Error generating a PDF finding aid

[Geoff Edwards]

I'm trying to generate PDF finding aids for several resources and while some work fine, other jobs keep failing, giving similar error messages, e.g.

example 1

org.apache.fop.fo.ValidationException: Property ID "aspace_890633f9925301901a0f7053eadeb4bb" (found on "fo:block") previously used; ID values must be unique within a document! (See position 1107:73)

example 2

org.apache.fop.fo.ValidationException: Property ID "aspace_10bb2042cf665c7fbbf77ac4caf51411" (found on "fo:block") previously used; ID values must be unique within a document! (See position 1107:73)

There's a lot more text, but I assume this is the key part of each. I don't l know what it means, how to resolve it, and why it's suddenly impacting resources that I know I've created PDFs for successfully in the past.

Any advice will be very gratefully received.

Thanks!

Geoff

[Mary Mellon]

Hi Geoff,

 

It looks like you have duplicate identifiers within the same finding aid document, which creates invalid EAD, which breaks the PDF export. I’m not sure if it is possible to save an archival object that doesn’t have a unique ref id, but maybe it is related to the duplicate note persistent ID issue, fixed in v. 4.2? - https://archivesspace.atlassian.net/browse/ANW-2459  It might be easier to troubleshoot this through the EAD version.

 

Best,

 

Mary

 

Mary Mellon (she/her)

Metadata Archivist and Section Head, Archival Materials

Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Duke University

mary....@duke.edu

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[Custer, Mark D.]

Geoff,

For how to resolve the issue:  you can search for those persistent identifiers in the staff interface!  

The trick is to know that ASpace prepends “aspace_” to the front of the identifier upon export, to ensure that the identifier satisfies the requirements of an xml:id (https://www.w3.org/TR/xml-id).  Anyhow, the important bit to know is that you can just search for “890633f9925301901a0f7053eadeb4bb” in the staff interface, sans “aspace_".  That will likely return two search results (maybe more!).  Pick one, find the note with that Persistent ID, and then delete the contents from the Persistent ID field that has that value, then re-save the record (at which point ASpace will generate a unique ID).  Such identifiers could be used for internal linking, but that’s very rare, so I don’t think it should matter much which Persistent ID field(s) you delete… but I’d go with the most-recently created search result to be safe.  

Hope that helps,

Mark

  

From: 'Mary Mellon' via Archivesspace_Users_Group <Archivesspac...@lyrasislists.org>
Date: Friday, October 2, 2026 at 12:25 PM
To: Geoff Edwards <geoffrey...@cincyart.org>; Archivesspace_Users_Group <Archivesspac...@lyrasislists.org>
Subject: RE: [ArchivesSpace Users Group] Error generating a PDF finding aid

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