Troubleshooting

Compiling from Source Code

Unsupported Project Error

Visual Studio shows the following Unsupported message when compiling the project.

After you open the migration report which is displayed after the solution is loaded, you will most likely see the following message.

Solution

Start the repair process for your Microsoft Visual Studio, check the Web Developer Tools in the list of optional components, and finish repairing your IDE.

NewtonSoft.Json Library Missing

When you compile the solution, Visual Studio complains that it cannot find NewtonSoft.Json or other libraries.

Solution

Check if the Enable NuGet Package Restore option is enabled in the solution.

A Feature Supported Only in ECMAScript 6 Error

When you compile the solution, Visual Studio throws several errors saying that certain code works only with ECMAScript 6 or higher.

Solution

Update your TypeScript to version 2.4.0.

Bunch of TypeScript Errors

When you compile the solution, Visual Studio throws a bunch of TypeScript errors.

Solution

Check your TypeScript version:

• In Visual Studio 2015:
• In Visual Studio, on the Tools menu, click Extensions and Updates.
• In the Installed Tools list, click TypeScript for Microsoft Visual Studio.
• Verify that the TypeScript version is 2.4.0.
• Starting from Visual Studio 2017 update 2:
  • Verify that TypeScript 2.4.0 is available in Tools > Options > Text Editor > JavaScript > IntelliSense, in the Use TypeScript version list.

If you have a different version, install TypeScript 2.4.0.

Deploying to a Windows Server

A Problem with Deploying

Customer's Canvas launches on your development computer, but you are having trouble getting it deployed to a production Windows server.

Solution

Most likely, the prerequisites have not been met. Try to follow the instructions for deploying Customer's Canvas to your server; make sure that the following components are installed on your system:

• Microsoft .NET Framework 4.6.2 or higher.
• TypeScript 2.4.0.
• Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Packages:
  • Starting from Customer's Canvas 4.3.0, you need to download Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable Package (x64)
  • For Customer's Canvas 4.1.21 - 4.2.24, you need to download Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable Package (x86) and Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable Package (x64)
  • If you use Customer's Canvas earlier than 4.1.21, you need Visual C++ Redistributable Packages for Visual Studio 2013, both vcredist_x64.exe and vcredist_x86.exe files

HTTP Error 403 or 404

You get an HTTP error 403 or 404.

Solution

Check that you put the correct site name in the CcIframeApiScript URL. Make sure that the site opens in the browser.

No License Key Has Been Found Error

You get the No license key has been found server error.

Solution

The editor has checked AppSettings.config, Aurigma.GraphicsMill.lic, and the Windows Registry and has not found license keys. Register your license key as described in the corresponding topic.

Mismatching License Keys

You get one of the following server errors:

• Current domain doesn't match the applied license key - if a request to the editor came from an unlicensed domain.
• Hardware ID doesn't match the applied license key - if hardware parameters encoded in this license key do not match your server hardware.
• The required CustomersCanvas module hasn't been loaded - if the CustomersCanvas.Licensing.dll assembly is corrupted.

Solution

Contact our support team to select a proper license type.

Configuration Section Error

You get the following message while opening a page: "This configuration section cannot be used at this path".

Solution

Install the ASP.NET 4.5 feature for IIS. You can do this in the following way:

• On Windows 7 or 8:
• Open Control Panel, choose Programs and Features, and then choose Turn Windows features on or off.
• In the Windows features list, expand Internet Information Services, and then expand World Wide Web Services.
• Expand Application Development Features, and select ASP.NET 4.5.

• On Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2:
• Run Server Manager.
• In the navigation pane, choose Roles, and then choose Add Roles.
• In the Before You Begin window, click the Next button.
• In the Select Server Roles window, select Web Server (IIS), and then click Next, and then click Next again.
• Expand Application Development Features, and select ASP.NET 4.5.

• On Windows Server 2012:
• Run Server Manager.
• In the navigation pane, choose Dashboard, and then choose Add roles and features.
• In the Add Roles and Features Wizard, in the Before You Begin page, click the Next button.
• On the Select installation type page, select role-based or feature-based installation, and then click the Next button.
• On the Select destination server page, select a server from the server pool, select your server from the Server Pool list, and then click the Next button.
• In the Select Server Roles window, expand Web Server (IIS), and then expand Application Development, and select ASP.NET 4.5.

