impressive dies on ooimpress generated pdf files in Karmic

[Theodotos Andreou]

Binary package hint: impressive

I am using the impressive presentation package and ever since I installed karmic it dies when I run my ooimpress presentations exported to pdf. It works for other pdf files I found in various package manuals but does not work on ooimpress generated pdf.

----------------------------------------
The error message:

user@pc:~$ impressive test.pdf
Welcome to Impressive version 0.10.2
/usr/bin/impressive:94: DeprecationWarning: the md5 module is deprecated; use hashlib instead
  import random, getopt, os, types, re, codecs, tempfile, glob, StringIO, md5, re
Detected screen size: 1440x900 pixels
OpenGL renderer: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3400 Series
Using GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/impressive", line 4015, in <module>
    run_main()
  File "/usr/bin/impressive", line 3576, in run_main
    main()
  File "/usr/bin/impressive", line 3567, in main
    UpdateCaption(Pcurrent)
  File "/usr/bin/impressive", line 2337, in UpdateCaption
    pygame.display.set_caption(caption, __title__)
TypeError: argument 1 must be string without null bytes, not str
Unhandled exception in thread started by
Error in sys.excepthook:

Original exception was:
------------------------------------

------------------------------------
My Graphics card is ATI:

user@pc:~$ sudo lshw -C display
  *-display
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: Mobility Radeon HD 3400 Series
       vendor: ATI Technologies Inc
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
       version: 00
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm pciexpress msi bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=fglrx_pci latency=0
       resources: irq:31 memory:d0000000-dfffffff(prefetchable) ioport:2000(size=256) memory:cfff0000-cfffffff memory:cff00000-cff1ffff(prefetchable)
---------------------------------

---------------------------------
And I am using Karmic Koala:

user@pc:~$ cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=9.10
DISTRIB_CODENAME=karmic
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 9.10"
-----------------------------------------

I also have attached a sample pdf (test.pdf) file so you can check the headers.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Mon Nov 30 10:26:28 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release i386 (20091028.5)
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
Package: impressive 0.10.2r-2
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-15.50-generic-pae
SourcePackage: impressive
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-15-generic-pae i686

[Anthony Hook (anthonyhook)]

I am having this problem as well:

$ impressive Documents/Ojibwe/Translation\ Project.pdf
Welcome to Impressive version 0.10.2
/usr/bin/impressive:94: DeprecationWarning: the md5 module is deprecated; use hashlib instead
  import random, getopt, os, types, re, codecs, tempfile, glob, StringIO, md5, re
Detected screen size: 1024x600 pixels
OpenGL renderer: Mesa DRI Intel(R) 945GME GEM 20090712 2009Q2 RC3 x86/MMX/SSE2
Using GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/impressive", line 4015, in <module>
    run_main()
  File "/usr/bin/impressive", line 3576, in run_main
    main()
  File "/usr/bin/impressive", line 3567, in main
    UpdateCaption(Pcurrent)
  File "/usr/bin/impressive", line 2337, in UpdateCaption
    pygame.display.set_caption(caption, __title__)
TypeError: argument 1 must be string without null bytes, not str

[Theodotos Andreou (theodotos)]

One workaround is to try and "print" the problematic pdf on the cups-pdf printer. The resultant pdf will not have the problem any more.

[Martin Zuther (mzuther)]

I just stumbled across this problem and thought that it might have to do with the new hyperlink support of "impressive" and therefore with "pdftk". So I uninstalled the "pdftk" package, and it seems that everything runs fine now. BTW, I'm on Kubuntu Karmic.

Before removing "pdftk":

Welcome to Impressive version 0.10.2
/usr/bin/impressive:94: DeprecationWarning: the md5 module is deprecated; use hashlib instead
  import random, getopt, os, types, re, codecs, tempfile, glob, StringIO, md5, re
Detected screen size: 1680x1050 pixels
OpenGL renderer: Mesa DRI R300 (RV515 7145) 20090101 x86/MMX/SSE2 TCL
Using GL_ARB_texture_rectangle.
Note: file produced by pdftk not readable, hyperlinks disabled.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/impressive", line 4015, in <module>
    run_main()
  File "/usr/bin/impressive", line 3576, in run_main
    main()
  File "/usr/bin/impressive", line 3569, in main
    HandleEvent(pygame.event.wait())
  File "/usr/bin/impressive", line 3021, in HandleEvent
    TransitionTo(GetNextPage(Pcurrent, 1))
  File "/usr/bin/impressive", line 2479, in TransitionTo
    UpdateCaption(page)
  File "/usr/bin/impressive", line 2337, in UpdateCaption
    pygame.display.set_caption(caption, __title__)
TypeError: argument 1 must be string without null bytes, not str

