Service Documents Failed Error

[Alison Thornton]

Hello - I am trying to use Autocrat, but every time I run it, it throws a "Service Documents failed while accessing document with ID *******"  It runs a few merges, anywhere from 2 - 28 (of 99), and then fails.  

I have uninstalled, reinstalled, copied my document to a new document, created a new document, had someone else try to run a merge, and more. Every time it throws this error.   If I run it into one document, it works.  If I run it into individual documents, it fails.   

Does anyone have a suggestion why this is happening?

Regards, 

Ali

[Joseph Schmidt]

Based on very little information, I think Autocrat is having a problem keeping track of the output file.  We we searched for a document with the file ID it was an output file with information in it.  

I think the reason it runs in single output mode is there is only one document.

When Brian and I tested, Autocrat was not failing on the same row every time.  That means it is random.

Clear the "Starting..." from the rows that didn't complete and keep running until you finish the merge.

I'm sorry but at this time, I don't know anything to change to make it run.

Joe Schmidt

 GLUA...@gmail.com

New Visions Blog Entry - Joe Schmidt

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[Keith Medlin]

We are running into the same issue.

We have the same form that has been running for almost 2 years. It worked flawlessly until 6/10/21 when we started noticing "Starting at..." errors in the "Document Merge Status - PDF and Notification" column. This error doesn't happen every time. In fact, since 6/10/21, we've seen it fail 10 times (6/10, 6/12, 6/14, 6/16, 7/6, 7/28, 7/30, 8/5, 8/8, and 8/9). These failures occurred at different times of the day. We have had 121 submissions between these two dates, so in 111 cases, the form worked as expected, so we do not believe it to be a result of anything other than sudden periodic failures on the part of AutoCrat to work as expected.

Given the number of other threads on this discussion group, I'd say this issue warrants further investigation rather than simply assuming it's all "user error."

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

One question is should I be writing a script that checks for this status that runs once a day and then clears that cell if the status is found. If I do that and our AutoCrat job is set to run on form submission, is there a way in GAS that I can kickoff an Autocrat job? Essentially, I need this to run unattended and right now we have no confidence in the product to produce those results for us.

[Anne Miller]

As Keith states, so many of us are having this error.  It would be nice if the developer(s) could make this their highest priority and also communicate this to us.  I realize this is a free product, but so many of us are relying on this functionality now because it is great!    Please investigate and figure out what has changed (probably a google update) to cause this error.   I think it's been narrowed down to using multiple output mode with pdfs.  Please help so that so many of us will not have to spend hours/days looking for another solution/alternative.

[Joseph Schmidt]

Keith,

I know it is frustrating and I'm pretty sure that NewVisions is aware of the issue.  I'm pretty sure they use Autocrat in their schools.

As a retired IT person, I can tell you that it is much more difficult to find a random error.

I like the idea of a script to monitor the status column and to delete the "Starting...." from the status column.  Maybe a filter to isolate the rows and then manually delete would be better.  I don't know what would happen if a script to delete Starting.. ran at the same time as Autocrat.  I don't think it would be good.

I would set a Time trigger as that might help.  I know it will not help if Autocrat left behind the "Starting ...".

It shouldn't be too difficult (he says without trying) to add a FormMule merge to send an email when there is any row with "Starting..".

I am waiting for a response from another user.  We tried deleting the empty rows at the bottom of the Responses sheet. 

Joe Schmidt

 GLUA...@gmail.com

New Visions Blog Entry - Joe Schmidt

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[Joseph Schmidt]

I feel your pain.  I'm just a volunteer.  I'm going to guess that NewVisions has a very small IT department and that they have many things they are expected to do.  It is my understanding that NewVisions wrote the script to help in their processes.  They generously share the Add-on.

It is my understanding that Autocrat creates a copy of the template and after all of the merge tags are matched, it uses a tool to convert the file into a PDF.  I don't know if this tool passes any completed codes back to the script.  

I'm pretty sure that positive ideas are appreciated.  That negative ideas only make matters worse.

This doesn't help with Triggers merges but I was told yesterday that using an incognito window in Chrome fixed an issue.

Joe Schmidt

 GLUA...@gmail.com

New Visions Blog Entry - Joe Schmidt

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/nv-autocrat-add-on/178ad361-34c7-4ecf-8113-7aaafb686a37n%40googlegroups.com.

