FileMaker’s Save Records as PDF script step is, like, totally awesome. But there’s one teeny tiny issue: it sure likes to crash. We use this feature a lot with our customers, and under the right set of circumstances, we can see crashing on half or more of the machines our scripts run on. Luckily, it turns out this problem is easy to fix. It is such a frequent problem that I thought I’d save the googlers of the world some time and write up the solution here.
The Problem
First, let me clarify the symptoms and probable causes. Normally when your scripts use the Save Records as PDF script step, FileMaker thinks for a few seconds (or longer depending on your layout) and then produces a beautiful PDF document. Chances are this works perfectly every single time on your computer while you’re developing the script. But on some computers, when your script runs, FileMaker thinks for a few seconds, then “unexpectedly quits.” (Note: “Unexpectedly quit” is Mac OS X’s cute way of saying, “It did something naughty and I killed it dead.”) This almost always happens first right after you roll out the amazing new feature, leaving your users (or customers) a little peeved.
In my experience, this problem is limited to FileMaker Pro and Advanced on Mac OS X, and it seems to only happen on machines with Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Acrobat Reader installed (although it doesn’t happen on every machine with this configuration). Once it starts happening, it is typically consistent. Every time you try to save a PDF on that machine (even manually from the File menu) it will crash.
The Fix
There are two potential causes, and two simple fixes. First, if you’re using FileMaker 9 prior to version 9.0v3, then all bets are off. Upgrade to the latest FileMaker maintenance release immediately. You can find out what version you’re running by choosing the FileMaker Pro -> About FileMaker Pro menu command. And you can download the 9.0v3 updater free of charge from the FileMaker web site right here.
If you have upgraded to 9.0v3 already, then you have the other problem. A few hours of frenzied Six Fried Rice troubleshooting discovered that this file is the culprit:
[Your Home Folder]/Library/Application Support/Adobe/TypeSpt/AdobeFnt08.lst
This file gets twiddled in some invisible way, and FileMaker is no longer a happy camper. Just delete this file, and try again.
I have encountered the PDF crashing problem about a dozen times “in the wild” and in 100% of the cases, upgrading to 9.0v3 and deleting this file has fixed the problem perfectly. Here’s hoping it helps you too.
Jerrald Hayes
5-7-2008
Oh my gawd! It works! That’s great! That’s awesome, thanks so much. Strangely though the script always works for all my solution on my client’s computers but always crashed my own personal machine. It’s been driving me nuts for ages.
Larinda
5-9-2008
Worked perfectly! this has been causing me a lot of problems. Thanks!
Los Boricuas
5-23-2008
Excellent article. Did you know that this has been linked in internal FileMaker tech support staff threads? I have a friend there working for them who passed this on to me.
Geoff Coffey
5-26-2008
@los: No, we did not know that. Very cool. Thanks!
Geoff
Brian Seidman
5-29-2008
Any idea how to keep this file from coming back? I delete it (and also AdobeFnt07.lst), but after I export the PDF successfully, it’s back again. I’d hate to have to delete the file every time I want to export a PDF from FileMaker.
Geoff Coffey
6-1-2008
@brian:
It will always be automatically recreated when you make a PDF, but in my experience, that is not a problem. The presence of this file is not a problem in itself. It is when you have a corrupted version of the file that you get crashing. In my experience, the one that is auto-created is problem free, so you don’t have to worry about it anymore.
It is possible it will get corrupted again, and you’ll have to re-do the fix. But so far, in my experience, this has not happened. I suspect the corruption may have arrived from some older version of Acrobat, and stuck around until FileMaker made it obvious because in every case, for me at least, deleting this file once was a permanent fix.
David
7-1-2008
Worked like a charm! Sure saved me a lot of aggravation. First link that popped up after I googled ‘Filemaker crashes on pdf export’ Thanks very much!
Nancy
7-2-2008
Thanks for these suggestions. I tried both suggestions (updating to v3 and deleted that font file). Neither worked to solve the problem. I’ve now seen it on 2 computers at 2 different locations. Any other suggestions?
Thank you.
Boise Ruby and FileMaker Developer
7-13-2008
Good show geoff, we have a large pathology database we have been doing a solution for that encountered this problem last year, finally we just turned off PDF printing in FileMaker and did it through Lasso and ImageMagick.
——- strip ——
So we are all guessing about Lumen, my guess is that it is an interface for RadiantCMS.
——- strip ——
-Brian
Geoff Coffey
7-17-2008
@nancy:
Hmm… Bummer. It has always worked for me, so I’m not sure what to say. One time I thought I was on v3, removed the mystery file, and still had crashing. But when I looked to be sure, it was actually not v3. Maybe it is worth a second check? Otherwise, let us know if you make any progress.
Geoff
Geoff Coffey
7-17-2008
@brian:
Thanks for stopping by the booth. Hope we cleared up the mystery
Geoff
Stephen
7-25-2008
Not sure how necessary this step would be, but you could add a perform applescript step before you try to save as pdf:
Geoff Coffey
7-25-2008
@stephen:
Interesting idea. In my experience this sort of thing is not necessary, but if you have continued problems it might be worth doing. Bear in mind that I think that will slow things down a bit. The AdobeFnt file seems to be some kind of cache that, when not corrupted, helps the PDF system start up faster. So it would be a shame to delete it all the time if it was really fine.
Geoff