PDF page export fails with: SandboxCrashedException: Sandbox has crashed while serving the request

Platform Notice: Data Center Only - This article only applies to Atlassian products on the Data Center platform.

Note that this KB was created for the Data Center version of the product. Data Center KBs for non-Data-Center-specific features may also work for Server versions of the product, however they have not been tested. Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.

*Except Fisheye and Crucible

Summary

Try to export a page. The export fails and this message is shown in the page:

1 2 3 Cause java.lang.RuntimeException: com.atlassian.confluence.importexport.ImportExportException: We couldn't complete your export. There was an error converting the page "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX". <a href="https://docs.atlassian.com/confluence/docs-74/PDF+export+in+Confluence+Data+Center">Learn more</a> at com.atlassian.confluence.extra.flyingpdf.impl.ExportPageAsPdfAction.doExecute(ExportPageAsPdfAction.java:56)

Diagnosis

The atlassian-confluence.log will show this message:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 2019-11-12 14:10:17,231 ERROR [http-nio-8090-exec-4093] [atlassian.confluence.servlet.ConfluenceServletDispatcher] sendError Could not execute action -- url: /spaces/flyingpdf/pdfpageexport.action | traceId: bc69ccc7d674fa38 | userName: XXXXXX | referer: https://<CONFLUENCE_URL>/page java.lang.RuntimeException: com.atlassian.confluence.importexport.ImportExportException: We couldn't complete your export. There was an error converting the page "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX". <a href="https://docs.atlassian.com/confluence/docs-74/PDF+export+in+Confluence+Data+Center">Learn more</a> at com.atlassian.confluence.extra.flyingpdf.impl.ExportPageAsPdfAction.doExecute(ExportPageAsPdfAction.java:56) at com.atlassian.confluence.extra.flyingpdf.impl.PdfExportSemaphore.run(PdfExportSemaphore.java:28) at com.atlassian.confluence.extra.flyingpdf.impl.ExportPageAsPdfAction.execute(ExportPageAsPdfAction.java:29) at com.opensymphony.xwork.DefaultActionInvocation.invoke(DefaultActionInvocation.java:168) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748) Caused by: com.atlassian.confluence.importexport.ImportExportException: We couldn't complete your export. There was an error converting the page "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX". <a href="https://docs.atlassian.com/confluence/docs-74/PDF+export+in+Confluence+Data+Center">Learn more</a> at com.atlassian.confluence.extra.flyingpdf.sandbox.SandboxXmlToPdfConverter.convertXhtmlToPdf(SandboxXmlToPdfConverter.java:108) at com.atlassian.confluence.extra.flyingpdf.sandbox.SandboxPdfExporterService.renderPdf(SandboxPdfExporterService.java:348) at com.atlassian.confluence.extra.flyingpdf.sandbox.SandboxPdfExporterService.createPdf(SandboxPdfExporterService.java:334) at com.atlassian.confluence.extra.flyingpdf.sandbox.SandboxPdfExporterService.createPdfForPage(SandboxPdfExporterService.java:224) at com.atlassian.confluence.extra.flyingpdf.impl.DelegatingPdfExporterService.createPdfForPage(DelegatingPdfExporterService.java:54) at com.atlassian.confluence.extra.flyingpdf.impl.DiagnosticPdfExporterService.createPdfForPage(DiagnosticPdfExporterService.java:88) at com.atlassian.confluence.extra.flyingpdf.impl.ExportPageAsPdfAction.doExecute(ExportPageAsPdfAction.java:36) ... 396 more Caused by: com.atlassian.confluence.util.sandbox.SandboxCrashedException: Sandbox has crashed while serving the request at com.atlassian.confluence.impl.util.sandbox.SandboxProcess.tryToThrowSpecificException(SandboxProcess.java:230) at com.atlassian.confluence.impl.util.sandbox.SandboxProcess.execute(SandboxProcess.java:159) at com.atlassian.confluence.impl.util.sandbox.DefaultSandboxPool.execute(DefaultSandboxPool.java:116) at com.atlassian.confluence.impl.util.sandbox.ConfluenceSandboxPoolFactory$LazySandbox.execute(ConfluenceSandboxPoolFactory.java:72) at com.atlassian.confluence.impl.util.sandbox.DefaultSandbox.execute(DefaultSandbox.java:36) at com.atlassian.confluence.extra.flyingpdf.sandbox.PdfExportSandbox.execute(PdfExportSandbox.java:49) at com.atlassian.confluence.extra.flyingpdf.sandbox.SandboxXmlToPdfConverter.convertXhtmlToPdf(SandboxXmlToPdfConverter.java:81) ... 402 more Caused by: java.io.EOFException at java.io.DataInputStream.readInt(DataInputStream.java:392) at com.atlassian.confluence.impl.util.sandbox.SandboxMessage.receiveMessage(SandboxMessage.java:42) at com.atlassian.confluence.impl.util.sandbox.SandboxProcess.receiveMessage(SandboxProcess.java:283) at com.atlassian.confluence.impl.util.sandbox.SandboxProcess.execute(SandboxProcess.java:156) ... 407 more

