SharePoint Word Automation Service does not work – file may be corrupted

20. July 2014 Karsten Schneider Administration, SharePoint, Troubleshooting 1

In one of my posts i wrote about the usage of word automation services.

If you see this error

The file could not be converted; it may be corrupt or otherwise invalid (the conversion process failed). Please try opening the file in Microsoft Word, resaving it, and then resubmitting the file for conversion. If this does not resolve the issue, contact your system administrator.

you would never guess what the cause really is. This message does not lead you to the source of failure.

Normally the word automation services work smoothly, but if you are developer and you have a VM with SharePoint, Domain Controller, SQL Server on one machine than it might come to this error above.

The reason for it, was written down in this forum. It seems that the WAS and the domain controller on one machine won’t work.

Try it on a different machine where no Domain Controller is installed. Does it work?

The article or information provided here represents completely my own personal view & thought. It is recommended to test the content or scripts of the site in the lab, before making use in the production environment & use it completely at your own risk. The articles, scripts, suggestions or tricks published on the site are provided AS-IS with no warranties or guarantees and confers no rights.

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About Karsten Schneider 312 Articles
Consultant for Microsoft 365 Applications with a strong focus in Teams, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business as well as PowerPlatform with PowerApps, Flow and PowerBI. I provide Workshops for Governance & Security in Office 365 and Development of Solutions in the area of Collaboration and Teamwork based on Microsoft 365 and Azure Cloud Solutions. In his free time he tries to collect tipps and worthy experience in this blog.

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