After removing "pdftk":

Welcome to Impressive version 0.10.2
/usr/bin/impressive:94: DeprecationWarning: the md5 module is deprecated; use hashlib instead
  import random, getopt, os, types, re, codecs, tempfile, glob, StringIO, md5, re
Detected screen size: 1680x1050 pixels
OpenGL renderer: Mesa DRI R300 (RV515 7145) 20090101 x86/MMX/SSE2 TCL
Using GL_ARB_texture_rectangle.
Note: pdftk failed, hyperlinks disabled.
Total presentation time: 0:20.

[Martin Zuther (mzuther)]

I have found the culprit: the function "decode_literal" doesn't filter out NULL values, while the function "pygame.display.set_caption" expects strings without NULL values. If you know that, the solution is rather easy. I have attached a patch that works for me.

[Theodotos Andreou (theodotos)]

I tried your patch and the problem is resolved.

Thanks Martin!

[Martin Zuther (mzuther)]

You're welcome! As a side note, I have contacted the original author of "Impressive", and he'll integrate the patch into the next release of the software.

Nevertheless, I think that upstream should also be contacted and asked to apply the patch. There's nothing worse than having a presentation and the computer suddenly "freaking out" somewhere in the talk. I tried to send the patch to Debian myself, but "pgpv" didn't seem to like me today, and I don't want to compromise the package by patching it without being able to validate its signature.

[pp06610 (patrickp)]

I have the same problem.
I found out your patch.

But I don't know how to implement it.

There is the file "impressive" in /usr/bin.
Do I have to replace line 371 to 379 by the lines in the patch ?

What about lines 371 to 375 written under ?

[Martin Zuther (mzuther)]

Hi pp06610,

please do not try to apply patches by hand. The patch file for this bug fix is rather simple, but most patch files aren't. There is an extra application called "patch" that does the work for you.

First, download the patch file "impressive.patch" to a convenient location. In this example, I'll assume that you have downloaded the file to your home directory. Then open a console window and run the following command:

  sudo patch --backup /usr/bin/impressive ~/impressive.patch

This will apply the patch and create a backup (/usr/bin/impressive.orig) in case things go wrong. You need superuser rights (sudo), because normal users do not have sufficient rights to change the files located in /usr/bin/.

If you are uncomfortable with using the console, look for someone who is used to it or do a bit of googling first.

Good luck!

[Slice of Linux (sliceoflinux)]

The patch worked perfect for me!

Thank you!

[Steffen Goetz (steffengoetz)]

The same issue is still present in Lucid but the same patch fixed the problem.

[Martin Zuther (mzuther)]

Could someone *please* fix this? This bug makes "impressive" completely unusable for a lot of people! I have supplied a *very* simple patch (4 lines) that has already been accepted by the author of "impressive", but as he seems to be involved in a major rewrite of impressive, it might take quite a while until a fixed version of "impressive" will be available.

BTW, I have tried to contact the upstream package manger and never received a reply.

Thanks for listening,

Martin

[Theodotos Andreou (theodotos)]

This patch works in Lucid too! The version of impressive! used in Lucid is 0.10.2r-4. It would be nice if someone would patch this in the future!

[Mark Stosberg (markstos)]

Is there is someone subscribed to this bug who can apply the working patch included here?

[Valerio (valerio-maggio)]

I can confirm that impressive package in Lucid repository suffer of the same problem and the patch proposed by Martin works great.

Up from me to fix the problem in impressive package (hopefully for Maverick).

Thank you Martin and all of you guys.

[Santiago M. Mola (smola)]

This works correctly with impressive 0.10.3~WIP+svn31-1, released with Ubuntu Oneiric.

[bnewtonius (brian-newtonius)]

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