Python Crashes when Running ExportToPDF(), ExportToPNG(), ExportToJPEG()

[FrankMancini]

I am attempting to loop through a folder of ~400 .mxd's and save each to a .pdf in another folder.  All tested arcpy.mapping export functions (pdf, jpeg & png) kill python without a chance to debug or any indication why.  Running script in PythonWin gives error message "PyWin32 has stopped working."  When run from python prompt within ArcMap, program just closes. 

Script behaves inconsistently, sometimes makes 10 maps before crashing, other times only 1 or 2.  All mxds were created from the same arcpy.mapping script and all are valid (can open in ArcMap and export without issues).  There is an ArcGIS Online basemap layer in each map (Oceans), I tried unchecking this layer in the first few maps and it did not have an effect on the script, python still crashed.

Tested script on 2 different laptops with same result.  Both running ArcGIS Desktop 10.2.2, Python 2.7...

Windows 7 Pro 64-Bit SP1, Intel Core i5, 8GB Dual-Channel RAM, Intel HD Graphics 4000

Windows 7 Pro 64-Bit SP1, Intel Core i7, 16GB Dual-Channel RAM, Intel HD Graphics 4000, 2048MB NVIDIA Quatro K2000M

Saw a few similar posts here and on other message boards, but no working solutions.

I had no problem generating 400 maps using arcpy.mapping and cannot believe that I cannot save them out to a file.  Is this a bug?

import arcpy, os

ws = r"C:\temp"
map_folder = os.path.join(ws, "maps")
pdf_folder = os.path.join(ws, "pdfs")

arcpy.env.workspace = map_folder
arcpy.env.overwriteOutput = True

# generate list of map documents in folder to loop through
map_list = arcpy.ListFiles("*.mxd")

###   
def exportAISMap(mxd_path, out_path):
    mxd = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument(mxd_path)
    # arcpy.mapping.ExportToJPEG(mxd, out_path)
    # arcpy.mapping.ExportToPNG(mxd, out_path)
    arcpy.mapping.ExportToPDF(mxd, out_path)
    print "Exported map file: " + str(out_path) + "\n"
    # mxd.save()
    del mxd
###

print "Saving out " + str(len(map_list)) + " map documents\n"   

for map_file in map_list:
    print map_file

    mxd_path = os.path.join(map_folder, map_file)
   
    pdf_file = map_file.replace(".mxd", ".pdf")
    pdf_path = os.path.join(pdf_folder, pdf_file)   

    exportAISMap(mxd_path, pdf_path)
   

[SepheFox]

He said he made 8 maps with your code before it crashed.

[FrankMancini · Accepted solution]

Found a work around through another forum...

Python Crashes when Running ArcPy's ExportToPDF(), ExportToPNG(), ExportToJPEG() - Geographic Inform...

import multiprocessing

and replace the function call on line 34 "exportAISMap(mxd_path, pdf_path)" with ...

if __name__ == '__main__':
    multiprocessing.freeze_support()
    p = multiprocessing.Process(target = exportAISMap, args = (mxd_path, pdf_path))
    p.start()
    p.join()

This code would not run in Pythonwin, but worked from the command line.  Took about a minute to produce each map.

Python still crashed occasionally for no reason (Error: "python.exe has stopped working") but the script picked right back up where it left off.  With some kicking to get it started again it successfully produced all the maps in the folder.

[PaulLohr]

Should this be expected to function from within ArcToolbox?