To get even more details, it's possible to increase the PDF Sandbox class to debug:

1 com.atlassian.confluence.impl.util.sandbox

With the logs in debug, the atlassian-confluence.log will show this message right before the main exception above:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 2020-12-07 15:12:46,961 INFO [sandbox-logger] [impl.util.sandbox.ConversionSandbox] lambda$static$0 worker0: Exception in thread "main" java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space 2020-12-07 15:12:46,961 INFO [sandbox-logger] [impl.util.sandbox.ConversionSandbox] lambda$static$0 worker0: at java.awt.image.DataBufferByte.<init>(DataBufferByte.java:92) 2020-12-07 15:12:46,961 INFO [sandbox-logger] [impl.util.sandbox.ConversionSandbox] lambda$static$0 worker0: at java.awt.image.ComponentSampleModel.createDataBuffer(ComponentSampleModel.java:445) 2020-12-07 15:12:46,961 INFO [sandbox-logger] [impl.util.sandbox.ConversionSandbox] lambda$static$0 worker0: at java.awt.image.Raster.createWritableRaster(Raster.java:941) 2020-12-07 15:12:46,961 INFO [sandbox-logger] [impl.util.sandbox.ConversionSandbox] lambda$static$0 worker0: at javax.imageio.ImageTypeSpecifier.createBufferedImage(ImageTypeSpecifier.java:1074) 2020-12-07 15:12:46,961 INFO [sandbox-logger] [impl.util.sandbox.ConversionSandbox] lambda$static$0 worker0: at javax.imageio.ImageReader.getDestination(ImageReader.java:2892) 2020-12-07 15:12:46,962 INFO [sandbox-logger] [impl.util.sandbox.ConversionSandbox] lambda$static$0 worker0: at com.sun.imageio.plugins.png.PNGImageReader.readImage(PNGImageReader.java:1317) 2020-12-07 15:12:46,962 INFO [sandbox-logger] [impl.util.sandbox.ConversionSandbox] lambda$static$0 worker0: at com.sun.imageio.plugins.png.PNGImageReader.read(PNGImageReader.java:1614) 2020-12-07 15:12:46,962 INFO [sandbox-logger] [impl.util.sandbox.ConversionSandbox] lambda$static$0 worker0: at javax.imageio.ImageIO.read(ImageIO.java:1462) 2020-12-07 15:12:46,962 INFO [sandbox-logger] [impl.util.sandbox.ConversionSandbox] lambda$static$0 worker0: at javax.imageio.ImageIO.read(ImageIO.java:1357) 2020-12-07 15:12:46,962 INFO [sandbox-logger] [impl.util.sandbox.ConversionSandbox] lambda$static$0 worker0: at com.atlassian.confluence.extra.flyingpdf.impl.LightITextFSImage.getImage(LightITextFSImage.java:193) 2020-12-07 15:12:46,962 INFO [sandbox-logger] [impl.util.sandbox.ConversionSandbox] lambda$static$0 worker0: at org.xhtmlrenderer.pdf.ITextOutputDevice.drawImage(ITextOutputDevice.java:828) 2020-12-07 15:12:46,962 INFO [sandbox-logger] [impl.util.sandbox.ConversionSandbox] lambda$static$0 worker0: at org.xhtmlrenderer.pdf.ITextImageElement.paint(ITextImageElement.java:72) 2020-12-07 15:12:46,962 INFO [sandbox-logger] [impl.util.sandbox.ConversionSandbox] lambda$static$0 worker0: at org.xhtmlrenderer.pdf.ITextOutputDevice.paintReplacedElement(ITextOutputDevice.java:199) 2020-12-07 15:12:46,962 INFO [sandbox-logger] [impl.util.sandbox.ConversionSandbox] lambda$static$0 worker0: at org.xhtmlrenderer.layout.Layer.paintReplacedElement(Layer.java:540) 2020-12-07 15:12:46,962 INFO [sandbox-logger] [impl.util.sandbox.ConversionSandbox] lambda$static$0 worker0: at org.xhtmlrenderer.layout.Layer.paintReplacedElements(Layer.java:497) 2020-12-07 15:12:46,962 INFO [sandbox-logger] [impl.util.sandbox.ConversionSandbox] lambda$static$0 worker0: at org.xhtmlrenderer.layout.Layer.paintAsLayer(Layer.java:471) 2020-12-07 15:12:46,962 INFO [sandbox-logger] [impl.util.sandbox.ConversionSandbox] lambda$static$0 worker0: at org.xhtmlrenderer.render.BlockBox.paintInline(BlockBox.java:265) 2020-12-07 15:12:46,962 INFO [sandbox-logger] [impl.util.sandbox.ConversionSandbox] lambda$static$0 worker0: at org.xhtmlrenderer.layout.Layer.paintInlineContent(Layer.java:274) 2020-12-07 15:12:46,962 INFO [sandbox-logger] [impl.util.sandbox.ConversionSandbox] lambda$static$0 worker0: at org.xhtmlrenderer.layout.Layer.paint(Layer.java:332) 2020-12-07 15:12:46,962 INFO [sandbox-logger] [impl.util.sandbox.ConversionSandbox] lambda$static$0 worker0: at org.xhtmlrenderer.pdf.ITextRenderer.paintPage(ITextRenderer.java:432) 2020-12-07 15:12:46,962 INFO [sandbox-logger] [impl.util.sandbox.ConversionSandbox] lambda$static$0 worker0: at org.xhtmlrenderer.pdf.ITextRenderer.writePDF(ITextRenderer.java:380) 2020-12-07 15:12:46,962 INFO [sandbox-logger] [impl.util.sandbox.ConversionSandbox] lambda$static$0 worker0: at org.xhtmlrenderer.pdf.ITextRenderer.createPDF(ITextRenderer.java:333) 2020-12-07 15:12:46,962 INFO [sandbox-logger] [impl.util.sandbox.ConversionSandbox] lambda$static$0 worker0: at org.xhtmlrenderer.pdf.ITextRenderer.createPDF(ITextRenderer.java:265)

