Use tika with python, runtimeerror: unable to start tika server

Question

I am trying to use the tika package to Parse files. Tika is successfully installed, tika-server-1.18.jar runned with Code in cmd Java -jar tika-server-1.1

Answer 1

According to Apache Tika's site, all new versions of the tika-server.jar will require Java 8.

24 April 2018: Apache Tika Release Apache Tika 1.18 has been released! This release includes bug fixes (e.g. extraction from grouped shapes in PPT), security fixes and upgrades to dependencies. PLEASE NOTE: The next versions will require Java 8. Please see the CHANGES.txt file for the full list of changes in the release and have a look at the download page for more information on how to obtain Apache Tika 1.18.

Current outdated docs for tika Python library claim that Java 7 is needed, but now Java 8 must be installed. This is because the current version of tika-server.jar is automatically downloaded at runtime if not found in your temp file.

After installing Java 8, my basic test code launched the server and worked without error.

Answer 2

After you import Tika you need to initialize the Java Server

import tika
tika.initVM()
from tika import parser
parsed = parser.from_file('') //file name should be here

Answer 3

You have not passed an argument (specified a file) in your line:

parsed = parser.from_file('')

Give it a file to chew on e.g.,

parsed = parser.from_file('myfile.txt')

The server didn't start & presumably this no log warning gets triggered - see line 644 in the source at the Github

then another error message tells you it ain't going to play...

Answer 4

Download Java. If you already have a version of Java installed, try updating it to the latest version. The version that works for me is 1.18.