CFREPORT Report compilation error Premature end of file. CF2021 (patched)

[AlHolden]

Working on some legacy code that runs fine in older CF versions like 10~16, and hitting an error while trying to migrate to (Developer) CF 2021,0,15,330303 on Win 11 for a client.

The line producing the error is:

<cfreport template="#struReturn.reportGen.cfrTemplate#"  query="#struReturn.reportGen.queryName#" format="PDF" filename="#struReturn.reportGen.outputFilename#">

(yes, the source cfr is there, and the line is not even called if the query is empty)

The error is:

Report compilation error.  Premature end of file.

Which implies that the server cannot handle or decrypt the cfr, or parse the resulting xml internally (?).

I have tried placing the patch file hf202100-4212391.jar in the \cfusion\lib\updates\ folder - as prescribed in a similar issue here. The jar is still there after restarting the service.

I don't know if this is relevent, but since UPDATE 15 the CF Admin keeps insisting that 6 modules are not installed: document, htmltopdf, pdf, presentation, print and report.

I can "successfully" install versions 2021.0.14.* of these individually, but attempting to install all (or update any one to version 2021.0.15.*) will throw "Not able to connect to Update Site: Connection Failure: Status code unavailable"

But after I restart the CF App service, CF Admin says that 6 modules are not installed again.

When I revert the server back to UPDATE 14, the modules no longer "remove themselves", but the Premature end of file CFREPORT error remains. So just a red herring?

FYI: We do NOT install the print or presentation modules, as the later was known to cause issues with other pdf modules.

[Dave Watts]

Can you install a recording proxy and see what's going on with the update site responses?

Dave Watts, Eidolon LLC 

[AlHolden]

Thanks @Dave Watts, but I'm not sure what else I would get beyond what's in the update.log file. I've always thought that the message "Connection Failure: Status code unavailable" simply means that the endpoint is not there or refuses the connection.
My amateur conclusion is that the version cited in the updater UI selection option is not there, and that a message like this means we're not gonna see much else. Is that flawed logic?

Let me see what else I can find out, however:

Do you know or suspect that this family of core and plugin updates will actually fix the cfreport xml parsing error?

Al

P.S. I think you led a Macromedia MAX course that I attended (maybe in New Orleans?). How's that for a throwback?

[BKBK]

Issue well described, @AlHolden . Thanks for the link to the CF2021 cfreport issue that others previously reported.. I would suggest you do what they did: contact cfsup[at]adobe.com for help.

[richt82047916]

Something to try -- uninstall the "Presentations" package from the package manager.   I have found that something in the Pres package causes the CFR's not to work.   

[AlHolden]

Hi @richt82047916 

We do not have that module installed for this very reason. Sorry that I saved that trivia tidbit for the last line of my OP.

Yes @BKBK that's definately what they did, after @Priyank Shrivastava. replied that a patch was available for their problem. I tried that patch - as archived by Charlie - without any luck.

I'll reach out to cfsupport as soon as I can revert this and all the stuff I've tried. Maybe they have something new for 2021

[richt82047916]

Oh, yes, I see it now!   Apologies for missing that initially, although not sorry if it brings more attention to the issue and helps get it resolved.   Cheers. 

[AlHolden · Accepted solution]

OK, well I don't want to pollute the original post's subject with any more discussion on the update issues. It looks like my last attempt may have suceeded, with only one "Server taking too long to restart..." message. In this case, the 6 modules noted priot were again removed by the process, but the options to install any 2021.0.15.* plugin versions were gone from the dropdown now, and the 2021.0.14.* version installs actually survived a restart now.

So maybe the update 15 to the core was incomplete last time... or some other conspiracy theory is welcome.
This probably deserves a separate ticket if I encounter more on it later.

Back to the original post now:
There is still a problem with the same CFREPORT, which is logged something like this:

"An error occurred while parsing XML from '(already loaded from stream)', see nested exceptions
org.xml.sax.SAXParseException; Premature end of file."

However, I've found other CFREPORT tags which are actually running fine. So I'm going to chaulk this up to some corrupted XML (which is what I think CF gets after it decrypts a CFR file) or the decryption process itself. One way to test this would be to try Adobe's "Report Builder" product to rebuild the file.

Or

I could just convert the report to some other technology and be done with it.

Hmmm... decisions ;-]

Thanks Charlie, Dave, BKBK,  and Rich!

Al

P.S. Why they decided to encrypt these report formatting files in the first place escapes me. Perhaps they didn't want us to know that they might just be using Jasper's xml format?