Exception with HRESULT: 0x800A1390

You get the following error while launching the project on your old computer (like Windows 7).

Solution

Upgrade Internet Explorer to the latest version on your server where the project runs. This is required even if your users open the application in different browsers on client computers because the IE engine is needed for LESS compilation on the server side.

UnauthorizedAccessException

You get the following error while launching the project.

Solution

Disable ASP.NET impersonation:

1. In IIS Manager, click your site in the Sites list.
2. In the Features View, double-click Authentication.
3. In the Actions pane, click Disable to turn off ASP.NET Impersonation.

   

Blocked Libs in Windows

When you download files using web browsers or get them from email clients, Windows may lock them for security reasons. So, when you download the Customer's Canvas archive from our server and try to deploy it to your server, you may get such errors:

Solution

Unlock the archive by clicking the Unblock button in the Properties window.

Avoiding the Cold Start

Application Pool Suspension

It takes too long to start working with Customer's Canvas.

Solution

To avoid the suspension of the Customer's Canvas application pool, perform the following:

1. Install the Application Initialization role. In Windows Server 2012 and higher, in the Add Roles and Feature Wizard, select the Application Initialization check box.

2. In IIS Manager, right-click the Customer's Canvas application pool, and then click Advanced Settings. Set the Start Mode option to AlwaysRunning and Idle Time-out (minutes) to 0.

3. On the left pane of IIS Manager, in the Sites list, navigate to your Customer's Canvas application. Right-click the application node and select Manage Application > Advanced Settings. Set Preload Enabled to True.

4. At the command prompt while running as an administrator, type iisreset to restart IIS.

For more details, refer to the Scalability of Customer's Canvas topic.

Upgrading Customer's Canvas

To upgrade your version of Customer's Canvas, follow the steps below:

1. Stop your application in IIS manager.
2. Backup your old instance.
3. Delete all folders and files except for
   • ~\App_Data
   • ~\ProductTemplates, ~\PublicGalleryFolder, ~\UserDataFolder
   • ~\Fonts
   • ~\bin\Aurigma.GraphicsMill.lic
4. Delete the \GraphicsMill.Core\ subfolder from ~\App_Data, if any.
5. Unzip a new release into the root folder.
6. Recover your configuration changes, if any, in the ~\Configuration folder:
   • clientConfig.json
   • AppSettings.config, VectorObjects.config, FileCache.config, and Converters.config (former Web.config)
   • TemplateConfigShortcuts.json
   • Custom CSS
   • Email notifications
   • Themes
7. Start your application in IIS manager.

Obtaining the Diagnostic Information

Version Number

Updates for Customer's Canvas are regularly released. So, when you contact our support team, you may be asked about your editor version number. To get it, do the following:

1. Run Customer's Canvas in a browser.
2. Right-click in the editor area and then click Inspect (or Inspect element, depending on your browser) from the context menu.
3. Switch to the Console tab when the Developer Tools window opens.
4. Type in CustomersCanvas.VERSION.

   

Server Logs

How can you find a root cause of an error? In the best-case scenario, it is shown in the Developer Tools Console or right in the editor's IFRAME where Customer's Canvas is supposed to be loaded.

If you are not sure what is causing the error, you need to find out where it is occurring: on the client or on the server side.

1. Open the Developer Tools (press F12).
2. Reproduce the error.
3. Switch to the Network tab.

If there is a failed HTTP request (it should be highlighted in red with a 50x code, like 500, 502, etc.), then the error is occurring on the server side. Otherwise, it is occurring on the client side, and it is most likely a JavaScript error.

To analyze the server side error, select the failed request on the Network tab and then switch to the Response (Preview) tab. The response contains either a descriptive message or a text like "An error has occurred". In the latter case, you should analyze logs on your server. Customer's Canvas provides two types of such logs:

• A text file logged by NLog. You can find it in the ~\Resources\Logs\All.log file.
• XML files logged by Elmah. They are ~\Resources\Logs\*.xml.

If you face an error while integrating or debugging Customer's Canvas, check the Elmah's files first. Consider the All.log file as an auxiliary, you can refer to it if you think that Elmah does not include some messages or the logs it saves are too complicated.

If an error occurs while running Customer's Canvas, both of these logs can be useful for our support team.

