Segmentation Fault on AWS Lambda
When using AWS Lambda in a Linux container and calling the render method concurrently many times, it sometimes causes the following exception.
Exception:
Error: Runtime exited with error: signal: segmentation fault Runtime.ExitErrorSolutions
The solution is to call the GC.Collect method after the PDF document is rendered. This issue has been reported on Amazon Linux 2023 with recent IronPDF versions; earlier deployments using .NET 6 and Amazon Linux 2 are not affected.
// Create an instance of ChromePdfRenderer
ChromePdfRenderer renderer = new ChromePdfRenderer();
// Render the HTML string to a PDF document
PdfDocument document = renderer.RenderHtmlAsPdf(htmlString);
// Explicitly trigger garbage collection to help manage memory usage
GC.Collect();' Create an instance of ChromePdfRenderer
Dim renderer As New ChromePdfRenderer()
' Render the HTML string to a PDF document
Dim document As PdfDocument = renderer.RenderHtmlAsPdf(htmlString)
' Explicitly trigger garbage collection to help manage memory usage
GC.Collect()Multi-Process Rendering and wstring_convert::from_bytes Errors
If GC.Collect() does not resolve the issue, the root cause may be multi-process rendering or global ChromePdfRenderer reuse within the Lambda container. This produces either a segmentation fault or a C++ exception:
Process runtime-1 exited: signal: segmentation fault
Error while generating PDF from HTML: 'wstring_convert::from_bytes'These errors are intermittent and may only appear after the first or second Lambda container invocation.
Solution
Set Installation.SingleProcess = true, redirect paths to /tmp, and create a new ChromePdfRenderer per invocation:
IronPdf.Installation.SingleProcess = true;
IronPdf.Installation.TempFolderPath = "/tmp";
var renderer = new ChromePdfRenderer();
var pdf = await renderer.RenderHtmlAsPdfAsync(htmlString);Imports IronPdf
IronPdf.Installation.SingleProcess = True
IronPdf.Installation.TempFolderPath = "/tmp"
Dim renderer As New ChromePdfRenderer()
Dim pdf = Await renderer.RenderHtmlAsPdfAsync(htmlString)Do not call Installation.Initialize() and do not hold a ChromePdfRenderer as a static or field-level instance. A persistent renderer carries stale memory state into subsequent Lambda invocations and causes the crash.
// Avoid: global renderer reuse
private readonly ChromePdfRenderer _renderer = new();
// Avoid: calling Initialize()
Installation.Initialize();net
Curtis Chau holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science (Carleton University) and specializes in front-end development with expertise in Node.js, TypeScript, JavaScript, and React. Passionate about crafting intuitive and aesthetically pleasing user interfaces, Curtis enjoys working with modern frameworks and creating well-structured, visually appealing manuals.
