Problems with upgrading Confluence 3.5 to 4.3 - PDF Exports

[Sanet Minnie]

Hi, we cannot PDF large manuals on the 4.3 space we are getting ready for go live on 15 December. When we PDF export smaller manuals, all is fine, but when we export a manual of 200+ pages, it will get stuck at *Begin conversion of intermediate HTML to PDF*. It will slow down Confluence to an almost unusable slow state. We do not get any error or notification from Confluence - therefore, after a while (48 minutes+) when I refresh the page, I get this warning note:

{warning}The following error(s) occurred:

Your request could not be processed because a required security token was not present in the request. You may need to re-submit the form or reload the page.{warning}

I have already tried to PDF without any style sheets and we get the same problem.

PDFs are a core part of our delivery to our clients, we need help urgently. Thank you.

[Sanet Minnie · Accepted solution]

We made use of a {pagebreak} user macro that caused the PDF error. We disbaled the macro and added a line in our style sheet :

li {
  page-break-inside: avoid;
}

This was a good enough solution for us.

[Dave]

Hi Sanet,

It sounds like this might be related to memory issues, can you tail the logs on the server while this is happening to see if you're running out of memory? You might need to increase memory and do this at times of particularly low load.

Also, the Confluence Knowledge Base is a great resource and has this section on issues with PDF - https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/CONFKB/PDF+issues+Troubleshooting

Alternatively, you mention providing PDF manuals to your customers - would providing access to Confluence be an option? This would provide the manuals in addition to new opportunities for collaboration.

If you're still having issues and don't see anything in the logs, I would suggest filing a support ticket over at https://support.atlassian.com

Best of luck!

-dave