AzureDevops Pipeline Task WikiPdfExportTask@4 not working anymore since Release 8.0.1

[dschmittwilken]

Hi all,
I experienced that somehow without updating the WikiPdfExportTask@4 on my side. I suddenly needed dotnet 8 instead of 6. After swichting to dotnet 8 in my ubuntu pipeline agent. I get a new error, that X server is missing.

Any ideas on how to fix it?

Pipeline Task:

• task: WikiPdfExportTask@4
  displayName: 'Asd'
  continueOnError: true
  inputs:
  cloneRepo: false
  usePreRelease: false
  localpath: '$(Build.SourcesDirectory)'
  outputFile: '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)/asd.pdf'

Error Message:
00:00:00.11 No CSS specified, using devopswikistyle.css
00:00:00.11 Converting HTML to PDF
00:00:00.11 No Chrome path defined, downloading to user temp...
00:00:11.78 Chrome ready.
00:00:12.29 ERR: Something bad happend.
PuppeteerSharp.ProcessException: Failed to launch browser! [2018:2018:1009/103812.326457:ERROR:ui/ozone/platform/x11/ozone_platform_x11.cc:249] Missing X server or $DISPLAY
[2018:2018:1009/103812.326492:ERROR:ui/aura/env.cc:257] The platform failed to initialize. Exiting.

at PuppeteerSharp.States.ProcessStartingState.StartCoreAsync(LauncherBase p) in /home/runner/work/puppeteer-sharp/puppeteer-sharp/lib/PuppeteerSharp/States/ProcessStartingState.cs:line 83
at PuppeteerSharp.States.ProcessStartingState.StartCoreAsync(LauncherBase p) in /home/runner/work/puppeteer-sharp/puppeteer-sharp/lib/PuppeteerSharp/States/ProcessStartingState.cs:line 89
at PuppeteerSharp.Launcher.LaunchAsync(LaunchOptions options) in /home/runner/work/puppeteer-sharp/puppeteer-sharp/lib/PuppeteerSharp/Launcher.cs:line 77
at PuppeteerSharp.Launcher.LaunchAsync(LaunchOptions options) in /home/runner/work/puppeteer-sharp/puppeteer-sharp/lib/PuppeteerSharp/Launcher.cs:line 110
at azuredevops_export_wiki.PDFGenerator.ConvertHTMLToPDFAsync(SelfDeletingTemporaryFile tempHtmlFile)
at azuredevops_export_wiki.WikiPDFExporter.Export()

What I tried:
I tried adding an x server as a workaround to make puppeteer work, but this didn't help at all.

Added in Yaml Pipeline:

• script: |
  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get install xvfb
  export DISPLAY=:99
  Xvfb :99 -screen 0 1920x1080x24 &
  sleep 3
  displayName: Start xvfb

[NenoLoje]

Same here.

[FranksDevRepo]

Same here, switched to version 4.6 which is running without errors.

[rfennell]

I was just about to release a new version Azure DevOps task that wrapper this CLI tool with update NPM libraries, and I hit the same problem. If I use the 'download the tool' option the Linux version fails with the $DISPLAY error.

The problem for the Azure DevOps task is the NPM Library I use to get the release of the CLI tool can only get the current version, not a specific version.

I can look to changing the way I download this CLI tool, but as stated above your current options are

1. Download an older release of this tool such as 4.6, store it somewhere, and tell the task where the EXE is
2. Use the Windows or MacOS version, the latest version of these both seems fine

[rfennell]

I have just released a new version 4.5.12 of my AzureDevops Pipeline Task WikiPdfExportTask@4. It now gets this CLI tool using a different mechanism, so you can now specify the version you want using the new the desiredVersion parameter. If this new parameter is not set then the latest version will be downloaded, assuming you have not specified the task to use a previously downloaded version.

- task: WikiPDFExportTask.WikiPdfExportTask@4
  displayName: 'Export Single File'
  inputs:
    cloneRepo: false
    usePreRelease: false
    localpath: '$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)'
    singleFile: 'inline.md'
    outputFile: '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)/PDF/$(Agent.OS)-singleFile.pdf'
    downloadPath: 'tooltmp'
    desiredVersion: '4.6.0'

Note The usePreRelease parameter is still present for backwards compatibility, I did not want to break people's YAML, but it is now ignored, just raising a warning message that you should use the new desiredVersion option to get any specified version via it's tag

[dschmittwilken]

I have just released a new version 4.5.12 of my AzureDevops Pipeline Task WikiPdfExportTask@4. It now gets this CLI tool using a different mechanism, so you can now specify the version you want using the new the desiredVersion parameter. If this new parameter is not set then the latest version will be downloaded, assuming you have not specified the task to use a previously downloaded version.

