Document Generation error : It seems there was an error on the server.

[Contact27506468ablc]

Hello, 

I am facing an error when generating document using the API Adobe document generation in WORD.

I haven't reach the API document limit per month as I start to use it. And you can find the document in the attachment. 

Thanks in advance for any insights!

[kglad]

in the future, to find the best place to post your message, use the list here, https://community.adobe.com/

p.s. i don't think the adobe website, and forums in particular, are easy to navigate, so don't spend a lot of time searching that forum list. do your best and we'll move the post (like this one has already been moved) if it helps you get responses.

<"moved from using the community bugs">

[Raymond Camden]

Um, no. I work for Adobe, on this team, and can you tell this is the right forum for that question. Now to be clear, this is *not* the same as paid technical support, but this is the right forum.

[kglad]

@Raymond Camden 

are you saying, the adobe services api (the destination i chose to move this message) is the correct forum, or using the community (the origin of this post) is the correct forum?

[Raymond Camden]

Ah, if you moved it here I didn't see that, so thank you (and sorry for the snark in my response 😉

[Raymond Camden]

We recently helped a user with a similar issue and discovered it had something to do with the version of Word. Obviously all 'modern' Word versions should work, but for this user changing to a different one helped. Can you try that? We're doing investigations with that other user but this may help you now. 

Also, it would be slower, but you can use the DocGen playground as well: https://documentservices.adobe.com/dc-docgen-playground/index.html#/ It lets you upload custom Word + data.

[Doddy_od]

Thanks Raymond, I am facing the same problem, using Office 365.  I also tried https://documentservices.adobe.com/dc-docgen-playground/index.html#/ Ibut same error message.  "it seems there was an error on the server".

My JSON file is quite simple.   Here's the output from NOTEPAD.
[{"No.":1,"Name in Chinese":"周麗萍","Name in English":"Chau Lai Ping","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"},{"No.":2,"Name in Chinese":"崔德玉","Name in English":"Chui Tak Yuk","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"},{"No.":3,"Name in Chinese":"李明恩","Name in English":"Lee Ming Yan","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"},{"No.":4,"Name in Chinese":"練曉正","Name in English":"Lin Hiu Jing","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"},{"No.":5,"Name in Chinese":"袁國慧","Name in English":"Yuen Kwok Wai","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"},{"No.":6,"Name in Chinese":"郝嘉熙","Name in English":"Kwok Ka Hei","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"},{"No.":7,"Name in Chinese":"趙婉彤","Name in English":"Zhao Wantong","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"},{"No.":8,"Name in Chinese":"滕美竺","Name in English":"Teng Meizhu","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"},{"No.":9,"Name in Chinese":"滕達","Name in English":"Teng Da","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"},{"No.":10,"Name in Chinese":"林思璿","Name in English":"Lin Sixuan","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"},{"No.":11,"Name in Chinese":"張明詩","Name in English":"Cheung Ming Sze","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"},{"No.":12,"Name in Chinese":"黃芯雅","Name in English":"Wong Sum Nga","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"},{"No.":13,"Name in Chinese":"黃亦淳","Name in English":"Wong Yik Shun","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"},{"No.":14,"Name in Chinese":"徐彤","Name in English":"Xu Tong","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"},{"No.":15,"Name in Chinese":"陳煥龍","Name in English":"Chen Huanlong","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"},{"No.":16,"Name in Chinese":"陳瑾澤","Name in English":"Chen Jinze","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"},{"No.":17,"Name in Chinese":"陳新霖","Name in English":"Chen Xinlin","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"},{"No.":18,"Name in Chinese":"蔡詠琳","Name in English":"Choy Wing Lam","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"},{"No.":19,"Name in Chinese":"陳宏蕾","Name in English":"Chen Hong Lei","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"},{"No.":20,"Name in Chinese":"周宇辰","Name in English":"Zhou Yuchen","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"},{"No.":21,"Name in Chinese":"劉佩穎","Name in English":"Lau Pui Wing Aza","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"},{"No.":22,"Name in Chinese":"梁寶璘","Name in English":"Leung Bo Lun Sofia","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"},{"No.":23,"Name in Chinese":"梁寶致","Name in English":"Leung Bo Chi Clare","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"},{"No.":24,"Name in Chinese":"肖玉","Name in English":"Xiao Yu","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"},{"No.":25,"Name in Chinese":"姚先峻","Name in English":"Aaron SJ Yao","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"},{"No.":26,"Name in Chinese":" 樊旭","Name in English":"Fan Xu","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"},{"No.":27,"Name in Chinese":"馮千羽","Name in English":"Alice, Feng Qianyu","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"},{"No.":28,"Name in Chinese":"符露","Name in English":"Fu Lu","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"}]

It only works if I have one "record"  e.g.

