Solved: Re: Html template stopped working properly after A...

neemias · 12-16-2022 08:14 AM

Hi! Since yesterday, my HTML template now ignores the expression <p><<If:ISNOTBLANK([1])>></p> PAGE CONTENT <p><<EndIf>></p> p>. When column [1] is empty, the page must not be printed in the PDF. It worked for months until last night. It occurred in other applications that use html as a template. I believe there was a system update. I need support urgently because my work is being affected.

<p><<If:ISNOTBLANK([1])>></p>
<table style="width:90%" align="center">
<tr>
<td rowspan="3" style="width:3%"><img src="<<[LOGO2]>>" class="logo"></td>
<td align="left" style="width:3%">Empresa:</td>
<td align="left">Periseg</td>
<td align="left" style="width:3%">Regulador:</td>
<td align="left"><<[Perito]>></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" style="width:3%">Email:</td>
<td align="left">(PII Removed by Staff)</td>
<td align="left" style="width:3%">Fone:</td>
<td align="left">(51) 980259832</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left" style="width:3%">Segurado:</td>
<td align="left"><<[Nome do segurado]>></td>
<td align="left" style="width:3%">Sinistro:</td>
<td align="left"><<[Número do sinistro]>></td>
</tr>
</table>
<hr>
<h3 align="center">Item 1</h3>
<table style="width:100%">
<tr>
<td align="center"><img src="<<[10001]>>" class="image"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<<[1001]>> <<[100001]>> <<[1000001]>></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="center"><img src="<<[10002]>>" class="image"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;<<[1002]>> <<[100002]>> <<[1000002]>></td>
</tr>
</table>
<hr>
<footer>
<p align="center">Emitido em <<_TODAY>></p>
</footer>
<p><<EndIf>></p>
<DIV></DIV>

Steve

@neemias wrote:

Any idea what caused this change and non-recognition of expression?

Developers make and release changes to AppSheet just about every day. It's not always clear to the developers what the side-effects of their changes will be, so it isn't always clear when those changes should be announced or noted in the daily release notes. The reality of this "continuing release" process is that we--the users--frequently discover bugs and have to notify the developers. The best way to do so is by contacting Support.

View solution in original post

Aleksi

Are you still seeing the same issue? There was a release in the converter which could have caused this behavior change and that release is now rolled back.

View solution in original post

Steve

Please contact AppSheet Support for help with this.

neemias

Thanks @Steve!

neemias

@Steve @Suvrutt_Gurjar Any idea what caused this change and non-recognition of expression? It was working normally for months and I haven't made any changes recently.

Kunal_Jain

I too am facing an issue with a word document template with respect to alignment.

Did the PDF engine change?

neemias

Hi @Kunal_Jain, i believe so! The support team is working to fix the problem...

Steve

@neemias wrote:

Any idea what caused this change and non-recognition of expression?

Developers make and release changes to AppSheet just about every day. It's not always clear to the developers what the side-effects of their changes will be, so it isn't always clear when those changes should be announced or noted in the daily release notes. The reality of this "continuing release" process is that we--the users--frequently discover bugs and have to notify the developers. The best way to do so is by contacting Support.

neemias

Thanks Steve! Support is there to resolve the issue.

neemias

Hi Steve!

I just realized that the same error happened again. Last time you took 1 month to settle the situation, which brought a series of inconveniences and losses to the company where I work. Again, an upgrade in the pdf generator engine results in the disregard of conditionals established within the .html template. Can you help me?

Greg_Denton

Hi, we updated the version of chromium used to generate PDFs (see release notes) yesterday, but the variable replacement (in this case removing the conditional "page") happens before it gets rendered. I tried to reproduce the issue you described but couldn't. I am still able to use this to conditionally exclude some content in an HTML template.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>pdf-template</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <p>&lt;&lt;If: ([MyYesNoColumn])&gt;&gt;</p>
        <table style="width:90%" align="center">
        <tr>
            <td>My conditional content</td>
        </tr>
        </table>
        <p>&lt;&lt;EndIf&gt;&gt;</p>
        <p>This paragraph should always be here</p>
    </body>
</html>

Can you contact support who can gather some more information about your specific case.

Fabian_Weller

Hi @Greg_Denton we are affected, two. Please see my post here:

https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/AppSheet-Q-A/PDF-generator-update-brakes-the-PDF-output/m-p/...

Greg_Denton

Hi Fabian, can you provide the before and after to support so we can take a look and see if it looks like another bug in Chromiums LayoutNG that we could pass along, or if it's working as intended with that bug fix.

If you happen to have a copy of the PDF from when this broke earlier in the year that'd be even better so we could compare without LayoutNG, with LayoutNG before the bug fix, and LayoutNG with the bug fix.

Fabian_Weller

Thank you very much @Greg_Denton. I just sent the files to support.

devingu

could you please share the case id through DM to me? I can escalate the ticket to Greg!

neemias

Thanks @Greg_Denton. I reported it to support last Tuesday... hoping for a resolution.

neemias

Hi @Greg_Denton

any news? There are blank pages in all my pdf's...

Fabian_Weller

Hi @neemias I had to update all my templates again.

https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/AppSheet-Q-A/PDF-generator-update-brakes-the-PDF-output/m-p/...

Fabian_Weller

Same here. Pagination changed somewhere between 15th and 19th December. I use Google Doc to create PDF.

The reason seems to be an update in the PDF generator from Skia/PDF m107 to Skia/PDF m108.

See also the comments in this post: https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/Release-Notes/December-19-2022/bc-p/501404#M1351

neemias

Thanks!

Aleksi

Thanks for these details!

Aleksi

FYI.. our engineers are investigating/debugging the reason.

Aleksi

Are you still seeing the same issue? There was a release in the converter which could have caused this behavior change and that release is now rolled back.

Kunal_Jain

Thanks Aleksi for the information. I confirm the roll back is successful.

Fabian_Weller

Solved. Thank you.

neemias

@Aleksi Apparently the problem was solved and the expression returned to work, printing the report normally. I'll be watching for a few days and if there are any problems, I'll let you know here.

Aleksi

Okay good!

Kunal_Jain

This issue seems to have resurfaced. The text alignment in columns in the generated PDF is not as per the template. Maybe there was an update in the PDF engine version?

Things were working fine for me 3 days back.

neemias

@Kunal_Jain, yes, it happened again on 03/16/2023 and so far the problem has not been resolved. Surely there was a new update. This has caused me a huge inconvenience and from what I understand the support has not given due importance to this issue. I have professional applications that I use all the time and it hurts my business, as it hurts all users of the tool.

@Steve, @Aleksi Is there anything you can do to speed up the problem?

Fabian_Weller

Same here. The reason seems to be an update in the PDF generator from Skia/PDF m110 to Skia/PDF m111.

CC @Arthur_Rallu

Fabian_Weller

Please see my call to action post:

https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/AppSheet-Q-A/PDF-generator-update-brakes-the-PDF-output/m-p/...

@Kunal_Jain @neemias

neemias

I just realized that the same error happened again. Last time you took 1 month to settle the situation, which brought a series of inconveniences and losses to the company where I work. Again, an upgrade in the pdf generator engine results in the disregard of conditionals established within the .html template.

Fabian_Weller

@neemias you are right. Please see my call to action here.

https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/AppSheet-Q-A/PDF-generator-update-brakes-the-PDF-output/m-p/...

neemias

Thanks @Fabian_Weller... monitoring the situation.

Html template stopped working properly after AppSheet update. 4 apps affected. I need a help urgent!