looks to me like this specific use case was not validated and it remained unchanged when nPrinting product was upgraded to 64 bit. I may be wrong, will share more info once we receive more updates on this.

Thanks,

DJ

[Digvijay_Singh · Accepted solution]

Response From Qlik - 

I worked with R & D again this am as well as the NPrinting Principal Support Engineer and re-confirmed the 2 GB limit as previously discussed. The Scheduler service that manages the request from the Engine that ultimately compiles the data into the report has this limit. R&D is considering this as something they may need to enhance in a future release, however at this time - increasing that limit would have a significant impact on other areas of the NPrinting system.

R&D stated that a strategy to manage this limitation is to create filters at the task level that would help to reduce the size of the files and keep them manageable (per the 2GB limit).

Thanks,

DJ