• task: WikiPDFExportTask.WikiPdfExportTask@4
  displayName: 'Export Single File'
  inputs:
  cloneRepo: false
  usePreRelease: false
  localpath: '$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)'
  singleFile: 'inline.md'
  outputFile: '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)/PDF/$(Agent.OS)-singleFile.pdf'
  downloadPath: 'tooltmp'
  desiredVersion: '4.6.0'

Note The usePreRelease parameter is still present for backwards compatibility, I did not want to break people's YAML, but it is now ignored, just raising a warning message that you should use the new desiredVersion option to get any specified version via it's tag

I just tried it. It will lead to Download Error:

Variable: InjectExtraHeader [false]
Variable: OverrideExePath [undefined]
Variable: DesiredVersion [4.6.0]
Variable: DownloadPath [/home/vsts/work/_temp]
Variable: UsePreRelease [false]

Fetching release from: https://api.github.com/repos/MaxMelcher/AzureDevOps.WikiPDFExport/releases/tags/4.6.0
##[error]Error downloading release:
##[error]Error downloading release:
Downloaded executable /home/vsts/work/_temp/azuredevops-export-wiki
Set execute permission on executable /home/vsts/work/_temp/azuredevops-export-wiki
##[error]Unhandled: ENOENT: no such file or directory, chmod '/home/vsts/work/_temp/azuredevops-export-wiki'
##[error]Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, chmod '/home/vsts/work/_temp/azuredevops-export-wiki'
at Object.chmodSync (node:fs:1996:11)
at /home/vsts/work/_tasks/WikiPdfExportTask_48d40d27-32e1-460e-8ea6-0dfb48abdd6f/4.5.12/ExportFunctions.js:171:20
at Generator.next ()
at fulfilled (/home/vsts/work/_tasks/WikiPdfExportTask_48d40d27-32e1-460e-8ea6-0dfb48abdd6f/4.5.12/ExportFunctions.js:5:58)

[rfennell]

@dschmittwilken the issue appears to be that the download of the tool failed, hence the rest of the task processing failed.

Fetching release from: https://api.github.com/repos/MaxMelcher/AzureDevOps.WikiPDFExport/releases/tags/4.6.0
##[error]Error downloading release:

I have tested with the following YAML, targeting a hosted Linux agent and requesting the same version of the PDF CLI tool

trigger:
- main

pool:
  vmImage: ubuntu-latest

steps:
- task: UseDotNet@2
  displayName: Install .NET 6 as required for 4.6.0 of the exporter tool
  inputs:
    packageType: 'sdk'
    version: '6.x'
- task: WikiPdfExportTask@4
  displayName: 'Export Single File'
  inputs:
    cloneRepo: false
    usePreRelease: false
    localpath: '$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)'
    singleFile: 'README.md'
    outputFile: '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)/PDF/$(Agent.OS)-singleFile.pdf'
    downloadPath: '/home/vsts/work/_temp'
    desiredVersion: '4.6.0'

and it worked

Variable: DesiredVersion [4.6.0]
Variable: DownloadPath [/home/vsts/work/_temp]
Variable: UsePreRelease [false]
Fetching release from: https://api.github.com/repos/MaxMelcher/AzureDevOps.WikiPDFExport/releases/tags/4.6.0
Downloaded file at: /home/vsts/work/_temp/azuredevops-export-wiki
Downloaded executable /home/vsts/work/_temp/azuredevops-export-wiki
Set execute permission on executable /home/vsts/work/_temp/azuredevops-export-wiki
Using the EXE path of '/home/vsts/work/_temp/azuredevops-export-wiki' for AzureDevOps.WikiPDFExport
A filename 'README.md' in the folder '/home/vsts/work/1/s' has been requested so only processing that file 
Using /home/vsts/work/1/s as the root path to export
Found file the file README.md relative to the current working directory
Adding the verbose flag to increase logging
Creating folder /home/vsts/work/1/a/PDF
Changing folder to /home/vsts/work/1/s
Using command '"/home/vsts/work/_temp/azuredevops-export-wiki"  -p "/home/vsts/work/1/s" -s "README.md" -o "/home/vsts/work/1/a/PDF/Linux-singleFile.pdf" -v'
00:00:00.04 Reading .order file in directory /home/vsts/work/1/s
00:00:00.04 Found 1 total pages to process
00:00:00.05 Converting Markdown to HTML
00:00:00.06   README.md
00:00:00.09     Correcting Links and Images
00:00:00.09     Correcting Links and Images
00:00:00.09     Correcting Links and Images
00:00:00.09     Correcting Links and Images
00:00:00.09     Correcting Links and Images
00:00:00.11       Anchor: /readme
00:00:00.11 No CSS specified, using devopswikistyle.css
00:00:00.11 Converting HTML to PDF
00:00:00.11 No Chrome path defined, downloading to user temp...
00:00:03.56 Chrome ready.
00:00:04.79 Asking Chrome to open 1,370 bytes page at /tmp/tmpz8kEhL.html...
00:00:04.84 HTML file loaded.
00:00:04.84 Generating PDF document...
00:00:04.92 PDF document is ready.
00:00:04.92 PDF created at: /home/vsts/work/1/a/PDF/Linux-singleFile.pdf

Export done in 00:00:04.8811707


Finishing: Export Single File

Could there have been a transient network issues, or a firewall setting that stopped the agent accessing https://api.github.com/repos/MaxMelcher/AzureDevOps.WikiPDFExport/releases/tags/4.6.0?