Reports generation in PDF format fails due to a missing font file

Products

• VCF Operations/Automation (formerly VMware Aria Suite)

Issue/Introduction

Before Aria Operations version 8.18 the user had an opportunity to select the display font from Preferences window. If they had selected "DejaVM Unicode" font and later upgraded to VMware Aria Operations 8.18.3 Hot Fix 5 or VCF Operations 9.0 version, report generation in PDF format would fail. 

• All reports will fail to generate with PDF format
• Able to generate reports with CSV format
• Generated reports status may show Completed Partially 
• The issue may only affect some users
• The /storage/log/vcops/log/view-bridge.log may report an error similar to: 

  ####-##-#####:47:00,464+0000 ERROR [########################-#] com.vmware.vcops.bridge.content.server.report.ReportRenderer.renderReport - run: ########-####-####-####-############
  got an exception while generating reports = ExceptionConverter: java.io.IOException: /usr/lib/vmware-vcops/user/conf/fonts/DejaVMUni.ttf not found as file or resource.
  exception stacktrace = ExceptionConverter: java.io.IOException: /usr/lib/vmware-vcops/user/conf/fonts/DejaVMUni.ttf not found as file or resource.

Environment

Aria Operations 8.18.3 HF5
VCF Operations 9.0

Cause

This happens due to the missing "DejaVMUni.ttf" font file under the designated location in the Aria Operations appliance.

Resolution

This issue is addressed in VMware Aria Operations 8.18 Hot Fix 6

Workaround

• SSH as root to the Aria Operations appliance VM and copy the "DejaVMUni.ttf" file from the "/usr/share/fonts" directory to the "/usr/lib/vmware-vcops/user/conf/fonts" directory 
  • cp /usr/share/fonts/DejaVMUni.ttf /usr/lib/vmware-vcops/user/conf/fonts/
• Repeat this for all other Aria Operations cluster nodes if there are any
• As soon as the font file appears in the mentioned directory, report generation in PDF format should work as expected