Rotativa PDF generation working locally but not on IIS 7

Asked 29/6, 2015 at 9:36 Answered 24/9, 2018 at 19:12

I have an ASP.NET MVC 5 application. It has a simple form and when the user submits it, the form is stored in the cache and then another controller action is called, this action will return the model as a view as a PDF.

I have no need to save it locally, just to show it in the browser so that the user can download it.

There is no need for a database either, that is why I store the model in the cache.

Locally, on Visual studio 2013, it works fine. But when I publish it to IIS 7 I get an Unhandled Execution Error. Here is the stack trace that I get back:

 Unhandled Execution Error
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.Exception:

Source Error:

An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

Stack Trace:


[Exception]
   Rotativa.WkhtmltopdfDriver.Convert(String wkhtmltopdfPath, String switches, String html) +1364
   Rotativa.WkhtmltopdfDriver.ConvertHtml(String wkhtmltopdfPath, String switches, String html) +70
   Rotativa.ViewAsPdf.CallTheDriver(ControllerContext context) +1986
   Rotativa.AsPdfResultBase.BuildPdf(ControllerContext context) +380
   Rotativa.AsPdfResultBase.ExecuteResult(ControllerContext context) +69
   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeActionResultFilterRecursive(IList`1 filters, Int32 filterIndex, ResultExecutingContext preContext, ControllerContext controllerContext, ActionResult actionResult) +109
   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeActionResultFilterRecursive(IList`1 filters, Int32 filterIndex, ResultExecutingContext preContext, ControllerContext controllerContext, ActionResult actionResult) +890
   System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeActionResultWithFilters(ControllerContext controllerContext, IList`1 filters, ActionResult actionResult) +97
   System.Web.Mvc.Async.<>c__DisplayClass21.<BeginInvokeAction>b__1e(IAsyncResult asyncResult) +241
   System.Web.Mvc.Controller.<BeginExecuteCore>b__1d(IAsyncResult asyncResult, ExecuteCoreState innerState) +29
   System.Web.Mvc.Async.WrappedAsyncVoid`1.CallEndDelegate(IAsyncResult asyncResult) +111
   System.Web.Mvc.Controller.EndExecuteCore(IAsyncResult asyncResult) +53
   System.Web.Mvc.Async.WrappedAsyncVoid`1.CallEndDelegate(IAsyncResult asyncResult) +19
   System.Web.Mvc.MvcHandler.<BeginProcessRequest>b__5(IAsyncResult asyncResult, ProcessRequestState innerState) +51
   System.Web.Mvc.Async.WrappedAsyncVoid`1.CallEndDelegate(IAsyncResult asyncResult) +111
   System.Web.CallHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() +606
   System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) +288


Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:4.0.30319; ASP.NET Version:4.0.30319.34248

I first used ActionAsPDF() but now I also tried to use return new ViewAsPDF(). Both give the same error and stack trace. Does this have to do something with permissions?

Honestly answered 29/6, 2015 at 9:36 Comment(6)

Is it really throwing System.Exception and not some derived class? That would be extremely poor. – Krouse 29/6, 2015 at 9:39

This is all that I'm getting back and since I can not duplicate it locally I don't know how to debug through it. – Honestly 29/6, 2015 at 9:44

The first line of the stack however has a parameter that sounds like it is a path name, I had troubles with paths and IIS before, could this be an issue? – Honestly 29/6, 2015 at 9:44

Maybe the VC++ redist is missing on the server as indicated here – Dobby 29/6, 2015 at 9:45

This helped me resolve the issue: https://mcmap.net/q/427183/-mvc5-application-with-rotativa-does-not-work-when-published-on-iis – Stint 22/8, 2016 at 16:38

I had the same issue and this helped me resolve https://mcmap.net/q/427183/-mvc5-application-with-rotativa-does-not-work-when-published-on-iis – Stint 22/8, 2016 at 16:39

This error is a missing C++ redistributable Package for Visual Studio 2013 file called (MSVCP120.dll).

