Rotativa PDF generation working locally but not on IIS 7

Question

I have an ASP.NET MVC 5 application. It has a simple form and when the user submits it, the form is stored in the cache and then another controller action is called, this action will return the model as a view as a PDF.

I have no need to save it locally, just to show it in the browser so that the user can download it.

There is no need for a database either, that is why I store the model in the cache.

Locally, on Visual studio 2013, it works fine. But when I publish it to IIS 7 I get an Unhandled Execution Error. Here is the stack trace that I get back:

 Unhandled Execution Error
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.Exception:

Source Error:

An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

Stack Trace:


[Exception]
   Rotativa.WkhtmltopdfDriver.Convert(String wkhtmltopdfPath, String switches, String html) +1364
   Rotativa.WkhtmltopdfDriver.ConvertHtml(String wkhtmltopdfPath, String switches, String html) +70
   Rotativa.ViewAsPdf.CallTheDriver(ControllerContext context) +1986
   Rotativa.AsPdfResultBase.BuildPdf(ControllerContext context) +380
   Rotativa.AsPdfResultBase.ExecuteResult(ControllerContext context) +69
   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeActionResultFilterRecursive(IList`1 filters, Int32 filterIndex, ResultExecutingContext preContext, ControllerContext controllerContext, ActionResult actionResult) +109
   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeActionResultFilterRecursive(IList`1 filters, Int32 filterIndex, ResultExecutingContext preContext, ControllerContext controllerContext, ActionResult actionResult) +890
   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeActionResultWithFilters(ControllerContext controllerContext, IList`1 filters, ActionResult actionResult) +97
   System.Web.Mvc.Async.<>c__DisplayClass21.<BeginInvokeAction>b__1e(IAsyncResult asyncResult) +241
   System.Web.Mvc.Controller.<BeginExecuteCore>b__1d(IAsyncResult asyncResult, ExecuteCoreState innerState) +29
   System.Web.Mvc.Async.WrappedAsyncVoid`1.CallEndDelegate(IAsyncResult asyncResult) +111
   System.Web.Mvc.Controller.EndExecuteCore(IAsyncResult asyncResult) +53
   System.Web.Mvc.Async.WrappedAsyncVoid`1.CallEndDelegate(IAsyncResult asyncResult) +19
   System.Web.Mvc.MvcHandler.<BeginProcessRequest>b__5(IAsyncResult asyncResult, ProcessRequestState innerState) +51
   System.Web.Mvc.Async.WrappedAsyncVoid`1.CallEndDelegate(IAsyncResult asyncResult) +111
   System.Web.CallHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() +606
   System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) +288


Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:4.0.30319; ASP.NET Version:4.0.30319.34248

I first used ActionAsPDF() but now I also tried to use return new ViewAsPDF(). Both give the same error and stack trace. Does this have to do something with permissions?

Is it really throwing `System.Exception` and not some derived class? That would be extremely poor. — leppie, Jun 29 '15 at 09:39
This is all that I'm getting back and since I can not duplicate it locally I don't know how to debug through it. — Robin, Jun 29 '15 at 09:44
The first line of the stack however has a parameter that sounds like it is a path name, I had troubles with paths and IIS before, could this be an issue? — Robin, Jun 29 '15 at 09:44
Maybe the VC++ redist is missing on the server as indicated [here](http://jwhijazi.blogspot.nl/2015/05/solving-rotativa-unhandled-exception.html) — rene, Jun 29 '15 at 09:45
This helped me resolve the issue: http://stackoverflow.com/a/39084558/6727296 — Shin, Aug 22 '16 at 16:38
I had the same issue and this helped me resolve http://stackoverflow.com/a/39084558/6727296 — Shin, Aug 22 '16 at 16:39

score 58 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 22 '16 at 15:12

58

This error is a missing C++ redistributable Package for Visual Studio 2013 file called (MSVCP120.dll).

To solve the issue:

Open the C++ redistributable Package for Visual Studio 2013 downloadable link below: download Visual C++ Redistributable Packages for Visual Studio 2013
Click Download and choose the file (vcredist_x86.exe) even if you are running X64 bit server version.
Install the file.

