iTextSharp Document Isn't Working After Deployment - asp.net-core

Question

i'm using iTextSharp to create a pdf document then add it as an attachment to send an email using SendGrid.
The code is working locally but after deploying the project in Azure this function stopped working for some reason. I tried to analyze the problem and i think that the document didn't fully created of attached due to the connection. I can't pin point the exact issue to solve it. Any opinions or discussion is appreciated.
Action:
public async Task<IActionResult> GeneratePDF(int? id, string recipientEmail)
{
//if id valid
if (id == null)
{
return NotFound();
}
var story = await _db.Stories.Include(s => s.Child).Include(s => s.Sentences).ThenInclude(s => s.Image).FirstOrDefaultAsync(s => s.Id == id);
if (story == null)
{
return NotFound();
}
var webRootPath = _hostingEnvironment.WebRootPath;
var path = Path.Combine(webRootPath, "dump"); //folder name
try
{
using (System.IO.MemoryStream memoryStream = new System.IO.MemoryStream())
{
iTextSharp.text.Document document = new iTextSharp.text.Document(iTextSharp.text.PageSize.A4, 10, 10, 10, 10);
PdfWriter writer = PdfWriter.GetInstance(document, memoryStream);
document.Open();
string usedFont = Path.Combine(webRootPath + "\\fonts\\", "arial.TTF");
BaseFont bf = BaseFont.CreateFont(usedFont, BaseFont.IDENTITY_H, BaseFont.EMBEDDED);
iTextSharp.text.Font titleFont = new iTextSharp.text.Font(bf, 40);
iTextSharp.text.Font sentencesFont = new iTextSharp.text.Font(bf, 15);
iTextSharp.text.Font childNamewFont = new iTextSharp.text.Font(bf, 35);
PdfPTable T = new PdfPTable(1);
//Hide the table border
T.DefaultCell.BorderWidth = 0;
T.DefaultCell.HorizontalAlignment = 1;
T.DefaultCell.PaddingTop = 15;
T.DefaultCell.PaddingBottom = 15;
//Set RTL mode
T.RunDirection = PdfWriter.RUN_DIRECTION_RTL;
//Add our text
if (story.Title != null)
{
T.AddCell(new iTextSharp.text.Paragraph(story.Title, titleFont));
}
if (story.Child != null)
{
if (story.Child.FirstName != null && story.Child.LastName != null)
{
T.AddCell(new iTextSharp.text.Phrase(story.Child.FirstName + story.Child.LastName, childNamewFont));
}
}
if (story.Sentences != null)
{
.................
}
document.Add(T);
writer.CloseStream = false;
document.Close();
byte[] bytes = memoryStream.ToArray();
var fileName = path + "\\PDF" + DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyyMMdd-HHMMss") + ".pdf";
using (FileStream fs = new FileStream(fileName, FileMode.Create))
{
fs.Write(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);
}
memoryStream.Position = 0;
memoryStream.Close();
//Send generated pdf as attchment
// Create the file attachment for this email message.
var attachment = Convert.ToBase64String(bytes);
var client = new SendGridClient(Options.SendGridKey);
var msg = new SendGridMessage();
msg.From = new EmailAddress(SD.DefaultEmail, SD.DefaultEmail);
msg.Subject = story.Title;
msg.PlainTextContent = "................";
msg.HtmlContent = "..................";
msg.AddTo(new EmailAddress(recipientEmail));
msg.AddAttachment("Story.pdf", attachment);
try
{
await client.SendEmailAsync(msg);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
Console.WriteLine("{0} First exception caught.", ex);
}
//Remove form root
if (System.IO.File.Exists(fileName))
{
System.IO.File.Delete(fileName);
}
}
}
catch (FileNotFoundException e)
{
Console.WriteLine($"The file was not found: '{e}'");
}
catch (DirectoryNotFoundException e)
{
Console.WriteLine($"The directory was not found: '{e}'");
}
catch (IOException e)
{
Console.WriteLine($"The file could not be opened: '{e}'");
}
return RedirectToAction("Details", new { id = id });
}

Answer 1

try to edit usedfont variable as bellow :
var usedfont = Path.Combine(webRootPath ,#"\fonts\arial.TTF")

Answer 2

It turns out that the problem is far from iTextSharp. I did a remote debugging from this article.
Two parts of the code was causing the problem.
First, for some reason the folder "dump" was not created on Azure wwwroot folder while locally it is. so, i added these lines:
var webRootPath = _hostingEnvironment.WebRootPath;
var path = Path.Combine(webRootPath, "dump");
if (!Directory.Exists(path)) //Here
Directory.CreateDirectory(path);
Second, after debugging it shows that creating the file was failing every time. I replaced the following lines:
using (FileStream fs = new FileStream(fileName, FileMode.Create))
{
fs.Write(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);
}
memoryStream.Position = 0;
memoryStream.Close();
With:
using (FileStream fs = new FileStream(fileName, FileMode.Create))
using (var binaryWriter = new BinaryWriter(fs))
{
binaryWriter.Write(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);
binaryWriter.Close();
}
memoryStream.Close();
Hope this post helps someone.