unoconv not working

[LionSher]

I have been trying to fix this issue for a long time now but unable to figure out the fix. Please help.
$ unoconv -f pdf presentation_39.ppt
unoconv: UnoException during conversion in <class 'main.com.sun.star.lang.IllegalArgumentException'>: Unsupported URL file:///home/kern/my_rails_app/public/data/presentation_39/presentation_39.ppt: ""
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/unoconv", line 790, in
main()
File "/usr/bin/unoconv", line 769, in main
convertor.convert(inputfn)
File "/usr/bin/unoconv", line 679, in convert
error("ERROR: The provided document cannot be converted to the desired format. (code: %s)" % e.ErrCode)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/uno.py", line 337, in uno_struct__getattr_
return builtin.getattr(self.dict["value"],name)
AttributeError: ErrCode

So, i downloaded unoconv-0.5.tar.bz2 from https://github.com/dagwieers/unoconv/downloads, and extracted it in my rails app's public folder. Then i got this error:
$ /home/kern/my_rails_app/public/unoconv-0.5/unoconv -f pdf presentation_39.ppt
UNO IllegalArgument during import phase: Source file cannot be read. Unsupported URL file:///home/kern/my_rails_app/public/data/presentation_39/presentation_39.ppt: ""

Then i gave UNO_PATH= parameter as follows:
$ UNO_PATH=/usr/lib/libreoffice /home/kern/my_rails_app/public/unoconv-0.5/unoconv -f pdf presentation_39.ppt
UNO IllegalArgument during import phase: Source file cannot be read. Unsupported URL file:///home/kern/my_rails_app/public/data/presentation_39/presentation_39.ppt: ""
NOTE: i do not have libreoffice path at /opt/libreoffice3.5 as mentioned in #47
NOTE: I have tried the above with unoconv listener also as foolows:
$ unoconv --listener &
[1] 31574
$ ps -ef
root 31574 31503 3 07:27 pts/4 00:00:00 /usr/bin/python /usr/bin/unoconv --listener

The ppt file has 777 permissions as follows:
$ ls -l
total 260
-rwxrwxrwx 1 kern kern 258560 Jun 25 08:17 presentation_39.ppt

I have the following on my ubuntu 12.04 LTS 64-bit machine:
$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
Release: 12.04
Codename: precise

$ apt-cache policy libreoffice
libreoffice:
Installed: 1:3.5.3-0ubuntu1
Candidate: 1:3.5.3-0ubuntu1

$ apt-cache policy unoconv
unoconv:
Installed: 0.4-1
Candidate: 0.4-1
NOTE: i have tried to search for libreoffice-pyuno or libobasis3.5-pyuno for which i get:
$ apt-cache policy libreoffice-pyuno
N: Unable to locate package libreoffice-pyuno
N: Couldn't find any package by regex 'libreoffice-pyuno'
NOTE: i have python-uno

[dagwieers]

Did you try it with any other files ?

Can you share the file so I can test it on my system ?

[LionSher]

Thank you, for your reply. I had been trying to convert one particular .ppt file which was prepared by one of our clients. It seems there is some problem with the file itself. When I tried the process for other files, the conversion went on smooth. Also previously the conversion was not working for other .ppt files too, which i now figured out that the problem was with my app's environment. I have been able to fix it too. So now unoconv happily works for those files too. Thank you.

[dagwieers]

@LionSher: Do you mean it is fixed now ? Can you shed a light on what you changed in your environment to make it work so we can improve the documentation ? Thanks in advance.

[LionSher]

I am not sure if the problem was with unoconv. Let me explain. In my local machine I ran my app in development mode with Webrick server as:
$ rails s
Here unoconv worked fine.

But unoconv gave me problem when I had my app running on Nginx-Passenger which was in production mode on Rackspace server where my /opt/nginx/conf/nginx.conf file had 'rails_env' parameter set to 'production'. This was where my ppts were not getting converted. Even after trying out all the solutions as I had mentioned, it didn't work. So I just changed 'rails_env' parameter to 'development' in my /opt/nginx/conf/nginx.conf file and now unoconv is running perfectly.
Has environment got anything to do with unoconv?