You can get the Elmah's logs through a web interface. Usually, the Elmah's interface is available only on your server, so do the following to check them:

1. Log in to the server through RDP.
2. Type <editor_url>/elmah.axd in your browser address bar. Here, <editor_url> is a URL of the Customer's Canvas editor with the localhost domain. For example, localhost:65001/Users/6F96A9FF-8B86-D011-B42D-00CF424964FF/SimplePolygraphy/Elmah.axd.

If you find it difficult to log in through RDP every time, you can get web access to the interface as Elmah wiki describes. To enable web access, set the allowRemoteAccess attribute to "true" in the web.config file.

<configuration>
    <elmah>
        <security allowRemoteAccess="true" />
    </elmah>
</configuration>

Also, you can set up your site so that it provides detailed ASP.NET errors - not just "An error has occurred" - to both your local host and remote clients. To perform this, set the mode attribute of customErrors to "Off" in web.config. By default, this attribute is RemoteOnly and shows custom errors to the remote clients and ASP.NET errors to the local host only.

<configuration>
    <system.web>
        <customErrors mode="Off" />
    </system.web>
</configuration>

Moving Customer's Canvas Data Folders to Another Location

You may want to change the location of data folders in Customer's Canvas, like Gallery, Templates, or Cache. To implement it, you need to configure these folders in the web.config file as the following example shows.

<configuration>
    ...
    <appSettings>
        <add key="PublicGalleryFolder" value="C:\EditorFiles\PublicGallery"/>
        <add key="UserDataFolder" value="C:\EditorFiles\UserData"/>
        <add key="DesignFolder" value="C:\EditorFiles\designs" />
        <add key="MockupFolder" value="C:\EditorFiles\mockups" />
        <add key="WatermarkFolder" value="C:\EditorFiles\watermarks" />
        <add key="DesignImagesFolder" value="C:\EditorFiles\designImages" />
    </appSettings>
    ...
    <Aurigma.GraphicsMill.AjaxControls.VectorObjects.FileCacheConfiguration>
        <add key="RootPath" value="~/App_Data/FileCache" />
    </Aurigma.GraphicsMill.AjaxControls.VectorObjects.FileCacheConfiguration>
    ...
    <Aurigma.GraphicsMill.AjaxControls.VectorObjects>
        <add key="FontDirectory" value="D:\Fonts" />
    </Aurigma.GraphicsMill.AjaxControls.VectorObjects>
    ...
</configuration>

For more details, see the Scalability of Customer's Canvas topic.

If you receive the Could not find a part of path message after you moved the data folders to a network location, set up correct permissions for them. A user account, under which Customer's Canvas runs in ASP.NET/IIS, must have the read/write access to the remote folders. Also, check the solution for the issue with copied content.

Updating Public Gallery

Big Images Are Not Uploaded

You successfully upload small files but cannot upload big images to your server. Also, you may be unable to upload files which names contain spaces.

Solution

It might be a problem with IIS server configuration. Check the Maximum allowed content length: in IIS Manager, double-click Request Filtering, and then click Edit Feature Settings.

The default value is almost 30MB, which may not be enough, so set a bigger value. Also, make sure that the Allow double escaping option is enabled to download files which names contain a space character.

Copied Content Does Not Show in the Editor

You copy fonts or images to your server through a file manager, but they do not show in Customer's Canvas.

Solution

1. Recycle the application pool (or restart IIS). In IIS Manager, do the following:
2. Open the Application Pools list.
3. Select your application pool.
4. Click Recycle.
5. If you copy a whole folder, then additionally set the NETWORK SERVICE group with Full control permissions to the folder. For more details, refer to Deploying Customer's Canvas to Windows Servers.

Rendering Problems

Stretched Text Strings in Customer's Canvas

A text rendered in Customer's Canvas looks blurred, unlike the same string with the same font settings in Adobe Photoshop.

Solution

Check if scaling is applied to the text:

1. Select the text layer in Photoshop.
2. Check the Info tab.

   

In this case, set a bigger font size instead of scaling the text.

Faded Hi-res Outputs in PDF

The hi-res output looks faded if your design contains transparent raster layers above vector layers.

Solution

Enable the rasterization of vector layers in VectorObjects.config by using the PdfHiResRasterizeVectorLayers parameter.

<Aurigma.GraphicsMill.AjaxControls.VectorObjects>
    <add key="PdfHiResRasterizeVectorLayers" value="True" />
</Aurigma.GraphicsMill.AjaxControls.VectorObjects>

Color Management

Colors on the Canvas Do Not Match Colors in the Photoshop Template

You created a template, but colors on the canvas look different from colors in Photoshop.