{"No.":28,"Name in Chinese":"符露","Name in English":"Fu Lu","Date":"3rd March 2024","Event":"Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"}

Any insights, or how to format the JSON correctly for the Document Generator API to work. ?

Thanks

[Raymond Camden]

Can you share the Word doc you used?

[Doddy_od]

See attached, this is much simpler than I am planning to use, but same error message.  

Thanks thanks

[Doddy_od]

BTW, I am located in Hong Kong, if that makes any difference? 

[Raymond Camden]

I'm sorry I missed it earlier. You can't send a *top level* array to Doc Gen. You must send an object with arrays inside. So for example, your data could have:

{

  "people": your current array

}

[Doddy_od]

Thank you.   

I have tried, and have to admit ignorance about JSON format,  tried to adjust but no tags are found.  
e.g.
{
"people": [
{
"No.": 1,
"Name in Chinese": "周麗萍",
"Name in English": "Chau Lai Ping",
"Date": "3rd March 2024",
"Event": "Marine Tour at Hoi Ha Wan"
}
]
}

I think there must be a way to make this easier for non-tech folk.   Will keep trying.

[Raymond Camden]

Are you saying Word couldn't see or generate tags based on that? It should be able to. I opened up Word, the DocGen add in, and used your JSON above and it worked fine. HOWEVER, keep in mind that when DocGen sees a list of data, it doesn't support you just dropping the tag in. Ie, you can't just do {{ people }}, rather, you need to insert it as a table or list.

[Doddy_od]

Thanks Raymond.   I can see that I can insert a table or list.  It works.  

I think I have seen now that the DocGen Api, may not meet what I need actually.   I want to output one PDF document per person, with fields English name, date, event inserted into the document.  

[Raymond Camden]

Ah, in your case, you would simply call Document Generation N times, passing in each array element as your data. That would work just fine.

[Megan36027006n1sn]

Hi @Raymond Camden, 

New user here, encountering the exact same issue.

I found a previous forum post you responded to where the OP seemed to have data in the format you're suggesting here - they had {"Properties": their current array} - which you indicated was wrong as it was passing in a top-level array. So, what is the correct structure? Apologies if I'm missing something!

I've tried editing my JSON to be structured in both ways . When structured as the OP,  @Doddy_od, in this current forum has it (i.e. without an object at the top-level), I get the "It seems there was an error on the server" message.

When I do it with an object at the top-level with the arrays inside (as suggested), I get a different issue - no tags are found. This is the same thing that's happening to @Doddy_od per his latest forum reply of March 11th.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

[Raymond Camden]

See my response. Arrays or lists of data aren't consider based tags, but rather something you would use in a list or table. 

[Megan36027006n1sn]

Thank you @Raymond Camden, I missed your above reply (I think I was writing my post as you posted your response!). Your response helped a lot.

When structured as an object with an array e.g. { Properties: current array}, there are no basic tags found, but indeed, advanced tags, such as tables and lists, are available and the document generates correctly. @Doddy_od 

Just to be absolutely clear, "when DocGen sees a list of data, it doesn't support you just dropping the tag in. Ie, you can't just do {{ people }}, rather, you need to insert it as a table or list" - so this means there's literally no way of using a JSON array aside from inside a table/list? 

Thanks for your help, much appreciated!

[Raymond Camden]

Eh, well, the expectation is that you use an array in a table or list, but you do not have to, that's just how the DocGen Add In expects you to. Remember that tool is a helper, but not required. You can always write your own tags. So you could, for example, loop over an array of strings and have them just be a paragraph each. You can loop over anything in any way really.

[32007872avwl]

I have also been recently receiving the same "server error" message (both when attempting to generate a pdf in Word using the Document Generator Add-in, as well as when using the Adobe Document Generation API Demo https://acrobatservices.adobe.com/dc-docgen-playground/index.html#/). The error now persists despite using different JSON datasets, Word docs, Adobe accounts, and laptops.

You mentioned it might have something to do with the version of Word; are you able to elaborate on this fix? I reverted to an earlier ver of Word, but am still having this issue.

[Raymond Camden]

Can you share a sample Word doc and JSON file you tried?