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Dear Community,

i am experiencing a strange behavior from our FME Server when uploading/publishing a FME Desktop workspace in FME Server.

Previously, it was possible to publish workspaces from FME Desktop to FME Server.

Recently, publishing from FME Desktop is no longer possible, nor is it possible to upload workspaces to FME Server via the Web UI.

I only receive very little information about the error in FME Desktop ,also with the debug logging.

The following excerpt from the log:

Successfully retrieved service properties.

Retrieving service parameters for ‘geodatabase_sde2none.fmw’...

No service parameters found.

Uploading as ‘geodatabase_sde2none.fmw’...

Publish failed - FME Flow encountered an error.

When I upload a workspace in FME Server via Web UI, I get the following messages in the network console of the Browser:

Get Call <FME-Server-URL>/repositories/{repository}/items/{item}

returns a 404 Not Found status code and 

{

"reason": "missing",

"what": "geodatabase_sde2none.fmw",

"message": "The repository item \"geodatabase_sde2none.fmw\" does not exist"

}

The Get Call: <FME-Server-URL>/fmeapiv4/repositories/{repository}/items/upload

returns a 400 Bad Request status code and

{

"message": "The request body type was unexpected. Was expecting multipart/form-data."

}

I have already tried uploading with the Admin account and a workspace from FME Hub, but i also got the error.

I have already restarted the FME server, which unfortunately did not solve the problem.

Currently we use FME Desktop Version: FME 2024.0.1.0
The FME Server has the version: FME Flow 2024.0.1


I am so confused that this is not working, which had worked before.

Did someone had similar problems in the past?

Kind regards,

Tim

 

definitely strange - The first 404 you’re seeing if just FME Server checking if the workspace already exists - that one’s normal. 

The second call you’ve listed is the call which actually uploads the file. 

In the developer tab you should be able to check the request body / payload.

For me I see the following:

 


If I click click the View source button in the From Data section it’s a bit of metadata and then the workspace: e.g.,

------WebKitFormBoundarye4ImtQjUjHYElc8V
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="files"; filename="Undefined_macro_Issue.fmw"
Content-Type: application/octet-stream

#! <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
#! <WORKSPACE # Command line to run this workspace:
#          "C:\Program Files\FME_23631\fme.exe"  Undefined_macro_Issue.fmw
# --FME_LAUNCH_VIEWER_APP "YES"
#
…...

The Response to this call is the metadata from the workspace. 

Have you tried uploading any other workspaces? Could be some really weird specific issue with the workspace


I have exactly the same results like you under the “View source” button in the Form Data of the payload.

Content-Disposition: form-data; name="files"; filename="excel.fmw" Content-Type: application/octet-stream

Yes i tried serveral Workspaces, just a simple excel reader for example and its still not working.

I just saw now that there is a line in the Payload form data:
#!A0_PREVIEW_IMAGE="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAByCAIAAADyJhCmAAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxA…

Maybe this causes the error?


I just saw now that there is a line in the Payload form data:
#!A0_PREVIEW_IMAGE="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAByCAIAAADyJhCmAAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxA…

Maybe this causes the error?

No it’s unlikely to be that - I see the same thing. 

Certainly I see now in your original post that you mentioned trying multiple workspaces. I guess the server is the most likely issue, however, to make sure have you tried publishing from another machine at all? 

Are you going through a proxy at all to FME Server, it could be somehow the proxy is messing up something if so?

My next step would be to look into the FME Server logs to see if there is anything going on there. 

Have you been able to upload to a resource folder? 

If you can’t publish and can’t upload at all to the server it may suggest a permissions issue or something like that on the server.

Have your tired to restart the whole machine running FME Server? or just the FME Server service itself?    


I’ve seen a similar issue before when an FME workspace had been deleted from the fileshare but was still showing via the user interface.

 

Is your fileshare on the same machine as server or elsewhere?


I just saw now that there is a line in the Payload form data:
#!A0_PREVIEW_IMAGE="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAByCAIAAADyJhCmAAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxA…

Maybe this causes the error?

No it’s unlikely to be that - I see the same thing. 

Certainly I see now in your original post that you mentioned trying multiple workspaces. I guess the server is the most likely issue, however, to make sure have you tried publishing from another machine at all? 

Are you going through a proxy at all to FME Server, it could be somehow the proxy is messing up something if so?

My next step would be to look into the FME Server logs to see if there is anything going on there. 

Have you been able to upload to a resource folder? 

If you can’t publish and can’t upload at all to the server it may suggest a permissions issue or something like that on the server.

Have your tired to restart the whole machine running FME Server? or just the FME Server service itself?    



I tried publishing from my local Desktop PC, which is not the same machine as the FME Server running on.
Unfortunaltey i didnt try to upload from another machine (from another collegue).

The proxy could be the problem maybe.

I checked the logs already in FME Server. I didnt found there something about the error in the upload process. Or am i just looking in the wrong log file directory?

I also thought about the permissions in the filesystem of FME Server maybe.​​​​​​



 


I just saw now that there is a line in the Payload form data:
#!A0_PREVIEW_IMAGE="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAByCAIAAADyJhCmAAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxA…

Maybe this causes the error?


Have your tired to restart the whole machine running FME Server? or just the FME Server service itself?    


I restarted the whole FME Server Services but not the machine itself.


Thanks everyone for the support.

We solved the problem. :)

The problem was caused due to wrong tomcat user Directory and Account Permissions
to the wrong tomcat folder(s).

These permissions has been reset in the past. (Maybe this happened with an update).

After we set these it worked fine again.

This link helps: https://docs.safe.com/fme/html/FME-Flow/ReferenceManual/Directory-Account-Permissions.htm

Kind regards,

Tim


We got this issue in FLOW 2025.1.

I could see in the catalina.2025-07-24.log (in the FlowSystemShare\resources\logs\tomcat)  that the temp dir was set to 

24-Jul-2025 09:42:20.265 INFO Imain] org.apache.catalina.startup.VersionLoggerListener.log Command line argument: -Djava.io.tmpdir=\\share\FME\FlowSystemShare\dev/resources/system/temp\tomcat

 

and later in the log file

sun.jersey.server.impl.application.WebApplicationImpl._initiate Initiating Jersey application, version 'Jersey: 1.19 02/11/2015 03:25 AM'
24-Jul-2025 09:43:09.715 WARNING RCatalina-utility-3] com.sun.jersey.multipart.impl.MultiPartReaderClientSide.createMimeConfig Cannot create temporary files. Multipart attachments will be limited to 4096 bytes.
    java.io.IOException: The system cannot find the path specified

 

All I had to do was create the ‘tomcat’ directory. What I don’t understand is a) why didn’t FME just create this? b) in 

"D:\Program Files\FMEFlow\Utilities\tomcat\webapps\fmeserver\WEB-INF\conf\propertiesFile.properties"

TEMPORARY_DIRECTORY = //share/Applications/FME/FlowSystemShare/dev/resources/system/temp/upload

 

This seems like an FME bug in the new version?


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