To solve the issue:

Open the C++ redistributable Package for Visual Studio 2013 downloadable link below: download Visual C++ Redistributable Packages for Visual Studio 2013
Click Download and choose the file (vcredist_x86.exe) even if you are running X64 bit server version.
Install the file.

Check Jalal W Hijazi Blog http://jwhijazi.blogspot.com/2015/05/solving-rotativa-unhandled-exception.html for more details.

Alberta answered 8/7, 2015 at 14:0 Comment(4)

Tip (on the Jalal blog) that worked for me: "I just copied msvcp120.dll and msvcr120.dll to the folder containing wkhtmltopdf.exe and all worked fine" – Brigandage 6/2, 2016 at 18:44

@Brigandage you should write this as a seperate answer - awesome! – Antiworld 24/2, 2017 at 14:29

Current Rotativa requires Visual C++ for Visual Studio 2015 – Butte 12/10, 2017 at 23:43

C++ Redistributable 2013 no longer works, I had to install Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2017 (support.microsoft.com/en-my/help/2977003/…) for it to work. – Gallego 29/12, 2018 at 10:12

As mentioned in the comments on the blog linked in the answer, you can just copy the 2 following dll files to the rotativa folder on the server if you don't want to / can't easily install things on the server.

msvcr120.dll
msvcp120.dll

If it's working locally, you should have the two dll files available already. You need the x86 versions, if you find x64 versions packaged with vs 2015 they don't work. I found the right versions here:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\VC\redist\x86\Microsoft.VC120.CRT

After upgrading to Rotativa 1.7.3 this no longer worked. I had to copy over some new dlls from visual studio 2017, i found them here this time:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\VC\redist\x86\Microsoft.VC140.CRT

and i had to copy over

msvcp140.dll
vcruntime140.dll

Minuet answered 26/4, 2016 at 23:33 Comment(2)

This worked for me. On the server, I tried including the x64 dlls. However, they were not fixing the issue. So switched to x86 dlls and they worked liek a charm. Thanks a lot. – Ejection 23/12, 2017 at 0:30

Visual Studio 2019: Found the files here: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\Common7\IDE – Dolhenty 8/7, 2021 at 14:7

The accepted answer almost worked for me. I was missing a newer version of the C++ redistributable so installing the old version didn't help.

The easiest way to find out what you are missing is to run wkhtmltopdf.exe manually. It will either give you console output (if working) or a message box about what's missing.

I was missing MSVCP140.dll, which is from the VS 2015 redist, available here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=48145

Buss answered 12/7, 2017 at 12:35 Comment(1)

In case anyone else runs into this issue, at this point (June 2019), I also needed to install this and discovered that you must install the x86 version. Installing just the x64 version does not work. – Portative 10/6, 2019 at 8:5

I fixed my issue by updating the wkhtmltopdf files from the installer found here

enter image description here

Working flawlessly now!

Sever answered 19/7, 2015 at 5:38 Comment(1)

Oh..and this running on a azure hosted machine.. Sever 2012 VM not locally on my laptop – Sever 19/7, 2015 at 5:40

When I upgraded from Rotativa 1.6.4 to 1.7.3 my PDF conversion on my website app stopped working and after running the wkhtmltopdf.exe on my production server I noticed it was having an issue with msvcp140.dll

Solution was to install Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=48145

Butte answered 12/10, 2017 at 23:28 Comment(1)

The same thing happened to me after upgrading to 1.7.3. Installing the x86 vs 2015 redistributable fixed it. – Gallego 30/5, 2018 at 13:41

I faced the same problem. Even the error logger wasn't logging anything.

After some research, I tried replacing the wkhtmltopdf.exe with the latest version available in wkhtmltopdf.org website, still no luck.

Finally copied msvcp120.dll and msvcr120.dll to the folder where I had the excutable and it worked. (There was no need of the latest version of wkhtmltopdf.exe, instead it worked with the version what I got from Nuget.)

msvcp120.dll and msvcr120.dll were available in the below directory in Windows 7.

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