Symptoms

When executing the PDF Converter SmartObject within a workflow the following error was caught in workspace:

Message: Failed to execute the SmartObject ServiceName: PDFConverterService: ServiceGuid: GUID] InnerExceptionMessage:Message: Authorization Failed

 

Diagnoses

That error message is misleading. The PDF Converter SMO calls the PDF File smartobject so these are both in play in this situation. A test of the PDf File SMO turned up this error:

Authorization Failed
Source: SourceCode.HostServerLib

Now that occurred even though it was being executed as the Service Account which was a Domain Admin account. The PDF File SMO is a smartbox smartobject and as such it is possible to assign rights to this smo on a method by method basis through K2 Workspace. If an account or group has been assigned rights to the SMO in this way then only that account/group will have the ability to use it. In this case, the service account had not been assigned rights while a group (of which the service account was not a member) had.


 

Resolution

By removing the group from the SMO permissions list we were able to open up rights to all users, alternatively we could have explicitly granted the Service Account the needed permissions.