Check Jalal W Hijazi Blog http://jwhijazi.blogspot.com/2015/05/solving-rotativa-unhandled-exception.html for more details.

edited Dec 22 '16 at 15:12

meJustAndrew

6,011
8
50
76

answered Jul 08 '15 at 14:00

hgarg

696
6
4

13

Tip (on the Jalal blog) that worked for me: "I just copied msvcp120.dll and msvcr120.dll to the folder containing wkhtmltopdf.exe and all worked fine" – HugoXP Feb 06 '16 at 18:44
@HugoXP you should write this as a seperate answer - awesome! – fubo Feb 24 '17 at 14:29
1

Current Rotativa requires Visual C++ for Visual Studio 2015 – JoeyZero Oct 12 '17 at 23:43
4

C++ Redistributable 2013 no longer works, I had to install Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2017 (https://support.microsoft.com/en-my/help/2977003/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads) for it to work. – Rosdi Kasim Dec 29 '18 at 10:12

score 18 · Answer 2 · 2018-01-12T11:05:27.710

As mentioned in the comments on the blog linked in the answer, you can just copy the 2 following dll files to the rotativa folder on the server if you don't want to / can't easily install things on the server.

msvcr120.dll
msvcp120.dll

If it's working locally, you should have the two dll files available already. You need the x86 versions, if you find x64 versions packaged with vs 2015 they don't work. I found the right versions here:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\VC\redist\x86\Microsoft.VC120.CRT

After upgrading to Rotativa 1.7.3 this no longer worked. I had to copy over some new dlls from visual studio 2017, i found them here this time:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\VC\redist\x86\Microsoft.VC140.CRT

and i had to copy over

msvcp140.dll
vcruntime140.dll

This worked for me. On the server, I tried including the x64 dlls. However, they were not fixing the issue. So switched to x86 dlls and they worked liek a charm. Thanks a lot. — Sugar Bowl, Dec 23 '17 at 00:30
Visual Studio 2019: Found the files here: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\Common7\IDE — GSingh, Jul 08 '21 at 14:07

score 10 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 12 '17 at 12:35

10

The accepted answer almost worked for me. I was missing a newer version of the C++ redistributable so installing the old version didn't help.

The easiest way to find out what you are missing is to run wkhtmltopdf.exe manually. It will either give you console output (if working) or a message box about what's missing.

I was missing MSVCP140.dll, which is from the VS 2015 redist, available here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=48145

answered Jul 12 '17 at 12:35

davesw

1,850
1
14
11

1

In case anyone else runs into this issue, at this point (June 2019), I also needed to install this and discovered that you *must install the x86 version*. Installing just the x64 version does not work. – Mark Embling Jun 10 '19 at 08:05

score 8 · Answer 4 · edited Jan 23 '17 at 11:26

8

I fixed my issue by updating the wkhtmltopdf files from the installer found here

enter image description here

Working flawlessly now!

edited Jan 23 '17 at 11:26

meJustAndrew

6,011
8
50
76

answered Jul 19 '15 at 05:38

jamdownian

410
3
11

Oh..and this running on a azure hosted machine.. Sever 2012 VM not locally on my laptop – jamdownian Jul 19 '15 at 05:40

score 6 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 12 '17 at 23:28

6

When I upgraded from Rotativa 1.6.4 to 1.7.3 my PDF conversion on my website app stopped working and after running the wkhtmltopdf.exe on my production server I noticed it was having an issue with msvcp140.dll

Solution was to install Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=48145

answered Oct 12 '17 at 23:28

JoeyZero

567
5
16

The same thing happened to me after upgrading to 1.7.3. Installing the x86 vs 2015 redistributable fixed it. – Rosdi Kasim May 30 '18 at 13:41

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Oct 04 '16 at 07:54

I faced the same problem. Even the error logger wasn't logging anything.

After some research, I tried replacing the wkhtmltopdf.exe with the latest version available in wkhtmltopdf.org website, still no luck.

Finally copied msvcp120.dll and msvcr120.dll to the folder where I had the excutable and it worked. (There was no need of the latest version of wkhtmltopdf.exe, instead it worked with the version what I got from Nuget.)

msvcp120.dll and msvcr120.dll were available in the below directory in Windows 7.

C:\Windows\SysWOW64\

score 1 · Answer 7 · edited Sep 27 '18 at 13:11

1

I installed Visual C ++ Redistributable Packages for Visual Studio 2015

https://www.microsoft.com/pt-br/download/details.aspx?id=48145

This solved for me.

edited Sep 27 '18 at 13:11

Petter Friberg

21,252
9
60
109

answered Sep 24 '18 at 19:12

Diogo de Freitas nunes

21
1

Rotativa PDF generation working locally but not on IIS 7

7 Answers7

Linked