Hey everyone, I’m having trouble with my Laravel app. I’m trying to create PDFs using Puppeteer, but it’s not working when I use shell_exec. Here’s what I’ve got:
- Nginx web server
- Laravel 5.5
- Puppeteer for PDF generation
When a user clicks ‘Download’, I want to:
- Make an HTML file
- Run some Node.js code to turn it into a PDF
The weird thing is, it works fine in the terminal, but not in my Laravel controller. The shell_exec output is empty, and no PDF is created.
I’ve tried running it as different users, and it works as ‘ubuntu’ but fails as ‘www-data’ with an EACCES error.
Here’s a simplified version of my code:
$output = shell_exec('node pdf_maker.js input.html output.pdf');
echo $output; // This is empty
// pdf_maker.js
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer');
(async () => {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('file://' + process.argv[2]);
await page.pdf({ path: process.argv[3] });
await browser.close();
})();
Any ideas what could be causing this? I’m totally stuck!
I encountered a similar issue when implementing PDF generation with Puppeteer in a Laravel project. One solution that worked for me was using a package like spatie/browsershot instead of directly calling shell_exec. It provides a cleaner API and handles many edge cases.
If you prefer sticking with your current approach, ensure your Node.js script is outputting detailed error messages. You can redirect stderr to stdout in your shell_exec call:
$output = shell_exec('node pdf_maker.js input.html output.pdf 2>&1');
This will capture any error messages, which should help pinpoint the exact issue. Also, verify that the Node.js script has the necessary execute permissions. You might need to run ‘chmod +x pdf_maker.js’ on your server.
sounds like a permissions issue. try changing the directory permissions where ur saving the pdf. also, make sure www-data has access to node and puppeteer. u might need to use sudo or adjust file ownership. double-check ur paths too, sometimes relative paths can cause problems in different environments
I’ve dealt with similar Puppeteer headaches in Laravel before. One thing that helped me was running Puppeteer in headless mode explicitly. Try modifying your pdf_maker.js like this:
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({headless: 'new'});
Also, check if Puppeteer is installed globally. If not, you might need to use the full path to the Node.js executable in your shell_exec command. Something like:
$output = shell_exec('/usr/bin/node /path/to/your/pdf_maker.js input.html output.pdf 2>&1');
Lastly, make sure your input.html file is in a directory that www-data can access. Sometimes it’s easy to overlook file permissions when everything works fine in the terminal. Good luck troubleshooting!