Ghostscript error when printing a lot of PDFs

PDFCreator.log.txt (4.0 MB)

Hi,

I have an issue that's been bugging me for many months. As such, it's been a problem through many different versions of PDFCreator (hoping it would be fixed somehow) and I have also tried updating ghostscript, with no luck at all.

The problem is that ghostscript seems to crash when printing a lot of PDFs. I'm printing architectural drawings from Revit (a 3D program) in various formats (from A4-A1). I'm not sure what kind of information is needed in order to pinpoint and troubleshoot the problem, but I have attached my log file where the errors can be seen and shown below is the error I get when the crash happens:

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: gswin32c.exe
Application Version: 0.0.0.0
Application Timestamp: 5b9a3d1f
Fault Module Name: ntdll.dll
Fault Module Version: 6.1.7601.24358
Fault Module Timestamp: 5c5e1b26
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 0002df97
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48
Locale ID: 1030
Additional Information 1: 3d6f
Additional Information 2: 3d6f1ed4ac031a49ad962dce04a722bc
Additional Information 3: 2519
Additional Information 4: 2519467b618058541eb29655f9d1ac24

When choosing 'debug' during the crash, the error shown is this:
Exception thrown at 0x7731DF97 (ntdll.dll) in gswin32c.exe: 0xC0000005: Access violation writing location 0x00090FFC

I hope you might be able to help me. Please let me know if you need more information of any kind.

*EDIT: Also, there is not a clear pattern of when it happens (e.g specific drawings), so I can't consistently replicate the same error pattern. It seems somewhat random.

Kind regards,

Niklas

Similar problem here with the same program (Revit). When batch printing with automatic printing profile, I get random print errors even though the pdfs appear to print correctly. My error log says something about ghostscript execution failing due to undefinedfilename

Attached my log as well. I'm about to abandon the attempt to use this program as our default PDF creator because of this. Hope there's a fix in the works.

PDFCreator - Error.log.txt (2.1 MB)

2019-03-04 15:28:17.5968 [Trace] 1052-20 (ProcessingThread) pdfforge.PDFCreator.Conversion.Ghostscript.Conversion.GhostscriptConverter.DoConversion: Finished Ghostscript execution
2019-03-04 15:28:17.5968 [Error] 1052-20 (ProcessingThread) pdfforge.PDFCreator.Conversion.Ghostscript.Conversion.GhostscriptConverter.DoConversion: Ghostscript execution failed: Error: /undefinedfilename in (C:\Users\dburow\AppData\Local\Temp\PDFCreator\Spool\116-B63D3FDE876B4E7CA6682B19D6A4AED0.PS)
Operand stack:

Execution stack:
%interp_exit .runexec2 --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- 2 %stopped_push --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- false 1 %stopped_push
Dictionary stack:
--dict:1006/1684(ro)(G)-- --dict:0/20(G)-- --dict:78/200(L)--
Current allocation mode is local
Last OS error: No such file or directory

Hi,

sorry for the trouble. While both being connected to Ghostscript, these issue don't seem to have the same cause. In the first case, the ntdll.dll is a system file which doesn't get modified by PDFCreator and gswin32c is a Ghostscript binary, so most likely we can't do anything on our end to help solve the issue.

Regarding the second case, are you sure the (all) PDFs get created as expected?
The Ghostscript error you are getting basically means it can't read or write the in/output and should usually result in no output for that print job. Does the Postscript file mentioned in the error actually exist at the specified location? Do you still get the same issue if you add a little delay between the jobs in the batch?

Best regards

Robin

Hello Robin,

So is it because the issue is caused by ghostscript that you think you're unlikely to be able to do anything on your end? And do you have any ideas or thoughts about what could cause it or if I could do some workaround to avoid it? Anything at all would be helpful.

Kind regards,

Niklas

Hi Niklas,

it could be Ghostscript, the ntdll.dll itself or some hardware issue. I don't think it is directly connected to PDFCreator, as there aren't any other recent reports of this happening. Here is a page on how to fix ntdll.dll issues, perhaps it will help a bit: https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-fix-ntdll-dll-errors-2624474

Best regards

Robin

Hej Robin,

I will try looking into that.
However, I work in a big office, where a lot of users use the script for automated printing that I've made utilizing PDFCreator. And there are quite a few users getting the same error where ghostscript fails when printing many drawings, so it seems a bit unlikely that we all have faulty system files or hardware.
And the fact that this issue hasn't been reported before makes me wonder as well. We must be doing something that messes it up and I really want to find the cause so I can fix it.

Kind regards,

Niklas

Hi Niklas,

sometimes there can be timing issues when printing a lot of jobs in quick succession; it might help to add some delay in between the jobs, is this possible in your script? A timing issue would also explain the randomness.
I agree that if multiple users are getting this error, it probably isn't a hardware issue or broken system files.
Unfortunately we can't help a lot with the diagnosis as the error occurs outside of our code.

Best regards

Robin

Hi Robin,

That is a really interesting thought and I can see how that could cause problems. I think a delay should be possible to implement and I will definitely try it out.

Kind regards,

Niklas