Internal error occurred while processing XMP metadata

Report · Aug 29, 2016

I'm working on a series of form edits, that won't allow me to apply metadata via Properties or Action. I suspect issue might be caused by the documents being over-edited and having multiple signature fields, but thought I'd fire away question on forums either way, as someone might have encountered this issue as well and can confirm it's not supposed to work (e.g. it's feature, not a bug).

Workflow and background info of project:

Large collection of PDF forms (no source files available, edited in Acrobat over the years and saved and closed again).
Most forms contain one or more signature fields.
Forms are edited in Acrobat Pro DC.
Forms need to have certain properties set (File > Properties).

System details:

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013).
Mac OS X El Capitan (10.11.15),
Acrobat Pro DC 2015 Release (Continuous) | Version 2015.017.20050

The issue.

File > Properties dialog box opening fails on most documents. E.g. no way to access for adding Document Description, Set Open Options, Set Reading language using this dialog box.
Note: File > Properties works fine on PDFs I generate myself from source files, so it's not an Acrobat corruption issue (although I have done complete uninstall and system clean-up of all Acrobat file remnants on system). I can confirm the same issue occurs on Windows 10 version of Acrobat, so its 100% related to the PDFs, not Acrobat.

The workaround that partially works.

Using an Action instead of the Properties dialog box allows me to get into the properties and metadata to some extent and make changes. I seem to be able to set the Title, Open Options, Language, etc. without issues using this work-around. Except for changing the Author field. That seems to be baked into the PDF and not editable, not even through a script (The title fields are mostly empty to start out, but those that were set and had the file name set, can be edited as well using this work around.).

Here's the error I see:

Anyone encountered this issue? is it expected behaviour? Will be good to know, as I can let my client know whey I can't do certain things to the PDFs.

Thanks heaps,

Cari

Report · Aug 30, 2016

Very odd. It's certainly not expected behaviour, but looks like some kind of corruption in the XMP Metadata.

Are you able to export the metadata to an XML file and inspect it? You can output it to the JS Console by running this code:

this.metadata

That might help locate the problem, although it's a long shot...

Report · Aug 30, 2016

That works indeed. Great idea to do that!

For privacy/confidentiality reasons I've changed Author to 'Author Name Original' and 'Author Name New' (where I replaced it in metadata), and title to 'Name of Form' in this output example.

I then force replaced the metadata using Adobe Bridge , and there is definitely a change in the data structure (note: I only tests with the creator metadata, as that's the one that causes the issue as far as I can tell, so in the 'after' result I've left that blank.

Before:

<dc:creator>
    <rdf:Alt>
     <rdf:li>Author Name Original</rdf:li>
    </rdf:Alt>
</dc:creator>

After:

   <dc:creator>
    <rdf:Seq>
     <rdf:li>Author Name New</rdf:li>
    </rdf:Seq>
   </dc:creator>

For completion (and to feed our inner-geek-mode) I'm adding also the full before and after xmpmeta data xml.

Before:

<x:xmpmeta xmlns:x="adobe:ns:meta/" x:xmptk="Adobe XMP Core 5.6-c015 84.158975, 2016/02/13-02:40:29        ">
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">
  <rdf:Description rdf:about=""
    xmlns:ns1="http://www.day.com/dam/1.0"
    xmlns:xmp="http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/"
    xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
    xmlns:pdf="http://ns.adobe.com/pdf/1.3/"
    xmlns:xmpMM="http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/mm/"
    xmlns:adhocwf="http://ns.adobe.com/AcrobatAdhocWorkflow/1.0/"
   ns1:numPages="1"
   ns1:extracted="2015-02-02T19:21:39.107+11:00"
   ns1:Producer="Microsoft¨ Office Word 2007"
   ns1:Author="Author Name Original"
   ns1:sha1="a4646819493143f611cb8c534f1417952c8f101c"
   ns1:size="153811"
   xmp:CreatorTool="Microsoft¨ Office Word 2007"
   xmp:MetadataDate="2016-08-30T09:09:43+08:00"
   xmp:ModifyDate="2016-08-30T09:09:43+08:00"
   xmp:CreateDate="2016-02-09T09:35:55+11:00"
   dc:format="application/pdf"
   dc:modified="2015-02-02T11:34:12.984+11:00"
   pdf:Producer="Acrobat Distiller 15.0 (Windows)"
   xmpMM:DocumentID="uuid:743bfda1-6817-42a9-9d27-691eea1d3dcb"
   xmpMM:InstanceID="uuid:e68c541d-6a43-5c40-bda7-aeec9276327a"
   adhocwf:version="1.1"
   adhocwf:state="1">
   <dc:creator>
    <rdf:Alt>
     <rdf:li>Author Name Original</rdf:li>
    </rdf:Alt>
   </dc:creator>
   <dc:title>
    <rdf:Alt>
     <rdf:li xml:lang="x-default">Name of Form</rdf:li>
    </rdf:Alt>
   </dc:title>
  </rdf:Description>
</rdf:RDF>
</x:xmpmeta>

