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

[andriesb]

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 ?

[Lech_Miszkiewicz]

Hi @andriesb 

I would keep Qlik accountable and made sure they find a solution or release a patch. Entity QlikView (aka Publisher reports) reports are in many cases used by clients so there is no reason they cannot work with the recent versions of QlikView and NPrinting. I have not seen anything in release notes or on help page that those reports are not supported anymore.

Any suggestions by Qlik to redesign your reports dont have grounds in this case. It is only sweeping under the carpet. I agree that with NPrinting those are "better practices" and will work better long term, nevertheless entity reports should also work without issues and if there are issues with it they need to be addressed and resolved by R&D or support. That is my opinion on it. 

I have such strong opinion as I have many clients who use Entity reports . Luckily those are still working fine, however I have not upgraded them recently so lets see how it goes.

cheers

Good luck with it 

[andriesb]

Thanks Lech. 

I haven 't upgraded in a while just to avoid problems like this e.g. as what happened after mandatory asking me to upgrade my Qlikview server to test of another problem can be fixed. 

My philosophy is regaring updating : "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"   as uninstalling an update is never made possible  and I'm not sure if my NPrinting backup zip can be imported to use this within a previous version.. Uninstalling all and reinstalling is quite a lot of hassle just to test a previous version : the other versions of the qlik products must also match.  

I'll wait  a bit more and share any solutions 😉 

[Lech_Miszkiewicz]

Ok ,good luck!

and let us know if you hear anything back from Qlik or if you find yourself a solution

thanks Lech.

[andriesb · Accepted solution]

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.

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   

[Lech_Miszkiewicz]

Well - first of all this it is a great news that you made it work. It is comforting that actually everything should work without issues. It is also good to know what factors could contribute to your issues (wrong dlls, print spoolers switched off etc..)

It puts me in position that I am little bit more comfortable if I have to upgrade some of my clients using QlikView with NPrinting and Entity reports. Until now I was trying to postpone this as much as possible

Steps you have taken to troubleshoot this will definitely help others and come handy sooner or later

Cheers and thanks for sharing!

[Frank_S]

@andriesb

Can you tell us if you installed NPrinting May 2021 on the same computer as the NPrinting 16.x server?

[Frank_S]

If you installed NP 16 and May 2021 NPrinting on the same computer please note that this is not a supported installation and may encounter the types of issues you mentioned.

• For detailed information about the NPrinting 16 to 19 or higher version please visit the following NPrinting Migration Playbook.
• NPrinting 16 to NPrinting 19+ Migration Playbook - Qlik Community - 1780278

Kind regards...

[andriesb]

Hi Frank_S , thanks for your reply.

I never installed the old NPrinting on the same server as I installed Nprinting v21. That was  in my case not the reason for failure. I had an upgrade from v16 to v21 and started the installation on a brand new server. 

However, even if a user did this, in my opinion Nprinting should deal with this or at least detect this and issue a warning. 

Failure of the installation script of a third party printer that Nprinting presumes is correctly installed and that only is, during installation, initiated by starting an (external) installation script, cost me (and  support) more than 2 month to solve. 

Also the possible reversing an upgrade of a version by creating a back up of settings would be great ; I encountered other even bigger problems  as the newer version of Qlikview server created new issues.