PDF-HUL: Validation ended prematurely due to an unhandled exception (ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException)

[silviaburri]

We've recently had multiple PDFs, where JHOVE 1.34.0 (PDF-hul 1.12.8) ends the validation prematurely and as a consequence no metadata is extracted. The error message is "Validation ended prematurely due to an unhandled exception" and the error ID is "JHOVE-CORE-5".

The output is as follows:
Dec 03, 2025 4:24:15 PM edu.harvard.hul.ois.jhove.JhoveBase process
SEVERE: Validation ended prematurely due to an unhandled exception.
java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 1
at edu.harvard.hul.ois.jhove.module.pdf.CrossRefStream.readNextObject(CrossRefStream.java:201)
at edu.harvard.hul.ois.jhove.module.PdfModule.readXRefStreams(PdfModule.java:1476)
at edu.harvard.hul.ois.jhove.module.PdfModule.readXRefInfo(PdfModule.java:1433)
at edu.harvard.hul.ois.jhove.module.PdfModule.parse(PdfModule.java:823)
at edu.harvard.hul.ois.jhove.JhoveBase.processFile(JhoveBase.java:831)
at edu.harvard.hul.ois.jhove.JhoveBase.process(JhoveBase.java:603)
at edu.harvard.hul.ois.jhove.JhoveBase.dispatch(JhoveBase.java:479)
at edu.harvard.hul.ois.jhove.viewer.JhoveWindow.openAndParse(JhoveWindow.java:506)
at edu.harvard.hul.ois.jhove.viewer.JhoveWindow.pickAndAnalyzeFileList1(JhoveWindow.java:341)
at edu.harvard.hul.ois.jhove.viewer.JhoveWindow$ParseThread.run(JhoveWindow.java:720)

Might be similar to issues 248 and 1057?

Attached you can find a sample file.

EZ-REK1-1-06442.pdf

[carlwilson]

The XRef array is empty, and the code is attempting to access a non-existent index. Why the array is empty is the more interesting question. I've added this to the 1.36 backlog and will take a look.