After: (Author Name Original

<x:xmpmeta xmlns:x="adobe:ns:meta/" x:xmptk="Adobe XMP Core 5.6-c015 84.158975, 2016/02/13-02:40:29        ">
 <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">
  <rdf:Description rdf:about=""
    xmlns:ns1="http://www.day.com/dam/1.0"
    xmlns:xmp="http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/"
    xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
    xmlns:pdf="http://ns.adobe.com/pdf/1.3/"
    xmlns:xmpMM="http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/mm/"
    xmlns:stEvt="http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/sType/ResourceEvent#"
    xmlns:adhocwf="http://ns.adobe.com/AcrobatAdhocWorkflow/1.0/"
   ns1:numPages="1"
   ns1:extracted="2015-02-02T19:21:39.107+11:00"
   ns1:Producer="Microsoft¨ Office Word 2007"
   ns1:Author="Author Name Original"
   ns1:sha1="a4646819493143f611cb8c534f1417952c8f101c"
   ns1:size="153811"
   xmp:CreatorTool="Microsoft¨ Office Word 2007"
   xmp:MetadataDate="2016-08-30T21:16:40+08:00"
   xmp:ModifyDate="2016-08-30T21:16:40+08:00"
   xmp:CreateDate="2016-02-09T09:35:55+11:00"
   dc:format="application/pdf"
   dc:modified="2015-02-02T11:34:12.984+11:00"
   pdf:Producer="Acrobat Distiller 15.0 (Windows)"
   xmpMM:DocumentID="uuid:743bfda1-6817-42a9-9d27-691eea1d3dcb"
   xmpMM:InstanceID="uuid:74b779cc-8b9d-e242-96c3-3efdd8230eac"
   xmpMM:OriginalDocumentID="uuid:743bfda1-6817-42a9-9d27-691eea1d3dcb"
   adhocwf:version="1.1"
   adhocwf:state="1">
   <dc:creator>
    <rdf:Seq>
     <rdf:li>Author Name New</rdf:li>
    </rdf:Seq>
   </dc:creator>
   <dc:title>
    <rdf:Alt>
     <rdf:li xml:lang="x-default"/>
    </rdf:Alt>
   </dc:title>
   <xmpMM:History>
    <rdf:Seq>
     <rdf:li
      stEvt:action="saved"
      stEvt:instanceID="xmp.iid:8f09e053-7325-4aea-94c1-1defdba96d62"
      stEvt:when="2016-08-30T21:14:40+08:00"
      stEvt:softwareAgent="Adobe Bridge CC 2015 (Macintosh)"
      stEvt:changed="/metadata"/>
    </rdf:Seq>
   </xmpMM:History>
  </rdf:Description>
 </rdf:RDF>
</x:xmpmeta>

Report · Aug 30, 2016

Did it solve the issue you were having, though?

Report · Aug 30, 2016

The problem persists. E.g. File > Properties dialog box remains in-accessible even after changing metadata through Bridge.

However, I'm happy to have found a work-around (Bridge) that at leasts allows me to get on with the job at hand for now.

Might be one for the Acrobat engineering team to review, if they are interested.

Report · Aug 30, 2016

was too hasty in replying that the issue persisted.

It seems indeed that the 'meta-enforcer' through Bridge does the trick. It looks like just closing the PDF from Acrobat and reopening it might not do the trick, but if I quit Acrobat, perform the meta-enforcer (that's what I've called the meta template), and relaunch Acrobat and PDF the Properties panel becomes accessible again.

Strange issue though. Never encountered anything like it before.

Report · Aug 31, 2016

That's good to hear! My guess is there was some kind of corruption in the XMP string and it got fixed when Bridge re-saved it.

If you wish to submit a bug report you can do so here: Feature Request/Bug Report Form