How to print PDF with a specific printer

[lorenzwagner]

Hello, I have the following problem/question. How can I print a PDF (not opened but location known) via an action phase? I have a list of printers, whereby I have information about the printers in a collection stage. How can I implement this and what information about the printers do I need in order to be able to select them specifically?

[GeoffHirst]

HI @lorenzwagner 

Thank you for being a SS&C Blue Prism customer and for using Blue Prism. Given the issue you raise, my first thoughts would be that your production machine is not configured the same way as your development machine. In this I would investigate whether or not the necessary dlls are installed on your production machine in the Blue Prism folder, particularly those in the x64/x86 folders depending on your architecture. The manual for the asset, does explain this requirement.

Please come back to us if you need more help.

regards

[lorenzwagner]

Hi @GeoffHirst thank you for replying so quickly. Well the DLLs are pasted under C:\Program Files\Blue Prism Limited\Blue Prism Automate, the same directory the other DLLs are placed under and work properly. Any idea how i can get an indication what is mabye causing the closing of BluePrism. Maybe this could help.

[GeoffHirst]

Hi @lorenzwagner ,

 Can you check the architecture of your production machine and confirm it is running the same as on your development machine? If one is 32 bit and the other 64 bit, they will require different dlls, this was highlighted recently and appropriate updates were made to the documentation.

Please let us know how you get on.

regards

[lorenzwagner]

Hi @GeoffHirst we run 32-bit and one with 64-bit and neither does work. For the 32-bit, the alternatively proposed answer does also not work.

[GeoffHirst]

Hi @lorenzwagner ,

So, you have it working without issue on your development machine, as you said previously. May I draw your attention to earlier in this thread, we had another user @MohammedNissarK who was using 32 bit Blue Prism and he followed the instructions in the user guide and was able to make it work.

I am sure this is down to configuration of your systems, as we have made it work on both 32 and 64 bit architectures ourselves and as stated another user has also made it work satisfactorily.

May I ask you review your configurations and retry? As, there is little else I can offer at this time, without more specific information. You might look into the windows event log of the production machine and see if there is more information there as to the reason why Blue Prism is crashing.

regards

[lorenzwagner]

@GeoffHirst Hello, I am getting the following error messages. Unfortunately only in German.

The upper message from the event log comes if you do not put the pdfium.dll into the x64 folder. And the bottom one if it is in the x64 folder. What is strange is that the file is in the correct folder, but the running error is not. What could be the reason?

 

 

[GeoffHirst]

hi @lorenzwagner ,

I think we need to initially confirm the architecture of the computer you are using here. The first message is architecture related. System.BadImageFormatException has nothing to do with gifs or jpgs, but instead, occurs when a .NET application attempts to load a dynamic link library (.dll) or executable (.exe) that doesn't match the proper format that the current common language runtime (CLR) expects. In other words trying to load a 64Bit library into a 32 bit application.

So, I think we need initially to confirm without doubt what the architecture is of the machine you are working with, whether that be 32-bit or 64-bit and also the architecture of your Blue Prism, as it is possible to run the 32 bit Blue Prism on a 64 Bit version of Windows.

Once you know this, you can confirm that, the files you are using are of the correct architecture and are positioned into the correct folder. Remember that there are 2 files required for this asset, one file is pdfiumviewer.dll and this needs to be placed in the Blue Prism folder. The other file is the architecture dependent one and either needs to be in the x86 folder if you are running 32 Bit or in the x64 folder if you are running 64 bit.

You have had this asset working fine on your development machine, so you know it works. This is just configuration of your production machine to get this working.

I hope this helps you clarify your issues.

regards

[lorenzwagner]

@GeoffHirst  

Thank you for your detailed reply. I can safely say that we are running 100% on 64-bit and have the correct DLLs - both PdfiumViewer.dll and PdfiumViewer.Native.x86_64.v8-xfa (64-bit version) - installed in the correct folder. Unfortunately, BluePrism still crashes. I still despair, I don't know what the problem is. The firewalls are switched off and I don't know any other settings. Do you have any other idea what the problem could be? The error from the picture below still exists:

AutomateUI.BPApplication
An unhandled exception occurred in Blue Prism:

System.DllNotFoundException: The DLL ‘pdfium.dll’: The specified module was not found. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8007007E) cannot be loaded.
for PdfiumViewer.NativeMethods.Imports.FPDF_Release()
for PdfiumViewer.NativeMethods.FPDF_Release()
for PdfiumViewer.PdfLibrary.Finalise()

Maybe using the non-XFA version from here? https://github.com/pvginkel/PdfiumBuild

[GeoffHirst]

Hi @lorenzwagner ,

So, from what you seem to be saying, one of the errors has now gone away? The BadImageFormatException? Is that a fair assumption? Now, the above message is saying that it was not possible to find the pdfium.dll. The suggestion here, is that, it isn't where its being looked for. I would expect the 64 Bit version of pdfiumviewer.dll, to look for pdfium.dll in the x64 folder inside the blue prism folder, like this C:\Program Files\Blue Prism Limited\Blue Prism Automate\x64. This is solely for 64 bit Blue Prism.

Now, do you have any experience or colleagues who have experience of working with SysInternals? The reason I ask is, SysInternals is a toolkit, provided by Microsoft. It comprises many tools, the one we would be interested in, is DiskMon. I stress here that if you choose to follow this path, please read the documentation fully, and acquire assistance if you are unsure. These tools are incredibly powerful.

Diskmon, shows disk activity. It will show you files that are being opened, read, written to. It will also show failures. What we need to see is the path that the system is looking down before it crashes, because that will tell you where the file should be. I hope this makes sense.

This is not a process you should rush into. Consult your colleagues, get help from your IT Admins as they can likely help you. 

Given that this is a local configuration issue, as you have already stated you have it working on your development machine, we know that the asset works. Assisting with configuration issues like this, from a remote location is not easy and in these circumstances there is little further we can do. 

Please let us know if you manage to resolve your problem.

regards