[Virgil Hovar]

I just helped my daughter install & set this up for a project to send emails out to parents. She divided her spreadsheet (~315) into multiple smaller sheets to try and avoid the 100 limit we had seen and read about. The first sheet ran fine but then she realized she was on the prev version of Autocrat. I suggested she do the upgrade but after that it would only process a few rows before throwing this error. If you look at the document ID it is complaining about it is the next file it is creating to send. It is almost like it hits some error from Drive. We have tried many things and can usually get a few more rows to process before getting the error on a new document. Does anyone know if there is a way to downgrade to the previous version and see if it will work? With school starting in a few days it is important to get these emails out and Autocrat had such promise of being a good solution.

[Joseph Schmidt]

I'm not sure what you mean about versions.  To the best of my knowledge, the Add-on version is the latest version.

The 100 emails are per account.  Unless you have a WorkPlace account, you are limited to 100 per 24 hour period.

Joe Schmidt

 GLUA...@gmail.com

New Visions Blog Entry - Joe Schmidt

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[Douglas Kirby]

Same with us.  Several of our jobs seem fine, but a few get hung up rather frequently.  I have stopped and started the triggers, which seems to help (temporarily).

Doug Kirby

01000100 01101111 01110101 01100111

ISD

kir...@franklinschools.org

317-346-8717

 

 

On Wed, Aug 11, 2021 at 8:55 AM Keith Medlin <kame...@ncsu.edu> wrote:

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/nv-autocrat-add-on/bc01dea6-fcc2-40ec-99c7-1ff5654ddfd8n%40googlegroups.com.

[Keith Medlin]

Here's a Google Apps Script you can add directly to the Responses sheet that you can trigger to run at certain times. 

Essentially, when Autocrat fails it leaves the "Document Merge Status - PDF and Notification" column with a message saying "Starting at..." 

This script will run as often as you'd like (I would not recommend more than 1 or 2 times daily) and it will empty cells where that appears.

Your Autocrat job needs to be configured to run BOTH on form submit (if you're doing that already..otherwise you can leave it alone) AND at a set interval (we do hourly in our job). This will ensure that when the hourly job runs ... it will pick up the empty status cell and attempt to re-run the job.

This code is presented without warranty or support. 

!!!Use it at your own risk with your production data!!! 

/**

* Main searches for the data range, creates an array, searches the array for

* the appropriate column, then in that column for any values that indicate

* an incomplete run, and finally it clears just those values.

*

* BE SURE TO REVIEW/UPDATE THE HEADERTEXT AND SHEETNAME VARIABLES!

*/

function main() {

// Set the name of the column header where you're storing the status if it's

// not the default which is set below.

const headerText = 'Document Merge Status - PDF and Notification'

// Set the name of the worksheet if you've changed it from Sheet1

const sheetName = 'Sheet1'

const ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet()

// This may need to be changed depending on the worksheet name you're searching.

const ws = ss.getSheetByName(sheetName)

// This will need to be changed to the name of one of your headers.

const tf1 = ws.createTextFinder(headerText)

tf1.matchEntireCell(true)

const headerCell = tf1.findNext()

const dataRange = headerCell.getDataRegion()

const data = dataRange.getValues()

const headers = data.shift()

const indexPos = headers.indexOf(headerText)

data.forEach((x, i) => {

const currValue = x[indexPos]

if (currValue.startsWith('Starting ')) {

const tf2 = ws.createTextFinder(currValue)

tf2.replaceAllWith('')

}

})

}

[Joseph Schmidt]

Keith,

You can write a script to clear the Starting.  Then set a time trigger in Autocrat.  Unless you hear differently from NewVisions, I don't think you can start Autocrat from within a script.

The merge would run hourly. 

Joe Schmidt

 GLUA...@gmail.com

New Visions Blog Entry - Joe Schmidt

On Fri, Aug 13, 2021 at 3:52 PM Keith Medlin <kame...@ncsu.edu> wrote:

As a current IT person, I concur that random issues are problematic. They're also the reason why I am proposing a change that monitors the responses in the sheet for the "Starting at %" string. Essentially, error correcting periodically, but I would need to know whether I need to create a separate job that runs based on a time trigger or whether I can use Google Apps Script to trigger an existing Autocrat job to run again. The solution to error check and fix is trivial...but I'd need some guidance on which way NewVisions endorses.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/nv-autocrat-add-on/4e0a3a24-652b-4a70-aacf-c455a79889fen%40googlegroups.com.

[Keith Medlin]

Thanks Joe. That's why I wrote my script around that limitation and advised in the use instructions in the post. Hopefully, that snippet will help others and potentially get vetted by NV so they can incorporate some sort of "babysitter" script into their addon since it's clearly something that's needed if the PDF processing is going to bail under load.