Hi,
I'm investigating a longstanding(to my company) problem with the use of the Cold Fusion cfPdf function to apply watermarks to pdf documents. Having looked through a couple of forums and historical threads, the issue below seems to have been around for quite some time (possibly since the upgrade from CF8 -> CF9), but I cant find anywhere that talks of an accepted solution.
Anyway, the situation is that within a single code thread, I'm executing the following:
<cflock timeout = "60" scope="server" type="exclusive">
<cfpdf action="removeWatermark"
source="#objWaterMark.PathPDF#"
destination="#objWaterMark.PathPDF#"
overwrite="yes"/>
</cflock>
to remove the existing watermark from a file. Then, a few lines later, execute the following to apply a new one:
<cflock timeout = "60" scope="Server" type="exclusive">
<cfpdf action="addwatermark"
source="#objWaterMark.PathPDF#"
destination="#objWaterMark.PathPDF#"
height="20"
width="#waterWidth#"
text="#watermarkVar#"
overwrite="yes"
foreground="yes"
showonprint="yes"
pages="#iPages#"
position="#positionWidth#,0"/>
</cflock>
The problem is, that the second operation sometimes fails with the following debug report(we execute both cfpdf operations in try-catch blocks):
CFCATCH - AddWM
Type: Application
Message: ColdFusion could not delete the file #filename#.pdf
Detail: Check if another request or process is not using the file.
CFCATCH - End
A number of things are curious to me:
- That the cfpdf 'addwatermark' operation will sometimes work for the same file, but not on other occasions (there isn't evidence of this above, but it is the case)
- That the cflock doesn't seem to be operating as anticipated. We put these in place as part of an initial attempt to gain sole access to the file, but they dont appear to have the desired effect.
- That part of the error report mentions deleting the file. Why would a cfpdf 'addwatermark' operation need to delete a file?
I can see from other threads that previous suggestions along the lines of:
- Make a local copy(either to a disk or volatile memory) of the source .pdf file from the main file system
- Change the watermark
- Copy the local file back to the file system
have been made, but these generate the same errors(albeit intermittently) for us.
Does anybody have knowledge of this issue and/or an accepted solution? Thanks in advance!