Cause

The PDF export is processed by Confluence in a separate Java process to avoid problems with the main Confluence process. The Sandbox process has a limited memory to use. By default the process can use up to 512 MB, however, depending on the page size and complexity, this amount of memory is not enough, causing the Sandbox to crash during the export.

Solution

  1. If the affected page has a Draw.io diagrams and the version is 9.15.0 or lower, update it to the latest version

  2. Increase the memory available for the Sandbox with the parameter conversion.sandbox.memory.limit.megabytes as described in Configuring System Properties.

    Example for setting the limit to 1GB in Linux (<Confluence_Install>/bin/setenv.sh)

    1 CATALINA_OPTS="-Dconversion.sandbox.memory.limit.megabytes=1024 ${CATALINA_OPTS}"

    Example of setting the limit to 1GB in Windows (when Confluence is started via start-confluence.bat) (<Confluence_Install>\bin\setenv.bat)

    1 set CATALINA_OPTS=-Dconversion.sandbox.memory.limit.megabytes=1024 %CATALINA_OPTS%

    Example of setting the limit to 1GB in Windows Service

    Follow the steps here and append the line below into the Java Option as a new line:

    1 -Dconversion.sandbox.memory.limit.megabytes=1024

Updated on March 3, 2025

Still need help?

The Atlassian Community is here for you.