KB-2101 Export to Excel errors out following an upgrade to 19.2 and later

Symptoms

When trying to export a record to Excel using the out of the box feature, the following error appears in the application server log:

SEVERE [ajp-nio-8009-exec-XX] org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke Servlet.service() for servlet [default] in context with path [/suite] threw exception
com.appiancorp.suiteapi.common.exceptions.AppianException: Error occurred during export. Please contact a system administrator for additional details. (APNX-1-4505-057) 
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
at sun.awt.FontConfiguration.getVersion(FontConfiguration.java:1264)
at sun.awt.FontConfiguration.readFontConfigFile(FontConfiguration.java:219)

When trying to open the Excel file generated, the following error appears:

Cause

This issue is seen when required fonts are missing. Appian requires certain fonts to be available on the server hosting the application server in order to use this feature. This issue has been reported to the Appian Product Team. The reference number for this issue is AN-138393.

Action

Install the font package fontconfig. On CentOS for example, this can be done using the following command: yum install fontconfig
Restart the application server.

Affected Versions

This article applies to self-managed Appian 19.2 and later.

Last Reviewed: November 2021