Solution

Customer's Canvas applies color management on the canvas as well as to the hi-res outputs. This web-to-print editor uses profiles embedded in templates as source color profiles to render graphics on the canvas. If there are no color profiles in a template, then a default profile will be used depending on the color space:

• SWOP (Coated) 20%, GCR, Medium profile for CMYK
• sRGB IEC61966-2.1 profile for RGB
• Dot Gain 30% profile for Grayscale

These profiles are also used as default destination profiles for rendering hi-res outputs when you don't specify profiles in ~/Configuration/VectorObjects.config. To avoid color space conversions, you can both design your templates in Photoshop and edit them in Customer's Canvas by using the destination color profile:

1. In Photoshop, assign a profile that is compatible with your printing equipment (click Edit > Assign profile).

   

2. In Customer's Canvas, specify the same color profile in the VectorObjects.config file. For example, you can specify a CMYK profile as follows:
   XML

   <Aurigma.GraphicsMill.AjaxControls.VectorObjects>
       <add key="CmykColorProfileFileName" value="~/cmykColorProfile.icc" />
   </Aurigma.GraphicsMill.AjaxControls.VectorObjects>
   

3. If you don't need to include color profiles in hi-res output files, set the PdfRenderDeviceProfileEnabled parameter to "True".
   XML

   <Aurigma.GraphicsMill.AjaxControls.VectorObjects>
       <add key="PdfRenderDeviceProfileEnabled" value="True" />
   </Aurigma.GraphicsMill.AjaxControls.VectorObjects>
   

For more details, you can refer to the Color Management in Customer's Canvas topic.

CMYK Colors in a Hi-res Output Do Not Match the PSD Template

You set a CMYK profile in a PSD template, but hi-res output colors look different from colors in the template.

Solution

Customer's Canvas uses color profiles from PSD templates only as source profiles. The default color profile for the CMYK color space is SWOP (Coated), 20%, GCR, Medium. So, if you set the hiResOutputColorSpace property to CMYK but did not set your profile in ~/Configuration/VectorObjects.config, then the colors may differ. To set up a color space for hi-res outputs (destination colors):

1. Specify the same CMYK profile as for PSD templates. The destination colors are set up in the VectorObjects.config file. The following example shows how you can specify the CMYK profile.
   XML

   <Aurigma.GraphicsMill.AjaxControls.VectorObjects>
       <add key="CmykColorProfileFileName" value="~/cmykColorProfile.icc" />
   </Aurigma.GraphicsMill.AjaxControls.VectorObjects>
   

2. Set the hiResOutputColorSpace property of the rendering configuration object to CMYK.
   JavaScript

   configuration = {
       rendering: {
           hiResOutputColorSpace: "CMYK",
           hiResOutputFileFormat: "PDF",
           hiResOutputDpi: 300
       }
   };
   

For more details, refer to the Configuring High Resolution and Proof Images topic.

Miscellaneous

Customer's Canvas does not load in Firefox

The editor loads in any browser but Firefox. At the same time, no messages show.

Solution

Check if the IFRAME element containing the editor has the display:none property. In this case, Customer's Canvas cannot load because of the Gecko engine implementation. So, set the display property to block to load it correctly.

The editor's font list contains unspecified fonts

You specify fonts for the editor, but the font picker displays more fonts.

Solution

In ~/Configuration/AppSettings.config, check values of the SubstitutionFontPostScriptName and DefaultFontPostScriptName parameters. Customer's Canvas adds these fonts to the list. If these parameters have incorrect Postscript names, then Arial is added by default.

Also, the font picker automatically displays fonts used in your product templates.

Web API methods return the 405 Method Not Allowed error

When you use PUT or DELETE requests, you may obtain the 405 Method Not Allowed error. At the same time, POST and GET requests may work properly.

Solution

You can disable WebDAV in the web.config file. Add the following code to the <system.webServer> node.

<modules>
    <remove name="WebDAVModule" />
</modules>
<handlers>
    <remove name="WebDAV" />
</handlers>

Alternatively, you can remove the WebDAV Publishing role from your server.

See Also

Manual

• Compiling Customer's Canvas from Source Code
• Deploying Customer's Canvas to Windows Servers
• Configuring High Resolution and Proof Images
• Web.config