Headless convert-to PDF dies with 100% CPU

Max4 · April 7, 2022, 8:47am

Hi,
I have been using libreoffice on my Centos 7 server for a long time to convert documents to PDFs.
However, I now have a problem with a Word file. As soon as I try to convert it to PDF, the process hangs. When I use “top” to view my processes, I see that soffice.bin has 100% CPU usage. This does not change even after a longer wait.

my Libreoffice version: LibreOffice 5.3.6.1 30(Build:1)
This version is installed automatically on Centos 7 with
yum install libreoffice-core libreoffice-writer libreoffice-calc libreoffice-impress

What I have tried so far:

Libreoffice version 7.3.2
Libreoffice version 7.2.6
Call with --backtrace
backtrace with debuginfo-install libreoffice-core-5.3.6.1-25.el7_9.x86_64

With all versions installed, the same behavior is seen with the Word file.
There is nothing helpful in the gdbtrace.log.
As soon as the process hangs, it also writes nothing to the log file.

My call looks like this:
/usr/bin/soffice --headless --backtrace --convert-to pdf '/test/input/fail.docx' --outdir '/test'

Does anyone else have any ideas on how I can figure out the problem?

mikekaganski · April 7, 2022, 9:30am

I would suggest now to try filing a bug report, with the problematic document attached (sanitized to exclude sensitive info if required, but make sure that the sanitized document also exhibits the same problem).

If you can’t do that, and can’t obtain the useful backtrace (it might still be useful when attached to the bug report, despite you don’t see anything helpful yourself), the only option is setting up development environment locally, and debugging it yourself.