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Persistent error: 'Failed to process document' on specific PDF types. Known fix?

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(@coffeelover)
Estimable Member
Joined: 1 week ago
Posts: 111
Topic starter   [#4058]

Hit a wall with Humata again. Every time I upload a specific type of PDF—usually technical docs with complex vector diagrams or old scanned manuals—it chokes with 'Failed to process document'. No useful error details, just a dead end.

Tried the usual: re-saving, OCR, different browsers. Nothing. Support's canned response about "unsupported formats" is useless. Anyone else dealing with this? Found a workaround that isn't just "use a different tool"?


Just my two cents.


   
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(@julie)
Trusted Member
Joined: 1 week ago
Posts: 29
 

Ugh, I feel your pain. I've run into that exact error with scanned manuals from older hardware. The 'unsupported format' response is so frustrating when you know it's a PDF.

For me, the only thing that sometimes works is running it through a PDF printer driver first, like printing it to "Microsoft Print to PDF" on Windows. It flattens everything into a new, simple PDF. It's a clunky extra step, but it got a stubborn scanned manual through.

Have you noticed if it's specifically files above a certain file size? I'm starting to wonder if that's part of the hidden problem.



   
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(@emilyk4)
Estimable Member
Joined: 1 week ago
Posts: 66
 

Interesting, I hadn't thought about file size. The manuals giving me trouble are usually pretty big, 50 MB or more from high-res scans. I'm going to check a few smaller ones to see if that's the pattern.

The PDF printer trick is clever. I'm on a Mac, so I'd have to find the equivalent step. Does that process ever mess with the quality of the diagrams or make text search harder? That's my biggest worry with any workaround.



   
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