[sigmike]

I had the same problem. I had to kill a dead process of soffice.bin to make unoconv work again.

[tj]

killing soffice.bin fixed my issue as well

[dagwieers]

@visionmedia This is one of the steps of the troubleshooting section of the README.

[tj]

yeah, glad it's working now, dependency hell <3

[tj]

something in our vm must have changed, it's no longer working, even after killing soffice.bin this time. looking into it..

   ∴ fixtures (master): unoconv -f pdf tobi.odt
Warning: -headless is deprecated.  Use --headless instead.
Warning: -invisible is deprecated.  Use --invisible instead.
Warning: -nodefault is deprecated.  Use --nodefault instead.
Warning: -nofirststartwizard is deprecated.  Use --nofirststartwizard instead.
Warning: -nologo is deprecated.  Use --nologo instead.
Warning: -norestore is deprecated.  Use --norestore instead.
Warning: -accept=socket,host=localhost,port=2002;urp;StarOffice.ComponentContext is deprecated.  Use --accept=socket,host=localhost,port=2002;urp;StarOffice.ComponentContext instead.
unoconv: UnoException during conversion in <class '__main__.com.sun.star.lang.IllegalArgumentException'>: Unsupported URL <file:///home/vagrant/projects/thumbs/test/fixtures/tobi.odt>: ""
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/unoconv", line 790, in <module>
    main()
  File "/usr/bin/unoconv", line 769, in main
    convertor.convert(inputfn)
  File "/usr/bin/unoconv", line 679, in convert
    error("ERROR: The provided document cannot be converted to the desired format. (code: %s)" % e.ErrCode)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/uno.py", line 337, in _uno_struct__getattr__
    return __builtin__.getattr(self.__dict__["value"],name)
AttributeError: ErrCode

[tj]

got it working again

[dagwieers]

@visionmedia I would upgrade to v0.6 which fixes a lot of unrelated items from your output as well...

[synnyday]

I am using unoconv with no X display. I did:

$ sudo apt-get install openoffice.org xvfb 
$ xvfb-run -a /usr/lib/libreoffice/program/soffice -headless -nologo -norestore -nofirststartwizard
$ sudo apt-get install unoconv 

Then I converted different documents. I have problem with only one file ( http://fs01n4.sendspace.com/dl/15b0ce8bf0fcb31a330282361e414dd0/520e0aa80c7529e2/luqbs4/f.rtf ):

$ unoconv -f html f.rtf 
Warning: -headless is deprecated.  Use --headless instead.
Warning: -invisible is deprecated.  Use --invisible instead.
Warning: -nodefault is deprecated.  Use --nodefault instead.
Warning: -nofirststartwizard is deprecated.  Use --nofirststartwizard instead.
Warning: -nologo is deprecated.  Use --nologo instead.
Warning: -norestore is deprecated.  Use --norestore instead.
Warning: -accept=socket,host=localhost,port=2002;urp;StarOffice.ComponentContext is deprecated.  Use --accept=socket,host=localhost,port=2002;urp;StarOffice.ComponentContext instead.
unoconv: UnoException during conversion in : Binary URP bridge disposed during call
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/unoconv", line 790, in 
    main()
  File "/usr/bin/unoconv", line 769, in main
    convertor.convert(inputfn)
  File "/usr/bin/unoconv", line 679, in convert
    error("ERROR: The provided document cannot be converted to the desired format. (code: %s)" % e.ErrCode)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/uno.py", line 320, in _uno_struct__getattr__
    return __builtin__.getattr(self.__dict__["value"],name)
AttributeError: ErrCode

This is additional info:

$ unoconv --version
unoconv 0.4
Written by Dag Wieers 
Homepage at http://dag.wieers.com/home-made/unoconv/
platform posix/linux2
python 2.7.2+ (default, Oct  4 2011, 20:06:09) 
[GCC 4.6.1]
build revision $Rev$
$ apt-cache policy libreoffice
libreoffice:
Installed: 1:3.4.4-0ubuntu1.4
Candidate: 1:3.4.4-0ubuntu1.4
$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 11.10
Release:    11.10
Codename:   oneiric